Linux Poker

Online poker with Linux is a bit of a troublesome topic. Some sites claim to support Mac/Linux by offering Java-Clients. If you are a casual player, you may be fine with the Java-Clients. For regulars, the Java-Clients have two major problems: They do not support hand histories, and they do not offer re-sizable tables.

There are 2 alternatives to the Java-Clients: Playing poker in VMWare, or using wine to run the Windows-Clients. VMWare is definitely the easier choice when it comes to setup. But personally, I'm not quite happy with booting a Virtual Machine every time I play, so wine is my preferred solution.

Fortunately, the popular combinations of PokerStars/PAHud/PokerTracker and FullTilt/PAHud/PokerTracker work very well with wine.

Poker Clients

PokerStars

This is my #1 recommendation for wine-based Linux Poker. The PokerStars Client basically works perfectly "out of the box" with wine. There are a few minor annoyances (re-sizable tables,..), but most of them can be easily fixed. WineHQ has more information on setup & installation.

FullTilt Poker

My #2 choice for Linux. The setup is considerably more complicated than PokerStars, but the client works perfectly once it's set up. A tutorial covering the setup procedure can be found here. Unfortunately this tutorial is a bit outdated & incomplete.

Other Clients

Several other sites offer Wine compatible clients or Flash/Java clients to play within your browser. You can find a review of some Linux compatible poker sites on Pokersites.com.

Tools

PokerTracker

PokerTracker is a great tool for analyzing your game, but also a pain to setup in Linux. Once you made it past the installation, its working reasonably well. I hope i can save you some time with the PokerTracker Linux Tutorial.

PokerAce HUD

This is an add-on tool for PokerTracker to display statistics right at your table. If you successfully made it through the PokerTracker setup procedure, setting up PAHud will be a piece of cake.  Check the PAHud Linux Tutorial for details.