Natural8 Review

Natural8 Poker is the Asian flagship of the GGPoker Network, recognized as the world's largest poker network. Although the site was established in 2016, it is already recognized as a trusted site and has managed to create a safe environment for casual players, respecting pros as well.

For tournament fans, Natural 8 is definitely the place to be. Millions of dollars are awarded at the tables every day, and festivals with unique promotions and even more money added are held several times per year. Spin&Go players will also find a massive player pool to grind with favorable conditions, and cash games (including fast-fold format) run around the clock.

In this thorough review, we have compiled all the information you need to know before registering:

• Is Natural8 a legit site to play poker?
• Are regulars welcome to the N8 poker tables?
• How much should you expect from Fish Buffet and other promotions?

Bonuses and promotions

Natural 8 Poker has designed its bonuses mainly to please casual players over regs. In numbers, we could talk about 70% pro-amateurs and 30% pro-regs. Besides the traditional package: welcome bonus, leaderboards, freeroll, races, and multi-tiered VIP program, the site offers unique promotions that you wouldn't find at any other site, including special Flipout tournaments to which only players victims of bad beats are welcome.

After your first deposit at Natural8, you can choose between a regular deposit bonus or a free bonus:

• $200 matched bonus up to $1,000: recommended for deposits of at least $100 and mid to high-stakes players. The bonus is paid in $1 increments for every $5 of net rake. All deposits over the next 60 days up to $500 count for the promotion. Wagering time is 90 days.
• Up to $100 in rewards and cash: ideal for low stakes players and deposits of less than $100. The minimum deposit is $20. You'll get $65 in Spin&Gold tickets for six days, and $35 in additional rewards for playing All-in or Fold. You'll have 30 days to use all the tickets.

Attention! Rush & Cash (fast-fold poker) games don't count towards clearing the bonus.

How to get the Natural8 welcome bonus?

1. Download Natural8 app;
2. Register an account;
3. Deposit at least $10 for the matched bonus or $20 for the free bonus and choose your preferred promotion;
4. If you select $100 in rewards, $65 in tickets will be credited instantly;
5. If you select a $1,000 matched bonus, your bonus balance will be automatically updated.

$500 First Depositors Freeroll

Every Sunday, new depositors play for a share of $500 in the Weekly Depositors Freeroll. There is no minimum transaction to take part in this promotion.

$8 Deposit Bonus

For depositing at least $10 and verify their accounts, players receive an $8 free bonus. To claim the reward, grinders must contact the poker room customer service.

Honeymoon Missions

Thirty missions with many rewards welcome new customers to Natural8. To take part in these promotions, you must opt-in in the client, and then a daily task will be assigned with different prizes.

Missions go from playing a determined number of hands at any format, to win a hand or a tournament.

Natural8 exclusive promotions

Natural 8 has exclusive promotions available only to their customers; those events are only visible in the N8 client and include satellites, rake races, and much more.

Live event satellites

N8 improves its position in Asia by hosting satellites to live events where players usually wear branded clothing. In early 2020 the site has satellites to the APT Taiwan 2020 Main Event with a buy-in of only $180 and one seat $1,000 guaranteed. A great benefit of Natural8 grinders is that they can exchange entries for cash if they cannot attend the event.

Natural8 Elemental Daily Series

Thirty micro-stakes tournaments with buy-ins from $0,5 to $4 with different structures, including turbo, hyper-turbo, and bounty.

During the weekend, the Sunday Elemental is played and it features bigger guaranteed prizes. The events are divided into different names and colors, and the guaranteed range from $20 to $360.

• Earth;
• Wood;
• Water;
• Metal;
• Fire

Natural8 Celestial freerolls

Every 2 hours, a new Celestial freeroll starts with players that are building a bankroll; the TOP6 get a ticket to the Elemental Daily Series.

Natural8 $8,888 Elite Chase

Nine lucky players compete every month for a piece of $8,888 in a private chase that rewards grinders according to how many Elite Points they gather in real money games (cash games, MTT, and AoF). The first place takes home $2,388.

N8 doesn’t disclose how Elite Points are assigned to players, but this promotion certainly gives more rakeback to players; the current leaderboard standings can be checked at the official website of the poker room.

Natural8 rakeback

We will say it clearly: if you are a massive grinder winning lots of money at the tables, don't expect to have as much return from Natural8 because their PVI (more details later) will compensate the ecosystem with your rake.

Fish Buffet

We will focus on the most famous Natural8 promotion: Fish Buffet Cashback Program. Its name hints at the traffic profile on the site. Although the poker room advertises up to 60%, there are several "catches" here. Let's dig into it.

There are 8 levels divided into more than 20 ranks, each with a different average cashback, time limit, and Fish Points (FP) to earn. The cashback program was significantly improved in 2021 to introduce Platinum ranks with flat cashback.

The main catch lies in the PVI rake distribution method (more details on this in the following section). You get 100 Fish Points for every $1 PVI rake paid. Hence, your behavior at the tables and many other unknown factors affect the number of points accrued. To make it clear, if you pay $100 in gross rake, but your PVI is 0.5, you will get only 5,000 points instead of 10,000.

Please contact our team to get more information about the Natural8 VIP program:

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Natural8 rake

All cash games are charges with a 5% rake and different caps (from 0.5bb to 2bb) according to the number of players and the stake. All 3-bets pots preflop are raked.

• Spin & Gold rake: 7%
• MTTs: +/- 10% + 0.5% of prize as Admin Fee in some tournament series.
• Fast-fold poker: No rake nor Cash Drops if the table is not full

We could say Natural8 Poker is lucky for us to update this review in 2021. In past years they had a pretty predatory rake structure. Still, it has changed, and now it can be considered semi-standard compared to other top poker sites. However, they can improve by removing rake in 3-bet pots preflop. The Admin Fee in MTT series is also very unusual.

PVI rake

We have exposed the Natural8 PVI rake structure in an independent article, but we will mention some highlights in this review:

1. Player Value Index (PVI) is an unknown factor that determines how the rake paid in the tables is distributed. It ranges from 0.1 to 2.
2. You guessed it correctly, winning regs get the lowest PVI possible while casual players are "rewarded" with bigger factors.
3. The PVI formula is unknown; however, we know for a fact that several things affect the final result: Tournament overlays, Winnings, Deposits/withdrawals, Skill level.
4. PVI itself (the number) is also unknown

Overall, PVI is the primary tool N8 uses to preserve the poker ecology. Although we stand for a transparent rake structure, such "indirect" distribution methods have become popular. Nowadays, grinders have no other option to accept it.

Games and traffic

• Average online 30000
• Best time to play 24/7

If there is one thing to highlight about GGNetwork and its skins is their fantastic traffic. Currently, it's fighting head to head for the first place with PokerStars. Curiously, another Asian-focused site, IDNPoker, completes the TOP3.

On average, Natural8 Poker boasts over 100,000 connections with over 6,000 players seated at the cash tables. Besides that, the offer includes Spin&Gold and one of the most impressive MTTs grids on the market, guaranteeing millions of dollars weekly.

Cash games: Holde'm, Omaha, Fast-fold poker

Cash games fans won't get bored at N8 Poker. Besides the traditional Hold 'em and Omaha, you will find the unique format All-in or Fold, Short Deck, fast-fold poker (in Texas Hold 'em and Omaha), and the trending Pot-Limit Omaha version with 5 cards.

There are uncountable tables around the clock, and you won't have any trouble finding a spot for yourself. We highlight the traffic remains incredibly soft at most stakes.

Hold 'em and Omaha

Natural8 features action from NL/PLO2 to NL/PLO100,000 (if you are ready to play against Wiktor Malinowski, of course). All games are played in USD at 6-max tables (there is no full-ring here). VIP Games (blinds from $50) have a special tab in the lobby. Everything is normal here, except for the jump from NL200 to $500 and $1,000, without the traditional NL400/600.

Rush&Cash

Rush & Cash is the local version of PokerStars Zoom. This is a classic situation where the student has become the master. Natural8 is now a leader in this format and boasts traffic up to $200 in Hold 'em and PLO. Over 100 tables can be spotted across all stakes throughout the day.

Short Deck (6+ Hold 'em)

A popular format in Macau and other Asian game venues, 6+ Hold 'em is not very popular at Natural8, but it's still one of the few sites with regular traffic around the clock. There are games from $0.02 to $10 with about 25 tables on average.

All-in or Fold

Although All-in or Fold (AoF) might look like a purely casual game at a glance, the truth is that many regs (like the WPT and EPT champion Matthias Eibinger) visit the most expensive games at tables with only two buttons, as its name indicates. Almost 100 can be seen during the peak time, and besides such pros, dozens of amateurs play here to challenge their luck.

Natural8 Tournaments (MTT)

Natural8 has used a classic strategy to climb the ladder in the poker world: to host massive tournament series with millions of dollars guaranteed. This has allowed the site to gain worldwide popularity and close meaningful partnerships with global brands like WSOP, WPT, or APT.

The regular grid includes tournaments for all tastes: Omaholic, PKO (bounties), freezeout, daily guarantees, Asian-focused events, plus two signature semi-festivals held every week: GGMasters and MILLION$.

WSOP

In 2020 GGNetwork partnered with WSOP to host several online series, including the first-ever WSOP Online Series of Poker, awarding bracelets to players in the N8 platform. Since then, a sort of tradition has been set, and it seems every summer and fall, more rings and bracelets will be given in events across the Internet.

The 2020 WSOP Online Main Event was added to the Guinness World Records for having the largest prize pool for an online poker tournament.

Spin & Gold

Spin&Gold is the local version of the world-famous fast-paced SnG with random prizes. After the launch in 2020, the format has gone through several changes, and now it looks like this:

• 9 stakes from $0.25 to $200
• Maximum prize of $4M (special 6-max $100 Spin&Gold)
• Three 6-max games from $1 to $100
• Insurance to avoid X2 games
• Up to 80% cashback from Gold Challenge

Game softness

Natural8 is the main responsible for attracting Asian traffic into the GGNetwork tables. However, as the site shares traffic with all other skins, this is just a fun fact.

The network works hard towards preserving the poker ecology by hosting lottery-type promotions and banning all third-party software, so overall we can call the traffic incredibly soft, with two main exceptions: high stakes games and MTT series, in which it is normal to see the best players in the world.

Attitude towards professional players

• Trackers and HUD – no.
• Auto-seating scripts – no.
• Data-mining – no.
• Bumhunt – no. 
• Preflop charts – no.

Although we can hardly call the Natural8 attitude towards regs loyal, it's at least very clear. In late 2020 the network unveiled its policy and divided pros into good, regular, and bad.

Overall, if you follow the rules, you shouldn't have any problem:

• All third-party software is banned.
• All GTO tools, including preflop charts, are prohibited.
• Bumhunting and other predatory practices will lead to a ban.

Natural8 software

Natural8 offers excellent features for players to enjoy. The software is easy to use, and there are a vast variety of cash games and tournaments being offered every hour. The home lobby shows the current promotions with bright icons and appealing graphics, emphasizing exclusive Natural8 events.

The right part of the lobby shows the current balance (in cash, tournament dollars, and tickets). The client has some unique features:

• SmartHUD and PokerCraft.
• Smart Betting.
• Card Squeeze.
• SnapCam.
• Tournament Staking.

The only con we found in the software is the high demand for PC resources; in laptops opening the client could take up to two minutes. As we pointed above, all third-party software, including trackers, HUDs, seating scripts, etc., is forbidden.

N8 mobile app

The Natural8 mobile app is very mature. It provides access to all games and all the platform's unique features, including emojis, MTTs, fast-fold poker, staking, etc. It's compatible with Apple and Android devices, although you will need to reach the customer service to get a download link, and iOS users must install an extra profile on their gadgets.

Reliability and trustworthiness

• Year of foundation – 2016.
• License – Curacao.
• RNG certificate – bmm testlabs.
• KYC – necessary.

N8 operates under a Curacao license which honestly says not much about their reputation, but they have held millionaire tournament series in the past years, and we have not spotted any single non-payment report. Their RNG has been tested by bmm testlabs, and although their terms and conditions prohibit many behaviors, they are clear, and our players regularly withdraw from the room.

Natural8 can be trusted. We have reached this conclusion after following their path closely from their very beginning. They belong to GGNetwork, currently the world's largest poker network.

N8 Ambassadors

Natural 8 divides its team pro into three subcategories that confirms their focus on the Asian market:

Team Hot:

• Kitty Kuo (Taiwan)
• Danny Tang (Hong Kong)
• Michael Soyza (Malaysia)
• Bryan Paris (Netherlands)
• Pete Chen (Taiwan)
• Tsugunari Toma (Japan)
• Phachara Wongwichit (Thailand)
• Thai Ha (Vietnam)

Friends of Natural8 is another sponsored team of the site, lead by the Brazilian player Laura Cintra and including Rebecca Rebuitti (Brazil), Daniel Almeida (Brazil), Hristo Anastassov (Bulgaria), and Dong Kim (Canada).

The site also collaborates with the European e-sports organization Team NLG, which includes top poker grinders. After WSOP Online 2020, Team Bling was created with event winners under the N8 brand and currently sponsors Daniel Dvoress.

Deposits and withdrawals

Western players can deposit and withdraw via many payment methods like Skrill, Neteller, ecoPayz, MuchBetter. In Asia, Natural8 accepts WeChat Pay, AliPay.

However, one of the crucial features for the success of Natural8 was entering into complex markets in Asia and Europe; you must contact the customer service via live chat; if any of the referred payment options don't suit you, they will give you a local option to deposit and withdraw.

Cryptocurrencies are also accepted in the Natural8 cashier.

Please note that you must fulfill a playthrough requirement before withdrawing P2P transfers (15%)

Account verification (KYC)

Before requesting a withdrawal, Natural Eight will ask you to verify your account by sending documents:

• Photography ID
• Proof of Address

Nothing out of line here. Any trusted poker site asks for such documents. Verification can take up to 24 hours, and we recommend completing this step right after creating the gaming account.

Pros and cons to play at Natural 8 Poker

We highlight the following features of the site:

• Soft traffic at low and medium stakes.
• Trusted site partnered with global brands like WSOP.
• Millionaire promotions.
• Massive MTT series.
• Modern software with unique features.
• Available in many "gray" countries.

Cons:

• Non-transparent rake distribution structure.
• No HUD support.
• 3-bet pots preflop are raked.
• Powerful PC needed.

Overall Natural8 suits 90% of players: casuals, regs, cash games, and tournament fans at all stakes. To whom do we not recommend it? Rake machines and grinders who definitely need a HUD to play.

Advantages of our affiliate service

Worldpokerdeals has over eight years of experience working with online poker rooms from every corner of the globe. When you play with us, you can rest assured that we test the sites we offer and we guarantee the best conditions for our players.

For more information on the Natural8 Poker rakeback deal, write right now. We are online seven days a week!

Got a question?

Let's chat:

Got a question? Let's chat:

Anton

online

Head of Support

Live chat

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