If you just got on the online-poker boat, Everest is the place to start honing your skills. Offering some of the Web's softest competition on a site that's so easy to navigate we even let our in-house three-year-old fiddle with it, it also provides its members with scads of in-depth introductory tutorials and articles in an astounding 16 languages.

But the main reason why Everest is, hands down, the best place for beginners is that it does everything possible to keep poker sharks at bay. Its highest table limits are kept at 5-10 euros in an effort to minimize its players losses. And its low limits are nearly hay-pennies, giving the room's swaddling newbs a chance to familiarize themselves with a game before ever betting whole currency.

What's more, Everest welcomes American players to test out its tables and casino games using its free-play option. No deposit is required, and all a Yankee has to do is sign up to receive 200 fake-money credits for every hour he's logged into the room. This completely legal feature is a big plus in our eyes because it's one of the few opportunities U.S. residents have to learn the ropes while playing in a real online poker room.

As for deposits, Everest's 5 euro initial minimum buy-in makes McDonalds extra-value menu seem steep. And, once you've laid down this piddling sum, you also score a 100 euro welcome bonus.

Free money can be earned by long-time members, too, with Everest handing you an extra 1 euro for every 100 you deposit. So supposing, for instance, that you dropped 100 euros into your Everest account right off the bat, you would actually get a 101 euros return - a profit is a profit!

Of course, the problem with Everest, as with so many sites, is that to unlock these bonuses you've really got to play your tush off. You only unlock 1 euro of your free money for every 14.25 "Summit Points" you earn, and you only earn one whole point for each 1 euro in raked hands you play. This means that if you only play the two-penny tables, it could literally take you thousands upon thousands of games to get your fingers on your free dough.

That being said, however, the room really has improved incredibly over the past few years, and its consistently high ratings reflect this. Our own opinion tends to fall in line with the rest of the industry's, and ironically enough, considering a weakness for any other room is a strength for Everest we're giving it a whopping 9 stars for doing exactly what it set ut to do: create the perfect place for inexperienced players to find their feet.