As most Mac users already know, it has always been a bit tricky to find good sites to play using a Macintosh computer. It used to be that hardly any sites offered downloadable software for Macs, and the Mac user's best option was to play at one of the few poker rooms that provided "no-download" software. But this has all started to change as more and more sites have realized that Mac users are an important target audience.

If you want to play online poker on your Mac, the most available option is still no-download software. Several poker rooms offer good alternatives in this category, and most of them are run on a Java platform. Two of the best are Pacific Poker and Hollywood Poker. Other good rooms include 24h Poker and Poker Room. All these sites offer stable and reliable software that doesn't require a download.

With the growing popularity of Apple computers, some of the poker rooms have also created their own downloadable software for Mac. The first of the larger rooms to do this was Full Tilt Poker, which launched its Mac software in early 2006. Full Tilt was followed by Party Poker, which recently released a downloadable Mac version of its popular software. Other rooms that offer software for Mac are Bugsy's Club and Games Grid.

If you're determined to play at poker rooms that still don't have Mac-friendly software, you have some other options. You could use a PC emulator - two of the most popular are Virtual PC and iEmulator - which works pretty well, but might slow down your computer a bit. And, with its release of Leopard, the new version of OS X, Apple also released Boot Camp, software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP along with Mac OS.

As you can see, there are numerous options if you want to play online poker using your Mac. A good way to get started is by checking out the poker rooms in our top list.