Virgin Poker

Virgin Poker Room is the poker room offered by the world-renowned and widely venerated Virgin stable of companies. It bears Virgin`s trademark slightly offbeat approach, combined with the professionalism and insight that has made the company a household name. The look and feel of this poker room is a bit of a departure from the hard sell, Vegas style, and creates an altogether a softer and less intimidating impression. That said, how good are they where it counts - the actual poker room experience?

The software is provided by Boss Media. It downloads quickly, installs easily, and has an attractive and user friendly interface. The game range is good and you`ll find bet limits to suit you no matter what your preference is - in fact the spread of stakes is exceptional. There are lots of freerolls and guaranteed tournaments and you can earn loyalty points which you can redeem for Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles.

Virgin Poker also offers a range of supporting information, tutorials and interactive features in addition to its poker room. They take advantage of modern technology to help you improve your game. There are articles to help you learn the game, which include video tutorials and a live poker school. Then there are more advanced master class articles. There is even a poker blog where players can interact. There are resident pros who have proven themselves in the real world, and who contribute articles, and can be found on the blog and on the actual tables as well.

This is a suberb poker room all-round, with a no-frills approach to actual game play that nonetheless provides all the important features in a poker room, without wasting effort of superfluous bells and whistles.

Bonuses and Promos:

• $50 Daily Freeroll

• Enter satellites to the European Poker Tour final in Monte Carlo

• Rake your way to free entry to the European Poker Tour

• Play satellites to win entry into the Asian Poker Classic

• Win 100,000 loyalty points each week

Loyalty Scheme:

• Virgin Poker rewards you with V-points for cash, tournament and sit-and-go play, and you can redeem them for anything from prizes, to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles, to poker cash in your account.

Rake:
The rake is in line with industry averages, which is around 5% of the pot. There is an upper limit of the rake, ensuring that the rake from any pot will never be above $3.

Traffic:
Poker traffic is a little low at times, averaging just shy of 2,000 players during the day, but thanks to the Boss Media network, this goes up to around 7,000 players at peak times, making it an average sized poker room.

Software And Features:
The Boss Media software is a newish software platform, and because of this it is able to combine some of the best features of all the others. It doesn`t offer a lot of the ultimately useless "nice to have" features of some of the other software, like avatars, focussing instead on the central features you need to have a good solid enjoyable and efficient poker game. You can take notes on the other players, and access them at any time while you`re playing for easy reference to help you in your game decisions. The lobby is clearly laid out with all the information you need to decide on a table to sit at. Actual game play is very smooth and I experienced no lag or delays even at the busiest times.

Supported Games And Limits:
Virgin Poker offers the usual popular poker games: Texas Hold`em, Omaha, 7 Card Stud and 5 Card Draw. The betting stake range is really nice and big - you can play games as small as 5c/10c US, all the way up to $500/$1,000, which is great for high rollers and complete beginners alike.

Deposit And Withdrawal Options:
Visa, Mastercard, Switch, NETeller, FirePay, WebDollar

Competition:
US players are not allowed at this poker room, so the style of play is distinctly European, which means a slightly more considered approach. With such low limits you`ll find plenty of soft competition, in that it`s almost like playing at a free money table for a more experienced player, so you can employ an aggressive style of play and not have to worry about scaring players off when you have good cards. At the higher limits of course the competition stiffens.

Player Services:
As with all their enterprises, service is paramount for Virgin at their poker room. Contact support 24 hours a day by toll-free phone or email.

Downsides:
Traffic can be a little low at non-peak times