Review: Virgin Games Poker

My last review was about BugsysClub way back in January, so I thought it was about time I did another one - especially since everytime I play on Virgin Games Poker I come out steaming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, Virgin Poker is still fairly new - but as far as online poker rooms go, it is one of the cheesiest.

My first experience of playing on Virgin Poker was in December 2004 when I played in a final tournament to qualify for a land based event. I managed to get heads up with "LASVAGAS16" and built up an almost 10:1 chip advantage when "cardboardkev", railbirding, gave some advice to my opponent which quite frankly put me on tilt and I ended up blowing the game in spectacular fashion lol.

Since then, the site has made some improvements to it's software. They have added a slide bar when choosing your bet in No Limit... wow. It's still pretty useless. Any site where your most challenging opponent is the software is one to be avoided. You could get to grips with the software but why would you? There isn't very much traffic on the site and in my opinion, the software and graphics would still get in the way of the card playing.

The last straw came when I played in the Virgin BPO Final today. I missed the first 15 minutes because the table does not automatically open up when the tournament starts!! Can you believe that?! You have to find the tournament page and then click on "Take your seat". Simple, but when you are multiplaying on other sites you can quite easily get involved in hands where you forget that you have to go and take your seat somewhere else.

I got a bad feeling about the tournament when I was sat inbetween the two players from my earlier story. Things didnt improve when I was dealt AKs, a couple of limpers, a late position raiser and before I had a chance to act the software crashed to a Virgin Upgrader Error!! What the hell?!

Maybe it was because I was playing on two other sites and watching poker on Media Player. But I've never had a similar problem with other sites. I close down media player and one of the sites. Anyway, the next hand I play is AJo, on the board xAxA, theres some action and when it's my turn to act the software crashes again! Same problem. Virgin Upgrader error! Dodgy.

Did it crash when I had the worst hand? Never. Sod's law I guess. No, bull actually!

My inital stack was reduced to half by all these setbacks and so started looking to double up quickly or quit. After a few limpers I go all in with AQo, no takers. So I limp in with QJs a few hands later. Four handed, it is checked to me on the flop. I bet the pot on the Q high flop. One of the blinds check raises me! I try to reraise all in but the dodgy slide bar leaves me with 16 chips. Turn is a T, I bet my remaining 16 chips, blind calls and turns over QT!

I laughed and left quietly 93rd out of 120.


I was sitting in the empty chair but my QJ got busted by QT. Tip: Don't bother sitting down.

DaMatrix Rating: U (for Uninstall)

Very poor user friendliness and game selection. Avoid.