Yesterday one of my buddies sent me a link to the PurePlay Poker website. It seemed like a decent one to try out since you can play for free and don’t need to sign up with a credit card for verification or anything. Just a few little questions to answer and that’s it. I signed up to check it out and played for an hour or so.

I joined in a free to enter 500 person tournament that had a cash prize of $20 for first place, and various amounts of Poker Points for the top 250. The only problem with this tournament is that I started so late and didn’t know it would take so long. At one point I was in 2nd place (based on my current ‘money’ total), but it was getting late so I was bidding high just to try and end it. For a while I just kept winning every hand but eventually my luck ran out and I ended it in 127th place. Not bad considering there were 500 competing.

PurePlay has a few styles of poker to choose from, Hold ‘em and Texas Hold’em, Omaha, 5 card stud and 7 card stud. I’m sort of baffled by the lack of good old regular poker, 5 card draw I think it’s called. I couldn’t even find it in the regular ‘table’ rooms. I guess it just isn’t as popular in an online environment since you’re not playing people face to face.

You can always play free, no purchase is necessary and you don’t need to make any deposits. Any day that you’re play money falls below $1000 you can request to have it topped up again (to $1000) at midnight. Poker Points (used to enter tournaments) are also topped up to 100 automatically at midnight if you falls below 100. Signing up for a membership gains you more play money per day and access to all the VIP (Players Club) tables for $19.99 a month. With a free account you still have access to the $500 weekly games whereas a membership will get you access to $10,000 games.