Purple Lounge

Hits

• $10 upfront first-deposit bonus
• Supports completely automated import of Hold'em tournament and ring-game data to Poker Tracker
• Tournament leader board
• Vital stats supplied during play

Misses

• Lobby can be hard to navigate
• Seven-Card Stud only available in high version
• Does not accept U.S. players

FULL REVIEW - Purple Lounge (6.06)

Due to U.S. legislation preventing credit card companies from collecting payments for wagers made by U.S. residents, Purple Lounge has determined to suspend all real-money gaming business in the United States.

Purple Lounge runs on the Microgaming network (previously known as the Prima network) and offer an attractive poker room designed with the sophisticated player in mind. Players may also gain membership to the high-end "Quintessentially" club, whose goal is to satisfy any last-minute requests for people seeking a slice of the high life.

Purple Lounge boasts high traffic, wide game variety and an extensive range of table limits, with software that provides very useful stats, as well as three different table sizes: large, normal and mini view. The large number of short-handed tables and turbo tables creates loose and juicy games, as well as quick playability - sometimes seeing more than 120 hands played per hour.

Although there are always details that can be improved, the software has proven to be very functional, fast and reliable, and is available in both a download and a no-download flash version. Purple Lounge run a massive amount of promotions, and sport a nice bad-beat jackpot that pays out when four-of-a-kind eights-or-better is beaten in a cash game.

The games offered at Purple Lounge are Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven-Card Stud, Five-Card Draw and Five-Card Stud. The games vary between No-Limit, Pot-Limit, and Fixed-Limit. Full-table games, short-handed, and heads-up tables are all available. Real-money player statistics as of November 2008 show 2,000 ring-game players at peak hours and 10,000 tournament players at peak hours.

Overall, PokerListings finds that Purple Lounge offers great action, good game diversity and software that plays very well. The software is updated frequently to ensure safety and stability, with very little downtime as a result.