I’m not a huge fan of “pay to win” free games. Sometimes, you can grind away for days on end and get what you need, but more often than not you need to plop real money down. Now, I don’t mind paying for games or making in-app purchases to say “Hey, thanks” to the programming team. However, I want to decide if I do. Governor of Poker 3 gives me that choice.

If you want to get ahead quickly, they have chip packages you can buy with real money. They have coins for shirts, pins, and hats, which you can buy as well. You also earn coins and hats as part of your achievements. The easier levels give you more. The game throws you bonus chips with a random spin every four hours and extra ones based on your rank once a day. When it comes to these types of rewards, the game one of the more generous ones that I’ve seen.

Game play is more important to me than bling, so I don’t mind that I have to grind for the latter. The game has five levels with different saloons. Each level is a more expensive than the last. Rookie Desert, the first level, only has one saloon, which is for players who are less than Level 13. The games are all based around versions of Texas Hold ’em where you get two cards and the dealer provides the rest. The Sit & Go game will make you pay a virtual fee and then give that fee back as your prize if you come in second place. It’s the only one that will start you out with a limited stake. Big Win offers both coin and chip prizes depending on how well you do, but, unlike the rest of the games, the fee minus a slight percentage, is your stake. It also only gives you a percentage of your winnings whereas with the rest of games you walk away with what you’ve won or lost. The betting amounts vary per game, and will change at intervals during some games.

The best, and most challenging game, to play is Royal poker, found in High Rollers Valley, the second area. It has all the regular winning hands including Three-of-a-Kind, Straight, and Flush, but only uses 10, J, Q, K, and A cards. In other games, the Ace set up the beginning or end of a straight.

The nicest aspect of the game besides the good graphics and game play, is the social feature. You can make friends within the game and exchange coins once a day. There are some preset emojis and phrases and a free for all chat during game play. All these stay collapsed on the side of the screen until you use them. The emojis appear near the player while the comments are an unobtrusive speech bubble.

Yourhandsucks.com rated Governor of Poker 3 number 5 out of on its Top 16 Best Mobile Apps for Android, Iphone and Windows Phone. I actually play it on my Windows desktop. As an online-only game, I’ve noticed a lag maybe once, and have had few connection issues. The rare times they’ve happened, the game tried to reconnect me to the game I was playing. It failed once and lost the virtual currency I had invested. Still, it’s better than another game I play which leaves me hanging when I can’t connect. What’s also nice is that if you have a multiple monitor set up you can switch out the GOP3 application by clicking on a different application or your taskbar.

By the way, if you get tired of poker, there is always blackjack. Though it’s only you against the dealer so it isn’t as much fun as the poker games.