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Best PC Poker Game, but still not great.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: December 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have been looking for really good poker software for the PC for quite some time. As of yet I have not found any, but this one comes close. The program is reasonably stable all though I have had some problems with online play. I have found that with most games every computer opponent plays with the exact same strategy, making them very predictable after a few hours of play, but the computer opponents in this software seem to be more intelligent than any other I have played against, and their play is different for different players making them less predictable.

The game has three play modes. You can play a quick game against the computer players, or you can play in "Carrier" mode, or you can play online against real players around the world. The biggest problem with any of the computer games is that you cannot save the game and return to it later. Once you start a game you are committed to it. If you quit early you cannot return. This makes it very difficult to find the time to play any of the big tournaments. The second biggest problem is the fact that there is no way of seeing the other persons at the table's chip stack. It shows how much they have if, and when, they win a hand, and maybe the chip stack in front of the player is accurate, but the view changes so fast it is difficult, if not impossible to see their stack long enough to determine if it is a realistic representation of the player's actual chip count. This makes determining how committed to the hand a given player is. Also: The game has no auto-save so if you take a beating all you have to do is reload your player's profile and get your money back. If you win then you do a save to make sure you keep your winnings.

The graphics in this game are the best I have seen in poker game software for the PC, but even then they are not great. The characters have squared off edges giving the players pinpoints on their heads and headgear. Other than that it is good.

One thing I really appreciate about this software is the fact that the players have meaningful dialogue with very little meaningless and annoying repetitive chatter. If the player is calling he says so, if raising he says so but does not say how much the raise is. At the end of a completed hand the announcer says whom won,(by seat position, not by name), what they had, and what the losers had, and I do not mean just saying two pair. He says "Two pair, aces over trays".

In carrier mode you will occasionally be offered the opportunity of going head-to-head against one of the sponsoring professionals. These players play a pretty good game that will challenge you, although I have always beaten them, so they are not that good. Certainly not at the level of the professionals they represent.

I have found very few people playing the online games. I do not know if this is because the game is new or if it is because the game has very little popularity. My hope is there will be many more players in the future.

All-in-all: I would recommend this game to anyone looking for fun and challenging poker software for the PC, and I hope to see you online soon. My online tag is Sacto Fred. (Sacto is for Sacramento, California).

No clue how good the game is since it needs a special graphics card to play it..

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: December 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was so psyched about this game since most reviews treat it favorably...

So I get into the intros.. of which there are like 5-7 which means every time you start the game up you have to wait 1-2 minutes through the 'special logo animations'. But that I wouldn't have minded if the game was good.. now imagine my disgust when after wasting that time sitting through all the animations an error popped up saying "An error occurred while initializing your 3D hardware."

I've got DirectX 9.0c. My hardware options are fully enabled, my software likewise. My graphics card is less than a year old... but this game still doesn't like my graphics handling situations.

My opinion after running into this error is to only buy this game if you've got a brand new graphics card less than a month or two in age. Which eliminates well over half the gaming community. :(

Not recommended

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Picked this title up for 1 cent thinking that maybe it might have something beneficial to my poker game. Boy was I wrong. Play is painfully slow. The chatter by the other players is totally annoying and painfully repetitive. No information about odds or card statistics is provided. There is absolutely nothing to recommend this title. I bet Howard Lederer doesn't play this junk. My guess is he took the money and ran...really fast and really far away and with his primary involvement being having his photo taken for the front of the box and cashing the check...

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