This is an excellent holdem game - it is really the only one that simulates what real tournaments are like - from the blinds, to the chip races, to allowing you to customize tournaments to your liking. Unlike hoyle or pokerstars, it has a strong AI. Other people have commented on how hard it is to hit a straight or flush, but that is real poker. The odds are that 9 other players you play against will get better cards more often than just you. Plus, version 2 is coming out soon and that promises to have online play and more! A truly great game.

This game is marginally better than that Hoyle Casino joke, but it has no resemblance to a real game. The AI is OK, but there are WAY too many great hands, that seem to ALWAYS beat you on the river card. I've played hundreds of hands, and when I cheat to see what all the community cards are I end up missing my straight, only if I fold first. I NEVER hit it when I'm digging for it!!! EVER!!! Can't tell you how many times I've been sunk by a boat when I do hit my flush. Hole cards are awful for my hand, but every one around me is getting AA, KK, OO, JJ, AK. I think this game is poor, and only gave it 2 stars because Hoyle's was my only comparison, and it's palin awful!

Overall, it isnt a bad game. The AI opponents do often call allins with nothing.Also odd is how occasionally a whole table will call ur allin's during a tourney!
The odds regarding starting hands-ie Ak beats A6 normally, is fairly good. If you want to learn holdem (only NL in this game) this really helps but it wont help good players much.
It's surely worth 20 bucks simply b/c of the fun factor.

I bought this and played in several of the 40-player tournaments, winning one of them and finishing second in another. The program does a good job of making the experience fun and easy, and there are some nice features that you can turn on or off as you see fit, including what they call the "cheat mode," which lets you look at the cards of uncalled hands and see community cards not dealt when nobody calls. When there is a showdown after somebody has gone all-in the probability of winning the pot for each hand is given as it is on TV. You can speed up play or slow it down, and you have the option of jumping to the end of the hand after you fold--an option that one soon chooses and stays with!

There are three levels of difficulty, although I didn't play long enough to get a real feel for the differences. I did notice a rather annoying and ultimately totally off-putting bug (or perhaps, in the spirit of some programming traditions, maybe this is a "feature" that helps the neophyte player win). Quite simply some of the computer players called with hands that could not beat the board!

Now it is true that there are times when it is correct to call with a hand that cannot beat the board. These are very rare however and typically occur when there is a straight on board. Everybody has that straight (at least), and if it is the best hand, the players left at the showdown split the pot. Clearly if the board is AKQJT, with no more than two cards of any suit, it is the nut hand and no matter what the bet is you have to call and split the pot. However, in this program some computer players were calling with hands that made no pairs, no flushes, no straights and were undercards to the board. For example, one board was something like A89TQ of three different suits. One of the computer players called with something like 64. As any hold'em player knows that call makes no sense. It is just throwing money away.

This discovery really turned me off the program because even at the most elementary level of play, real players do not make such suicidal calls.

The package also claims that "Computer opponents learn and adapt to your style of play." What this statement should mean is that the program does things like fold a lot when it notices that you don't bluff much or call a lot or raise if it records a lot of bluffs from you. This "learn mode" is what makes poker-playing 'bots very difficult to beat, and would be an essential part of any program that presumed to be able to beat sophisticated human players. My problem with their learn mode is that I didn't see any evidence of it!

I would like to note in passing that some years ago Mike Caro, the self-styled "Mad Genius of Poker," developed a poker engine that was able to beat some very good human players. However, I am not aware of a program that can play at the highest levels of the game, a program that could beat a table of world champions, for example, a program comparable to chess-playing programs that can beat grand masters. Maybe such a program exists and I am not aware of it. My guess is that such a program is possible, but very difficult to write.

Anyway, I would not recommend this program and I am sorry that I bought it.

I'm really enjoying this game. I do wish it could be networked with other players...but for $20 it is a great buy.