AI is rigged in your favor on the easier towns, then is very clearly rigged against you on the harder towns. They'll fold at tiny bets easily whenever you have good hands, and bet super high when you're not strong/attempting to bluff.

Don't know why it couldn't just be fair across the entire game, it'd be much more fun that way. AI seems to know what you have most of the time.

This is a 10 year old game, so I'm not sure why I'm even reviewing it.

If you understand Texas Hold'em at all...this is probably not for you. The AI will go all in with off-suit pocket 4's with a flush draw on the table. You might have high pair on the board so you fold. Turns out, the other AI called the all in with 2 7 off suit but landed a pair on the river. Why the ♥♥♥♥ either of them are still in the pot is something I will take to my grave and ask my grandmother in the after life. I'll reach back out when I get her opinion.

A card game where cards aren't shuffled randomly. Enough said.

The AI cheats.

If you have anything semi-decent and raise, they will immediately fold unless they have something that will beat you. You can only raise when you are bluffing, in which case they will always match you and you will lose.

It is apparent the AI can see your cards and takes them into account when deciding their action.

I'll be honest, I really wanted to like this one. I'm a big fan of no limit hold 'em in general, and have been looking for a decent poker game that involves interesting AI players and, if not a story, at least some sense of general progression. This game looked like the perfect fit, slowly taking over Texas by hustling the various hat wearing inhabitants of villages for their money, buying their houses from them, and moving on to the next bigger targets. As a bonus (and something I really do want to see in Steam poker games), it has multi-table tournaments too.

The animations are quite cute, the play can be made to be very fast, and the hats are at least midly amusing. The ability to get money back from rent if you go basically broke is smart and reasonably paced, and you do slowly get to take over Texas.

Sadly, I can't recommend this game in its current form, as there are two core parts of the gameplay mechanics that are close to broken:

1) the AI is generally close enough to random that it's almost impossible to read what they're doing. Don't get me wrong, an AI that completely telegraphs its hand is no good either, but at least then you're making some effort to learn how to read plays. I have seen hands where an AI on this game will pre-flop raise with 4-8o, completely miss the flop, and then call _other_ player bets all the way to the river just to go bust. On another hand you'll see a player flop a full house and do nothing other than call bets, finishing by checking on the river on a pot that otherwise had decent action. There's literally no way you can really gauge what any player has, so it ends up being a "mmm, good enough to shove, cross fingers, in we go" game. This is not fun, if I wanted to play mostly on luck I'd just go play roulette in a casino.

2) Blind raises in tournaments. If I sit down to play a poker tournament, particularly a 6 table+ game, I'm quite happy spending an hour playing one game of poker. Finding myself on the final table with stacks of like 18k, 9k, 8k, 8k, 6k and 4k is fine - having the blinds at that point sitting on 2k for a big blind is pointless. Literally after the first third or so of the players are out, the rest of the tournament has all but maybe the chip leader heavily in the shove zone, simply playing to fold until a Q or better comes out and shoving with fingers crossed. There are so many ways to set up blinds to raise at a point where at least most people are playing poker, with only short stacks needing to shove, it feels like the devs got a really unique selling point with the tournaments and then completely misplayed it.

It's not completely terrible, but once you've completed it once, there's no reason to play it again - if you want to scratch the itch of playing poker against AI opponents, there are better free alternatives (Prominence has relatively readable AI, but at least you feel like you're actually playing poker, and there are some half decent real players on the site to compete against too). If you want to play against real people, this game doesn't offer it at all.

This game is not for people who are even semi-serious about poker. I'm a fan of both poker and city management games, so I thought this would be right up my alley. It probably would be a great game, except for one thing; bad AI. The other players don't play at all like real people. They will "check" the whole game while they have a straight flush. And it almost NEVER fails that one of these idiots will raise the bet by 50-80% before the flop. They are impossible to bluff, too. I have sat down and tried to play this game three separate times, with three different strategies. Every time it has ended in frustration and anger. That is not how a game is supposed to make you feel, not EVERY time.

I also feel that it is relevant to note that I have played a lot of different poker games (I'll estimate around 20) and this one has BY FAR the WORST AI.

Has a trojan virus currently tied into the game when you open to play it. Be wary!

Ok game. It get's pretty boring and repetitive. You make no money at all from owning towns which is dumb. Also there is clearly programmed for bad beats and luck. Never seen so much fluke, or people tripping pocker pairs, and I ran into a guy who got pocket aces 3 out of 4 hands. Also ran into a guy who got pocket Aces, then pocket queens, then pocket kings, all in a row. There is no direction or help in game, leading to you needing to look online. 6/10.

An okay poker simulator with a flimsy story and some town management. The problem is the extraneous stuff gets in the way of the poker without adding anything. There are better options if you want to play poker.

Tags: Boards & Cards - Poker
Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library

Made Obsolete by
http://store.steampowered.com/app/70210/