In recent years, one of the largest sports crazes to hit the country has been Poker.  Yes, Poker.  Traditionally, Poker has been a game which was hidden in smoky back rooms and old kitchen tables of middle aged men.  With the advent of ESPN’s World Series of Poker Championship, however, Poker — and more specifically, Texas Hold’ Em Poker — has made its way into the mainstream, to become one of the most popular games played today.  Poker players, once thought of as scruffy looking gamblers, are now national celebrities, and everyone knows the River is not just somewhere you go to catch fish.  Now, Concrete Software brings Texas Hold’ em to your Pocket PC with Aces No Limit Texas Hold’ em.

Installation and Registration: There are two separate files available for Aces Texas Hold’ em.  Download the trial and you can play up to ten hands.  Register the game, however, for full access to unlimited hands of Poker fun.  Both versions install via ActiveSync.

Gameplay: Without this review turning into a full-blown poker tutorial, I will try to give you a quick overview of the game.  At the beginning, each player is dealt two cards, face down.  These are your pocket cards.  Once each player views his hole cards, a round of betting begins.  After all betting has concluded, three cards are dealt face up on the table: the flop.  The flop is followed by a second round of betting , and then a fourth card (the turn card) is dealt.  The turn card is followed by another round of betting, and finally a fifth card is dealt face up on the table (the river).  At this point, there are five cards on the table and two in your hand.  Your goal now is to make the best hand of five cards utilizing any of the cards in your hand or on the table.  Whichever player has the best hand (and has not folded) when betting concludes wins all of the money which has been bet that hand.  The possible hands you can make (in order) are:

• High Card (nothing in your hand matches, then your hand is worth the value of the highest card)
• Pair (two cards of the same rank)
• Two Pair (two sets of two cards of the same rank)
• Three of a Kind (three cards of the same rank)
• Straight (five cards in sequential order)
• Flush (five cards of the same suit)
• Full House (three of a kind and a pair in one hand)
• Four of a Kind (four cards of the same rank)
• Straight-flush (five cards in a row, all of the same suit)
• Royal Straight Flush (10-J-Q-K-A, all of the same suit)

Betting: As I mentioned, there are several rounds of betting in this Texas Hold’ em.  Each time a betting round begins, the player to the left of the dealer always places the first bet (the dealer rotates his position), and betting continues in a clockwise rotation.  The player to the dealer’s immediate left is always required to bet the big blind (a predetermined mandatory bet).  The next player is required to play the small blind (a predetermined mandatory bet which is half the size of the big blind). When it is your turn, you may take on of several actions:

• Check (If no bets have been cast, you can check or pass your opportunity to open the betting)
• Bet (Open betting if no bets have been placed.  You can bet any amount you want up to going All-In)
• Call (Match the bet which has been played)
• Raise (Increase the bet which has been played)
• All-In (Betting your entire stack of chips on one hand)
• Fold (Quit the hand)

There is a lot of strategy and theory surrounding when to take any of these actions (particularly when to fold).  I’m not going to delve into that right now, except to say that once you start to learn the strategies, Aces Texas Hold’ em provides an excellent training ground for improving your Poker skills.

Ending a Hand: A hand ends when either all of the players except one have folded (quit the game) or when all of the rounds of betting have been completed.  In that case, all players show their hands and the one with the best hand of five cards wins.

If a hand ends before all of the cards have been dealt (frequently players will fold after the flop), then you can push the Deal ‘Em button to see what the next card or cards would have been in that hand.  This is always interesting, because the turn card and river card are notorious for switching a winning hand into a loser.

Finally, you can fold or quit the hand at any time.  After you fold, the hand will continue to be played without you.  I found this to be somewhat frustrating.  Even with the "fast play after a fold" option selected, it simply took too long to finish the hand once you folded.  This game needs an option to skip the rest of the hand after a fold. 

Graphics: The graphics in this game are extremely well done.  I was impressed by the smooth animation of gameplay, the in game menus, and the betting (both for yourself and for the computer players).   It would be nice to see stacks of chips displayed in front of each player instead of simply a dollar amount, but this was not necessary to my enjoyment of the game. 

Settings: The settings menu in this game allows you to control everything from the size of your bankroll to the speed of play.  Using this menu, you have complete control over:

• The name, bankroll, and appearance of all players (including yourself)
• How betting will work (you can control the size of blinds or automatic bets which must be placed)
• Game speed
• Screen orientation
• Sounds
• How information is displayed on the screen
• Virtually every other aspect of the game

Other versions:  There are three versions of Texas Hold’ em available from Concrete Software.  This review was based on the No Limit version, which means there is no betting limit in the game.  There is also a Limit version which includes betting limits for each hand; and a Tournament game, which is a timed game…whichever player has the most money when time runs out, wins.  I was a little disappointed that all three versions of the game were not packaged together, like Concrete Software did with Aces Blackjack.

Conclusion: This is a good poker game with outstanding graphics.  I thought gameplay flowed relatively smoothly, however, it also moved slowly.  Even when I put it in the fastest mode, it took a long time to finish a hand after I folded.  The game really needs to include a skip to the end feature when you fold.  I found betting in this game to be extremely realistic, and found that the computer players did a good job of responding to the situation presented.  In this respect, the artificial intelligence in this game was among the best I have seen in any poker game…you can bet on it!

Vital Statistics:

Name: Aces No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em

Version: 1.3.13

Platform: WM 2003 SE

Also Available: WM5, Blackberry, Palm OS, Smartphone, Mobile Phone

Developer: Concrete Software

Available From:  Concrete Software        

                            JAMM store        

Price: $19.99

Technorati Tags: poker – texas hold ‘em – aces – concrete software – just – another – mobile – monday

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