Hoyle Texas Hold’em

Developer: Tik Games

Cost: 5 dollars

No Limit Texas Hold’em is a poker game ideal to TV  viewership, and as a result, has become a professional sport. The reason for this is two-fold. First because betting revolves around two cards with relatively few great card parings(basically higher level pocket pairs and face card combinations) its easier for the viewer to guess with some certainty what each player has. Second, because it’s no limit with a community card aspect, the all in confrontations give a sense of drama as the cards are reveled.

Hoyle Texas Hold’em is trying to bring some of that drama home with a well crafted poker simulator. The main draw of this would be the multiplayer aspect, the ability to engage in online poker without the ability to lose your shirt.  Unfortunately there is no one online, so that leaves the single player aspect. Fortunately, the poker AI is far from a pushover and should give most casual players a serious challenge.

The game  has two main modes of play, single game and tournaments. You can change the rules and AI level for the single game but not for the tournament. In both modes the lowest betting level don’t have buy ins. At higher levels, you buy in from your bankroll, made up of previous winnings. This is a nice touch, though since there’s no real money involved there’s no real reason to go for higher limits. The game stays the same regardless if you’re playing for hundreds or thousand or millions.

With no multiplayer community this game is really for players to refine their skills with no actual losses before going against real people. If you’re a good player already, you might as play against others for real stakes, but if you’re just looking to fool around or test a strategy, this may fit your bill.

The game is worth it’s five dollar price not because of the license, but because it’s good poker game. While playing with real cards against real people is the best experience, anyone looking to get their feet wet will go wrong with this.

P.S. I left out any discussion of the poker interface because it’s incredibly difficult to screw that up and this game didn’t.

Marketplace  Link