Hold 'Em In Your Hands

If you love to play Texas Hold Em style poker or even would like to start learning, then this is a great game for you. Not only does the game have many different options and different ways of play, but also teaches you certain rules, hints, and tips on how to win at playing poker. The World Series Of Poker: Tournament Of Champions is the best poker video game I have ever played. The fact that it is on my PSP is even better because I can play it anywhere, anytime.

Chris "Jesus" Ferguson is your coach throughout all of the different tournaments in this game. He teaches you everything from styles of play to how to play against certain types of players. Every time the game is loading, it even displays a different new tip for you to learn.

The graphics are great with this game. You can make a character that resembles you and play against many different poker champions that very much look like the real deal. They even sound like them too, so I am guessing that they actually recorded sound bytes of their voices. You have an overall view of everything at the table. You see every player, every bet, and even yourself.

There are different speeds of playing as well. You can choose to watch hands that you fold your cards to, or you can even watch how the hand turns out for the other players. There are five different casinos in the tournament mode and about five different tournaments in each casino. They range from different levels of money as well as different amount of people playing. To make it to the next level, you have to place in the money to advance to the next rounds.

This game is actually very realistic and very hard. These computer characters actually resemble the actual players so much that they even play like them. The only thing that will help you out is that you can put the difficulty level to intermediate or beginner if you aren't that confident. I actually thought I was a decent poker player until I started playing this game, then I realized just how much my poker game needs to improve. And my playing has actually definitely improved by practicing with this game.

If you don't feel like playing large tournaments, they even have a head-to-head style tournament where you just play against one other character. It is actually very fun and interesting to see how you do against very skilled poker pros. I was very happy when I beat Jennifer Tilly in a one on one tournament. It did take me a few tries..

The gameplay itself is very easy to control. You do not have to be a big video game person at all in order to play this game.

Another great feature which I would like to mention is the percentages and outs feature. By holding down the R or L buttons during gameplay, it will tell you how many outs your cards have. "Outs", for those of you who do not know, are cards that will help make your hand a better hand. The percentages feature also tells you what percent chance your hand has to winning the hand overall.

The only thing that I have learned about the game that I do not enjoy is the fact that the announcers say the same quotes and sayings over and over again. They must have used to much memory in other places so they couldn't have the announcers say all that much different things. The first five times you hear their jokes, they are alright, but after the one hundredth time you hear it, it kind of gets annoying.

So if you are a poker player, or if you even would like to start learning how to play Texas Hold Em poker, you would love this game. It comes with alot for you to learn, and if you already know it, gives you great practice against very tough competitors.

So go and purchase yourself this game. They also make it for PS2 and other systems as well. And by the way...

Good Luck! You're gonna need it.


HEY! Check out my other reviews... -GodZero-