Over the last ten years, Poker has seen a huge rise in popularity, specifically the Texas Hold Em version – this is where you get dealt two cards, and five cards dealt on to the table, with the opportunity to bet before the deal, after which the three table cards are dealt, a fourth, and then a fifth. At the end of that, the best hand wins everything bet... unless you can force your opponents to fold (give up) before the end of the betting.
Essentially it's last man standing.
Because of that interest, there's been a rise in computer versions of Texas Hold Em matching the real life rise. It's a bit of a poisoned chalice for developers – previously the poker game du jour was Video Poker, which was closer to a slot machine solo game. With Texas Hold Em they have to contend with a multiplayer game where bluffing and reading the psychological pressure on an opponent is the key to becoming a good poker player, and the actual maths of the card game comes a second (albeit a close second).
With any game that is built around an AI (Artificial Intelligence) engine, the huge variation in skill levels of the potential player needs to be taken into account, and a certain amount of error needs to creep into the game. You can't have a user sitting down and taking on five demon poker players who never make a mistake and can read every single bad betting call you make. Neither do you want an AI that falls for your every bluff, throws money away, and fails to make you think about your next move.
Glu Mobile have done well with the AI in this title. The five opponents you take on in each match do have a range of skills, and while it would be easy for me to write about character traits I can see when playing, I suspect that a bit of human psychology is coming into play and I'm spotting patterns where there are none, or at least very simple ones. What I do know is I recognise the strong tight players in the AI, the slightly looser ones with skill, the mad ones, the timid ones, and it makes for a good game.
They've also added something that I've not seen before in poker games, and that's the idea of 'tells' to your opponent. Simple things in real life games can give away the true nature of a hand, e.g. a player who always taps their nose with their cards when they have a weak hand. These are replicated not in tiny movements in the player avatars, but a big massive Question Mark or Exclamation Mark on top of the avatars for an “I'm weak” or “I'm strong” signal. It doesn't happen all the time, and it's not always right, but it makes for a nice twist in lifting the game to something a bit more realistic.
In all this, Glu have also made a concession to casual poker players with the 'strength' meter. At each point in the game, after new cards are dealt, a five bar indicator lights up to show how strong your two cards (and the cards on the table, if they have been dealt) are. The poker professionals have myriads of combinations memorised, but this is something that will help a lesser player (such as me) get the most from the game.
The UI is also relatively easy to get to grips with – if you have a d-pad available (e.g. on the N97) then you can control everything with direct input, otherwise the four directions are shown on screen with the relevant action titles (such as call, raise or fold) and you have a large target area to tap on to make your move. Clean and simple to use, no confusion, it's another plus point for the application.
My only complaint is that the graphics seem a little bit fuzzy, as if they have been scaled up from a smaller resolution to fit the larger S60 5th Edition screens. When so much of the poker engine in the application has nice touches and flourishes, to have this effort lose a bit of sparkle thanks to the presentation is unfortunate. It wouldn't take a huge amount of work to render some new graphics and I think this would show World Series Poker 3 in a much stronger light.
This version of Poker is certainly one of the better efforts I've come across on the Symbian platform, and while there is still scope for more innovation in the Poker playing market, there's little to fault the decisions made by Glu Mobile. One for both the newcomer to the poker scene and for those looking to improve their card playing and money management skills.
– Ewan Spence, May 2010.