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An Easy to Learn Poker Game and Pretty Darn Fun! I've never been a big card player, generally limiting my playing to occaisional games of solataire, spades and blackjack on my Hoyle card games and casino software. But like many others, I have been suckered into Texas Hold 'Em from watching the myriad of poker shows on television. I wanted to learn to play this game and I wasn't satisfied with Hoyle's version (I hate the characters)! I found this software and thoroughly enjoy it. It's bare bones; no cute characters, no fancy graphics (although they are more than fine), but it gives you great playing options. I'd never played Hold 'Em before until recently, so I welcomed the options to slow the game down, view the other players cards and to play all the community cards, even if the hand ended before getting to the river card. This gave me the confidence to get comfortable with the game itself. I've turned most of these options off for now to try to get a better feel for the game. I still leave the odds window open (this lets you know the odds of improving your hand to say, two pairs or three of a kind) as this helps me determine when it's time to get out of the hand. The games comes with many different game options including satellite tournaments and the World Series of Poker 2003 and 2004 (2003 has about 800 entrants, 2004 has about 2,500 entrants). For fun, I tried the 2004 WSOP after winning a couple of small tournaments. I made it through about 400 hands before finally losing and finishing in the top 1,000 - I'd say I played a good 3 hours so it can test fatigue as well. I didn't think it was that bad for a first effort. I don't think I'm ready to empty the bank account and head for Vegas yet, but I have had a lot of fun. And the pricetag for the product is pretty darn good as well.