Poker Academy V2 (Win/Mac)
by POKERSOFT, LLC
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List Price: Category: Video Games See more product details |
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Video Game Reviews of Poker Academy V2 (Win/Mac)
Customer Review: 10 STARS-BEST LEARNING TOOL ON THE MARKET
Summary: 5 Stars
"The artificial intelligence in this Poker simulator is light years above anything else available. Originally developed by computer scientists at the University of Alberta, some of the poker "bots" in this game are self teaching! They actually learn to play against your style by analyzing the entire history of hands you have played. If you know how to play fairly well, you'll win pretty steadily at first - but the opponents get tougher and smarter over time, forcing you to improve and to vary your game. Different artificial opponents have different styles - some are super skilled, others a little crazy - just like the real world!
The smooth play, variety of opponents, hand analysis tools, and - most important - the complete hand history lets you see exactly where you make your big mistakes and your big wins! Play 10,000 hands or so and you will find the holes in your play and improve your game many times over.
Some previous reviews state that there are only a limited number of different hands being played over and over. These poor souls are using an early demo version of the software. One can only assume they didn't register or enter a license key to unlock the full program. In the earlier demo version of the game, this was the intentional demo limitation - it dealt the same 100 hands over and over in the same order.
I'm a software developer myself, and this is a beautifully designed and implemented poker "system" - far beyond the typical cheap computer card game. The smooth play, clean graphics, wide variety of game structures and opponents, and the many educational features all contribute to a fun learning experience. And yes - those computer science professors do know how to generate randomly dealt hands!! Use the program for 15 months and over 15,000 hands as I have and see your poker skills grow and grow."
Thanks to the gentleman who posted the above because it saved me a lot of time and was very well done. This is a great company to do business with and their customer support is beyond words. If you are a beginner or someone who thinks you have mastered the game, you owe it to yourself to buy this software. I bought it about 4 years ago for $129.95 and discovered it was a steal at that price. I had never played before and wanted the best software available and this is it. The online Forum is awesome. Incredibly astute players who will help you with any question you have no matter how technical the question about Texas Holdem or they can offer tips on how to better use the software. Anyone who rates this software below 5 stars should have a second look before they write their review.
And, of course, the more you play the bots the more their game improves against you which obviously forces you to take your game up a notch. Lest we forget, the more you play the bots the better you become as you see their strengths and weaknesses. It works the same way when you play another player over and over again, you are suppose to learn to exploit their weaknesses. That's the whole point. And, no I do not work for the company in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I live in San Diego and wouldn't begin to know how to program my own TV not to mention this marvelous software. Enough said, buy it now.
Poker Academy V2 (Win/Mac)
Poker Academy V2 (Win/Mac)
Customer Review: This is only a demo disc! BE WARNED!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This product looks like a great deal on the surface, but you need to realize that it is only a demo. You can download the demo, for free, from Poker Academy online and save yourself the $20. The free download will allow you to upgrade to the full-featured Poker Academy immediately. The upgrade is $129 but well worth it, since it is much more adaptable than the Wilson Software Tournament Hold'em disc. For example, you can set this game to play only heads-up matches, if you want. Or you can play four-handed, to simulate bubble play in sit-n-go tourneys. And there's much, much more. I love it, but be sure to download the free demo rather than wasting your money on this product.Customer Review: **Not sure if this is still available** Read review
Summary: 3 Stars
I ordered this 10/20/2007 and didn't notice the 4-6 week estimated shipping time in the small text. When order, my order details show the estimated shipping time for the order as 3/2008!!! I have email support to see if this is accurate.
I think the company has discontinued this software as I do not see it on their website anymore, and they only offers the pro version which is $129. Confirmation would be appreciated, or suggestions on other reasonably priced similar software. Thanks.
Customer Review: Poker Programs you can order blind
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a good learning and practice tool. A good value for the price I paid ($19.99). I also purchased DD Poker 2.5 (aka No Limit Texas Hold'em Tournament Edition 2006)($5.87) at the same time. Each has its benefits. I like the way the table resizes when you resize the window in DD Poker. Poker Academy has a more professional polished appearance.
Both applications take their poker playing seriously and are rich with features. It may take me a while to figure out if I like one better than the other.
Customer Review: Great Game
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great poker game. The offline play is better than poker games I have played in the past because the computer acts more like real people. The real fun is the online play. You start off with 20-50 player "free-roll" tournaments where you win play money called PAX if you seal one of the top positions. These tournaments cost nothing to enter. Once you have some PAX money from winning a free-roll tournament, you can enter games (which cost you PAX to enter) against other people who have won in the past. The system is well thought out which makes it more enjoyable then other online sites whos primary objective is to get you using real money. It is not possible to use real money with this game so they put extra thought into making the play money more enjoyable.
The downsides are that the online servers can be filled to capacity which means you can't get in at all times. Another disadvantage is that you can't scale the window so that it fits your monitor nicely. You are stuck with only two window sizes; 800x600 and 1024x786.
If you and a friend want to log in online at the same time you need to have two separate license keys because the servers won't let two users using the same licenses game at the same time. But for $20 its not a big deal to order a second copy.
Overall my wife and I love this game. The online tournaments are a lot of fun and you do learn a few good tips about no-limit holdem as well as interacting with live people and learning all of the different poker styles people use (passive, aggressive, super aggressive, etc). I haven't noticed anything but normal distribution of cards that you would see in real life - just throwing that out there since some people complained the AI kept getting good hands. Sometimes the computer gets good hands and sometimes you hit a streak, just like live poker. Over all a great game!