- Great way to sharpen your Texas Hold'em skills"No Limit Texas Hold'em Tournament Edition 2006" aka "DD Poker 2" is a fun way to improve your poker skills. Although the retail name starts with "No Limit", that's really due to the tremendous popularity of "no limit" these days - the game also supports limit and pot limit.
Free updates to the game have improved the AI of computer opponents. Playing against the computer in "Practice" mode is now quite challenging.
Of course the best way to practice poker is against other people, and DD Poker 2 provides multiple ways to do that too. Online games can be private games against friends, co-workers, and family (either via a LAN or over the Internet) or public Internet games that other DD Poker 2 owners host. All such games are for free - what's at stake is your pride (and your ranking on DD's Leaderboard when you play in public games). That said, you could in theory play private games for money and settle up separately (DD Poker obviously does nothing to facilitate this).
The level of play in public games varies from fast and furious games where play is wild and unsophisticated (very similar to some of the free online poker sites) to expert play in invitationals (great practice for late stage or final table play in money tournaments). If your primary goal is to improve your poker skills, then play well, be polite, and post on the forums and you'll soon be able to play in some very challenging high skill online games.
The game also features great analysis of your play hand by hand (it keeps extensive records of how you've played), a poker clock that you can use to remind you of the current blinds if you host a home game, and a poker calculator/simulator that lets you figure out what the odds are in almost any conceivable situation.
What's missing in this version? Well there aren't any cutesy animated graphics of your fellow poker players, but personally I don't mind that. The game focuses solidly on useful and fun ways to improve your poker skills while enjoying yourself.
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