Two Plus Two Older Archives - Poki to be commercially released!

Hi Jim Easton and 2+2;

I just purchased and downloaded the Poki-poker software last Friday and I've "only" had the chance to use it about 12 hours or so. It's a little over 20 Megs, so it took about 1.5 hours to download on my dial-up. I was so excited to be able get my hands on something like Poki for quite awhile. I believe having access to a poker sparring partner that is strong enough to be a challenge is the ultimate learning tool to becoming a better player. And it can be alot of fun to try things out on it. We already have such wonderful software opponents for chess, backgammon, gin, cribbage and bridge, etc.

I've been waiting for a Poker software opponent that approached the strategy sophistication and ability along the lines of the strength of JellyFish, Snowie or gnu-backgammon for backgammon. Does this commercial version of Poki meet those tough (impossible?) standards for Texas Holdem? Probably not. Maybe. I can't answer that in 12 hours of playing with it. But remember, something like Snowie can play at near world-class level for backgammon.

However, this commerical version of Poki can play one hell of a tough holdem game! Probably close to near-expert level. It will make some very sophisticated moves and it "learns" how you play from data modeling, so it gets better and better against you. You must create a profile name that uniquely identifies YOU to Poki, just like a handle on a online cardroom. But don't cheat Poki, and let your wife play on the same profile name.

First, a little background on me---just so you guys at 2+2 know that I'm qualified to properly review this commericial version of Poki. As you can see from my "post count", I don't post much here. But, I've lurked here from Day One and read almost everything in the Internet section, Books and Software and sometimes MidLimit.

I'm a full-time professional poker player since 1997. I play both online and B&M and am getting into tournaments a little more recently. I've taken several hours of private lessons from David Sklansky during the last few years to refine and sharpen my game.

I've also played internet online poker from the beginning at Casino Coco and then Planet Poker back in 1998. I played as AcesFull at those two places as well as Paradisepoker. I've also play at other sites under different names that I won't reveal to you Sharks here [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] Online, I mostly play 15/30, 20/40 and 30/60. At the B&M, I mostly play 30/60 and 40/80.

OK, back to Poki-poker....

I've played about 1,100 hands on it. There's a option for the action to move at maximum speed once you fold your hand. There's also a option to set AutoDeal which automatically clicks the Next Hand button, so you get continuous hand after hand. Just like a online cardroom with just a minor pause between hands. In fact, since the Poki software plays so well, I often feel like I'm playing a paradise 20/40 online game instead of a computer-based opponents.

Based on my limited 12 hours of play, I strongly believe that this Poki software plays tougher than about 80% of the Paradise 20/40 tables. That's using the MAIN TABLE that's preconfigured and comes with the software. You can design your own opponents and tables as well.

Now, it is important to note that in my testing of the Poki software, I only played at the Main Table (which is the toughest table, there's also a Gamblers Table= loose, some maniacs, etc.) which is a full ten-handed game. Also, I don't employ any "bot discriminatory" strategies. That is, I treat each of the bots as they were real humans playing online 20/40 game. I'm not sure if trying to "crack" the bots would work or not. But in this initial testing, I just wanted to check if it could play a strong enough game against me. And later when I have time, I'll challenge the headsup bots. I'm a good , but not great heads up player. So, maybe someone else that buys the software and is a great heads up player can review that aspect.

I have alot more to say about Poki including some of the flaws and the lack of a "setup scenario option". There's also a minor bug in the 1.0.0 version that has the dealer button always returning to the user profile position when you come back to the same table regardless of where the button was last when you left that table. I've already email the support department regarding this matter. They wrote back immediately and said that will be fixed in the update and that options to setup scenarios will be developed soon.

I'm sure this software is going to be a super hot topic once some poker players experience it. I'm going to post more about my progress against Poki in a few days.

But it's getting late now and I have to go to bed....