Whoa, poker players, something we've all been waiting for, a poker program that not only teaches us how to play No Limit Texas Hold'em, it teaches us what to play, when, where, why and then some! World Class Poker with T.J. Cloutier comes on 2 CDs that are chocked full of poker tips, math, statistics and other things that will improve just about anyone's poker playing skills. It is nothing short of outstanding!

When you first enter the program, you see a brief bio of T.J. Cloutier, the man responsible for all of the poker tips. This guy is a living legend in the poker world. He is the only player to win the same $10,000 buy-in No Limit Texas Hold'em tournament three years in a row. T.J. has more major poker tournament first place victories, 59, than any player in history. He has been at the final table of the World Series of Poker 36 times and has 6 World Series of Poker 1st place wins. In 2002 and 1998, T.J. was named Tournament Play or the Year. T.J. has also co-authored five books on poker strategy. He is certainly well qualified to teach all of us a thing or two about poker.

The World Class Poker program has amazing depth. First off, No Limit Texas Hold'em tips are available for every situation and many of these "situational tips" feature video of T.J. Any words or phrases in the tips that would be considered poker jargon are hyper-linked to a comprehensive poker dictionary, which fully explains the meaning. After playing for a while, you'll notice that the tips vary depending upon your position relative to the dealer button, your chip stack, and how many players are left in the hand. There is often advice for the kind of player you think you may be up against. All of these are important factors to the pros.

When playing No Limit Texas Hold'em games, you can set an option to estimate the probability that you will win the hand. Additionally, if you click on your cards, you'll see your current hand rank and, after the flop, you'll see the probability of improvement to various other hand ranks. If there's a bet to you, it also shows the "pot odds" and the number of "outs" if you have a drawing hand. If you're last to act, it tells you whether pot odds justify a call.

There is also a "Replay" feature that is unique to World Class Poker. It allows you to replay any of the Texas Hold'em tournament hands, or entire Texas Hold'em tournaments. Replay shows the hands of all players face up. The replay feature not only gives you a chance to see who was bluffing, it also shows true mathematical probabilities of all player hands as each card comes out as well as what cards are needed by each player to win the hand. Clicking on any hand after the flop shows hand improvement probabilities for that hand.

The AI in World Class Poker is excellent. The game has over 2,000 avatars and each has its own AI. In other words, if you see the same avatar again, it'll play the same AI that it played before. There is without a doubt much more to this program. The No Limit Hold'em Tournament statistics recorded are very comprehensive. In addition to the situational strategy tips, T.J. also offers over 55 general poker playing tips, most with video of T.J. These "scenario tips" tell you things like what hands you should start with, how aggressively to play those starting hands and offer a number of other points of advice. There are also over 85 thought provoking poker quiz questions, where T.J. poses a situation and you choose what you would do in that setting. After you answer, T.J. tells you what he would do, but more importantly why and what things you should consider. The scenario tips and quiz questions will take some serious time to go through and they are worth going over multiple times.

World Class Poker features No Limit, Pot Limit and Limit multi-table tournaments. There are "final table" and "heads up" modes available as well as single table shootout tournaments for each structure. The poker program is completed with side games of No Limit, Pot Limit and Limit Texas Hold'em games as well as Limit Omaha, 7 Card Stud and 5 Card Draw. There are five different card decks and other attractive features, such as right clicking on the table to speed through the action, which is particularly nice once you fold your hand. The package also offers online poker play on AOL's Instant Messenger at www.aim.com and at the developer's own web site, www.masque.com.

The World Class Poker program was developed by Masque Publishing. Masque has been creating award winning casino tutorial programs since 1987. Masque also published the World Series of Poker* software from 1993-2005, long before many of us ever heard of No Limit Texas Hold'em. Take that experience writing poker software, combine it with the knowledge of someone like T.J. Cloutier and the result is something of unparalleled excellence.

There are a number of poker programs on the market, but World Class Poker goes far beyond anything currently available. Players of all levels that want to quickly improve their poker playing skills should go all-in on this $24.99 software program. It is available at many retail outlets that sell software, directly from the publisher's web site, www.masque.com, or by calling 303-290-9853.

*World Series of Poker is a registered trademark of Harrah's License Company.

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