World Series of Poker Texas Hold'em

You'd think mobile poker would be passe by now. Loads of games came out last year, and most have moved on to making brain training games and Nintendogs clones as far as I can tell. Yet poker continues to be a popular mobile genre, aided by its increasing popularity in the real world, where it's now probably easier to buy poker chips in your local high street than chip shop chips.

Current top dog in the mobile poker world is World Poker Tour, based on a prestigious tournament that you won't have heard of unless you're properly into your poker. But now it faces a new challenge from Glu's World Series of Poker, which is based on, yep, a prestigious tournament that you won't have heard of unless... well, you get the picture.

In truth, even if you haven't heard of the World Series of Poker, it doesn't matter. Like World Poker Tour, this is simply a slick and well-designed game based on the Texas Hold'em variant of the game. You have to earn your fortune by playing in regular games and tournaments, and you can choose to play Limit, Pot Limit or No Limit versions, as well as choosing how many opponents to play against – from one to seven.

The poker itself works really well, using the same horizontally-scrolling top-down view of the table, with the players arranged around it, as World Poker Tour and, indeed, most online poker websites. Hands go by fairly quickly, although unlike some games, you don't skip the rest of a hand once you've folded.

Some players will find this a bit frustrating, but remember, this is a serious poker game. When you fold, you're supposed to watch how the other players play, to gauge how agressive or cautious they are. Speaking as a fairly casual poker player in the real world, it's hard to judge how clever the artificial intelligence is in World Series of Poker, but the characters are tough enough to give you a real sense of achievement when you play a hand just right, or bluff like a pro.

It's a good game for newbie Hold'em players too, because at any time you can press the '*' key to get some advice on how strong your hand is, and whether you should fold, check/call, or bet/raise. The advice comes from a little cartoon version of real-life poker player Chris Ferguson, whose nickname is 'Jesus' on account of, well, having a beard and long hair. The good thing about this advice is that you have to request it, so it doesn't intrude on play if you'd rather rely on your own knowledge and instincts.

We do have some quibbles. There's no option to save the game if you have to quit out of a tournament, so if you're playing in a few minutes of downtime, you risk losing your entire Buy-In if your downtime suddenly comes to an end. For those who do follow the real-life World Series of Poker, it would also be nice if the game more closely followed the structure of the actual tournament, which this year attracted over 8,700 players to the $10,000 Buy-In main event.

Something else, which isn't strictly Glu's fault, is the lack in the UK of the multiplayer mode, which is present in the U.S. version of the game. The same thing happened with World Poker Tour, so it's more about operator and handset restrictions here in Europe. But it's frustrating, because the game would be marvellous over the network.

But despite those qualms, this is top-notch. And without getting caught up by catchphrases, if you want to 'shuffle up and deal' on your phone, World Series of Poker is now the game to do it with.

World Series of Poker Texas Hold'em

We'd bet our house on poker fans loving this slick Hold'em title
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Stuart Dredge
Stuart Dredge
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)