WSOP: Full House Poker Pro (free-to-play) releases Sept 4th - Catch-All

I went ahead and changed the title, as I think this is still a better thread for the game, as it spares the need to explain FHP to anyone new to the game.

Original post:

I finally picked this up for both my Windows Phone and XBLA. I thought enough of it that I posted about it in our thread on the now defunct Pokerstars game.

But I decided to create a catch-all to see if we could consolidate some Xbox users into picking this up for some poker nights and score chasing.

Basically, the game is a lot better than the previous Texas Hold-em game, and worthy of picking up as an upgrade. The single player is strong enough, but the multiplayer is really well executed. I know that XBL is not as convenient as playing poker on a PC, but this might be worth it. And not only is it better than the previous XBL version, but it is better than any of the poker games that came out for consoles during the craze of the last 10 years.

The key is, the blind structures for tournament play that most people like are actually good. You've got levels that take more than 10 minutes which allows for much more play. Most every console poker game goes the arcade route of 3-4 hands in a level, which forces you to play way too many hands as the game evolves into a bunch of all-ins and luck of the draw.

Further, the use of the avatars is really well done here. You really do feel like you are playing with the same friends you see in your friends list. the mechanics for betting, folding and checking are simple and easy. There is even a perfect mechanic for whether you want to show one, both, or neither of your cards when you force a fold or your bet is called and your hand is beaten.

I got interested when I bought the Windows Phone version, which is only single player, but also well done. It ties into your XBLA version ,so that money and XP you earn playing on your mobile version contributes to the XBLA version. So the trojan horse worked, and bought the game on XBL last night, and found it to be way more fun than I expected.

So I'm hoping to add folks to my friends list to score chase, and we are talking about having some Goodjer poker nights.

Giant Bomb had a look at it.

I tried doing catch all when it first came out, but it died

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

I'm down for most nights. Let me know when and I'll try to be there.

Gumbie wrote:

I tried doing catch all when it first came out, but it died

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

I'm down for most nights. Let me know when and I'll try to be there.

Sorry, dude. I didn't even look, to be honest. I did see you on my friends list as having played, so we should try to get a game going.

tagged

(TL;DR version of my last post in the last thread: I'm up for a GWJer night, late at night is fine, Saturday night is fine.)

Gumbie wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

I tried doing catch all when it first came out, but it died

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

I'm down for most nights. Let me know when and I'll try to be there.

Sorry, dude. I didn't even look, to be honest. I did see you on my friends list as having played, so we should try to get a game going.

No, no it's cool. I'm glad to started another one, I was just bummed no one ever really responded to the old one, maybe there's more interest now.

One of the reasons I went to the Pokerstars thread first was to lure in some of the guys there. I don't know how mnay Xbox players there were, but I'm hoping. I now have 10 friends that have played the game in my list.

I'm up over $12K in my bankroll now. I will break hbi's 5 mill in no time!

I'm also up to Level 13 in XP.

Once you've grinded through the Pro Takedowns in single-player, the prize for the All-Pro Tournament is 500k (which is also good for a cheevo). Once you've done that, you can get into the 250k buy-in multiplayer games. That's when your bankroll really starts to explode. I'm #2 on my friends' leaderboard; the leader is at over 12 mil.

Due to a quirk in the way the game works, there's a lot of loose money available in the $250k ring games. The reason is that once you hit Level 50, you have access to a 250k reload whenever you go bankrupt, and since you've maxed out your XP, the penalty for going bankrupt (that you don't earn XP for a set number of hands) is meaningless. So you get a lot of guys sitting in on the 250k buy-in ring games going all-in every hand (and reloading every time they miss) hoping to get lucky and double or triple up. If you play tight, you can make millions very quickly, but it's an excruciatingly boring game.

This would bother me more except that I prefer sit-and-go to ring games anyway. Once you've got a couple mil in the bank, the 250k buy-in ring games have a lot of fun action and are pretty lucrative since you make almost a mil for first place, so you only have to win one in four tourneys to turn a profit.

...I've probably put far too much thought into a game that's not even for real stakes, but with the major real-money sites down for the count, what else am I going to do? (-:

Jayhawker wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

I tried doing catch all when it first came out, but it died

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

I'm down for most nights. Let me know when and I'll try to be there.

Sorry, dude. I didn't even look, to be honest. I did see you on my friends list as having played, so we should try to get a game going.

No, no it's cool. I'm glad you started another one, I was just bummed no one ever really responded to the old one, maybe there's more interest now.

I'd be down for a Goodjer night. I'd have a much higher bankroll, as a buddy and I were chatting one night while playing against a table full of computer players, but we agreed to both go all in the last had, and he took $3 million from me.

The Pro Takedowns are also a great way to grind XP. The one guy who is tight-passive is easy to beat, and I think you get like 15K XP for beating him. The final table of all the pros is hard, unless you can double or triple up early. The Texas Heat games are fun, too. I wish they'd start a new season, and release some more sweet cheevos.

The Texas Heat games would be more fun if they weren't so glitchy. I was constantly getting into situations where the game would "hang" and refuse to deal a new hand while the clock steadily ticked away. Or else I'd get stuck in a table full of bots, which sort of defeats the purpose of a "scheduled" game that you play with dozens or hundreds of human opponents.

If they can fix the glitching problem, it IS a fun game when it works right.

As far as bankroll for Goodjer night goes, I'm perfectly happy setting the stakes according to whoever has the lowest bankroll. It's all play money anyway: I'm in it for the fun of the game. I can grind for fake chips on my own time. (-:

i'm in, so if anyone wamnts to play let me know.

TheCounselor wrote:

The Texas Heat games are fun, too. I wish they'd start a new season, and release some more sweet cheevos.

They have already started. Apparently the first episode was 6/3. Right now they list several play times on Saturday and then Monday coming up. My dad and brother are coming in for the cardinals game on Saturday, so I doubt I get a chance to try it out. but I will at least try the early Monday episodes, and maybe the evening ones.

Jayhawker wrote:
TheCounselor wrote:

The Texas Heat games are fun, too. I wish they'd start a new season, and release some more sweet cheevos.

They have already started. Apparently the first episode was 6/3. Right now they list several play times on Saturday and then Monday coming up. My dad and brother are coming in for the cardinals game on Saturday, so I doubt I get a chance to try it out. but I will at least try the early Monday episodes, and maybe the evening ones.

Nice. I can't do this Saturday, either, but I'll have to start making a note of the times. New achievements, too.

I played the 10:30 and 11pm episodes of Texas Heat tonight. It's actually pretty fun. I gad my Aces cracked when I got all my chips in pre-flop against a Q-7 that hit two pair.

Overall, I wish it was a little better, but it's not bad for an optional mode to play.

I picked this up yesterday, after giving the trial a go. I'm new to Texas Hold 'Em, so if noobs are welcome, I'll try to join in.

Anyone planning on playing the Texas Heat games tonight? I'll probably play them, and it'd be fun to be able to do it in a party.

TheCounselor wrote:

Anyone planning on playing the Texas Heat games tonight? I'll probably play them, and it'd be fun to be able to do it in a party.

I may give it a go. I really shouldn't, as I have a test tomorrow. Do they put folks in a party at the same table? I would assume not.

Jeff-66 wrote:

I picked this up yesterday, after giving the trial a go. I'm new to Texas Hold 'Em, so if noobs are welcome, I'll try to join in.

Fish, err, I mean noobs, are always welcome!

Jayhawker wrote:

Fish, err, I mean noobs, are always welcome!

Thanks. I sent you a friend request.

Is there a good place to learn the ins and outs of texas hold 'em online? When you search "learn texas hold em" on google, it's just loaded with spammy results, sites wanting you to gamble online and such.

I've been playing it single player, and really it seems pretty straightforward, but I assume there's more to it than it appears?

I don't understand what the little blind and big blind are, but so far it hasn't mattered. When it comes around to me, I've just been either calling or folding and occasionally raising. I've done ok so far, I think I'm only down maybe $200, and for a while my bank was up about $500. I also got 3 achievements, including something about a showdown.

btw, why does this particular xbla game offer 300 achievement points, where every other one I've seen only offers 200?

Speaking even as a novice to poker, one downside is that the game's AI is either A.) completely idiotic or B.) actually a fantastic simulation of the enormous rash or new players there are out there thanks to online sites.

Prederick wrote:

Speaking even as a novice to poker, one downside is that the game's AI is either A.) completely idiotic or B.) actually a fantastic simulation of the enormous rash or new players there are out there thanks to online sites.

Well that's depressing. Part of the reason I bought it was because I'd heard the A.I. was pretty good. I have a strong aversion to almost all online games unless I know the people I'm playing with.

For a novice, Phil Gordon's Poker: The Real Deal is a fantastic place to start. It's cheap and a very easy read. It will explain the basic structure and common strategies poker very well. After that, you can't go wrong with any of Dan Harrington's books.

The AI in this game is fine, but pretty easy to bully. You are not going to find an equivalent to Chessmaster in any poker game. On the PC and Mac you can get Poker Academy, which is really good. For limit poker, it can destroy most humans. But no-limit is a tougher nut to crack. But PA does have a nice community to play online with. It has shrunk considerably over the last year or so, though.

But the game has advisers which will give you advice on when to fold, check or bet. It also gives you a ton of statistical information based on yourself and every opponent you face. You can learn by drilling down and finding out what kind of hands you lose money on and when you make money. you can even break it down into what table position you are in.

During a game you can see this:
IMAGE(http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2005/10/27/303444/PA2Table1.jpg)

You can then click on an opponent or yourself and see this:
IMAGE(http://www.holygrailofpoker.com/_templates/_images/chart.jpg)

It's still all free poker, so you have to take youor success and stats with a grain of salt. But you really do start to understand the impact each decision you make can have.

One thing to keep in mind as you move past the point where you're learning the basic structures of the game and into the real meat of the strategy is that a lot of fancy, intricate play is wasted if you're playing against bad players, and most of the folks you're likely to meet on Xbox Live (present company excluded I'm sure) are bad players.

XBL players tend, at least at the lower limits, to play like maniacs. It's useless to try to bluff them, because there's always at least one idiot who is so attached to his hand that he doesn't care that the board is screaming at him that he has no chance. On the flip side, if you have the nuts (the best poker hand possible given the cards on the board), you can go all-in, something you might normally avoid so as not to scare off potential callers, and there's always at least one idiot who will call you.

That's XBL players, of course. The A.I. in this game really isn't half bad, relatively speaking. No A.I. is ever going to be a match for a good human player, but when you're just starting out, it'll put up enough of a challenge to keep things interesting... until you learn to exploit it, that is. And by the time you've learned enough to be able to exploit it, you're ready to start going up against more challenging opponents anyway.

Besides Phil Gordon's book that Jayhawker recommended, another good one for beginners is Cardoza Publishing's The Basics of Winning Hold'Em Poker. It'll give you exactly what it says on the cover: the basics, what the rules are, plus what the best starting hands are mathematically and what the "best" way to play them is.

As you're reading it, you might start to think, "Wait, this can't REALLY be the best way to play, because if I followed all of the advice in this book to the letter, I'd be playing an extremely predictable game and a good opponent would know exactly what I have all the time." You're right, of course, but on XBL you're seldom going to be playing against a good opponent. Learn to execute the style of play they teach you in the book until it becomes automatic, and you'll win a lot against bad opponents AND have a solid foundation when you're ready to move beyond that strategy and start mixing it up and developing your own style. You've got to be able to dominate the bad players before you're ready to move on and take a stab at mixing it up with the good ones. Like they used to tell you in English class, you've got to know what the rules are before you know which ones you can break and when.

Thanks very much to both of you for all the info. I should clarify though: I have no interest in playing anyone on XBL, except to play with other goodjers (if I don't stink too much and get chased off).

The game itself seems to explain very little, at least after watching the tutorial videos, wherein only the most absolute basic rules were explained, but not much else. So I'm just looking for basic info, preferably online and free

XBL players tend, at least at the lower limits, to play like maniacs. It's useless to try to bluff them, because there's always at least one idiot who is so attached to his hand that he doesn't care that the board is screaming at him that he has no chance.

Wouldn't this be due to the fact that real money isn't involved, so it's easy to say aw, screw it and go all in?

Jeff-66 wrote:

Thanks very much to both of you for all the info. I should clarify though: I have no interest in playing anyone on XBL, except to play with other goodjers (if I don't stink too much and get chased off).

The game itself seems to explain very little, at least after watching the tutorial videos, wherein only the most absolute basic rules were explained, but not much else. So I'm just looking for basic info, preferably online and free

XBL players tend, at least at the lower limits, to play like maniacs. It's useless to try to bluff them, because there's always at least one idiot who is so attached to his hand that he doesn't care that the board is screaming at him that he has no chance.

Wouldn't this be due to the fact that real money isn't involved, so it's easy to say aw, screw it and go all in?

That's a big part of it, yeah. Especially once you get players who are at level 50. The only incentive to keep a bankroll is the fact that you don't get XP for a certain number of hands after taking a loan. Thus, if you're at max level, XP no longer matters.

This article seems decent, but might be more tuned for limit play, which is pretty different than no-limit. Basically, when starting out, you should be folding about 80-90 percent of your hands at a full table. It's boring, but you should only be playing the big hands, two aces, two kings, ace-king, two queens, etc. Also, the goal is to get your money in the center with the best chance of winning. It doesn't matter that you had 2-7 and the flop came with three twos. You can't predict the cards, so folding was still the right move.

Edit: Here's a decent no-limit beginner article.

Partially. Partially it's because it's a lot easier to hit one button to call than physically push a bunch of chips into the middle of the table, so it's easy to do it on a whim: that's something that's common to all computerized poker, including real-money sites. And partially it's simply a matter of how the community develops. They assume that because they play like a maniac and everyone else plays like a maniac too, that you must also be playing like a maniac and therefore a big bet on your part doesn't necessarily mean you have the best hand.

Against a good player, you can play very tight most of the time and they'll notice that, and when you DO push in a big bet, they'll respect your tight play and assume you must have a good hand, so you can manipulate their image of you and get away with some big bluffs (until you get caught, and then you have to back down and play tight again). Or you can play relatively loose, and they'll notice THAT, and then when you do have an awesome hand you'll get paid off for it because they'll figure you for another silly bluff and keep calling you. That's the basis of poker strategy: manipulating your table image to your benefit.

The problem is that it only works when the other guy is paying attention. Against a bad player, you're better off just playing straightforward poker, betting when you think you have the best hand and folding when you don't. That goes for playing against the AI as well: the AI doesn't seem to change its game in response to how you're playing, it just keeps following the same canned patterns regardless.

As far as free strategy help goes, your best bet is your local library, who probably have the books Jayhawker and I recommended and a few more besides. Online, the best resource I've found is Mike Caro's web site, which has a bunch of neat articles written by Caro himself and the occasional guest article by poker legends like Doyle Brunson. Some of that stuff might be a tad advanced if you're just starting out, though.

hbi2k touches on another good point. Part of figuring out someone's style is watching them play for a long period of time. On the 360, you probably won't get that chance, and they won't get to watch you for very long either. Thus, simpler is better.

That's why I like playing the sit-and-go tournaments more than the "standard" (ring) games. Over the course of a tournament you're likely to have a decent chance to figure out someone's style. If they stick around just long enough to hit one big hand (or bust out) and then leave, you've got no such chance.

I also find that the tourneys have a smaller percentage of maniacs. I figure it's a time thing: in a ring game, if you make your big silly maniac move and bust out, getting back in the game is as simple as hitting the "rebuy" button. In a tourney you have to back all the way out, find another tourney, wait for six people to join, etc. It takes longer, which is a turnoff for the patience-lacking maniacs.

Ok, I was just playing a Limit game vs the A.I. (10 player table) and something is happening that I don't understand. I don't think this happened in No-Limit.

Ok so it goes like this: I'm dealt two kings (yay!) and so I bet, call, etc and stay in. the flop is of no help, but with 2 kings I'm staying. so the turn and river go 5 and 5, thus I'm holding two pair. I got into a raise war with one of the A.I. players. At some point, and this is the part I don't get: I get a popup on my screen of 4 choices, each corresponding to a button on the controller:

my choices were:

Y button: I'm shown 2 kings
X button: don't remember, but I think it was King and face down card
B button: I think it was 2 face down cards
A button: don't remember, no more than 2 cards are shown though on any of the 4 choices

What's going on in this phase? It happened on several different hands. This is probably a silly noob question, but it wasn't explained anywhere in the tutorials. Oh and it's timed too, so if I don't pick one, it seems to pick one for me. (Btw, the old lady beat me with 3 of a kind (boo!)

Also, I did find a great deal more help and explanation of things in the text section of the help (I had only looked at the video section), so I now understand the difference between limit & no limit, what the blinds are, and so forth. I'll still be reading the aforementioned suggested sites though!

Bonus pts question: does the A.I. bluff?

The screen you're talking about is giving you the option to show part or all of your hand. This screen gets shown whenever the hand is over and A.) everyone has folded to you, or, B.) everyone has called, and another player has shown a hand that's better than yours. At this point, you have either won (if everyone else has folded) or lost (if someone else has shown a better hand).

Against the AI, it really doesn't matter what you do. Against a human opponent, if you won on a bluff, you can show the fact that it was a bluff to make them think that you bluff often, or if you had a really good hand, you can show them that if you want them to think you're a tight player. Or (and this is the safest option) you can show them nothing and let them think what they will.

Also, the AI most definitely bluffs. If only one AI player sticks around for the flop and they're the first one to bet after the flop hits, there's maybe a 50/50 chance that it's a bluff. If you raise them and they're bluffing, they'll fold: if you raise them and they're NOT bluffing, they'll reraise you and you'll know that it's probably a good idea to fold unless you also have a very strong hand. They'll almost never just call a raise: it's either reraise or fold with them.

All the game is asking you is if you want to show your opponent your hand now that it's over. The four choices are no cards, both cards, or either one of your other cards. It has no bearing on the game. Sometimes it is good to show that you had a strong hand to help build respect at a table. This is of no use to the CPU, because I don't think it keeps track of your tendencies. This is what makes PA a better opponent.

But at table of real people it can help. It can also hurt you if you are not careful. But showing a big bluff can payoff big later when you have a big hand and your opponent thinks you are full of it.

Ah, ok. thanks to both for the answers. I'm starting to see where more strategy comes in. Shame about the A.I. following that strict regimen, though. What hbi2k described seems like a pretty dead giveaway. Thanks again, guys, you've been very helpful.

I don't think that's entirely true. I've definitely had hands where I re-raised the AI and they folded to that, after raising before. I've also had them call it and turn over a terrible hand.