PC Gamer magazine has given Poker Academy Pro 2.0 a rating of “Excellent” in the October 2005 issue. PC Gamer gave PA Pro an overall rating of 88% – the best poker review achieved. The competition presented in the same issue received 70% and 43%.
In the review, editor Rob Smith wrote," Let's get this out of the way upfront: this game is a $129 buy. You read that right. And let's get this clear, too: it's probably the best investment you can make if you want your poker playing to improve, your knowledge of the game to deepen, and your confidence against all kinds of opponents to grow. “
Designed for the serious rounder, Poker Academy Pro 2.0 is the first Texas Hold'em poker software product to feature free online play and chat as well as multi-table tournament simulation. Network play enables users to play online and chat with friends. Multi-table tournament enables users to simulate and practice the major tournament events.
Boasting the best poker AI known, Poker Academy Pro 2.0 adjusts to each individual player as they improve – providing escalating challenges. The game's greatly expanded players statistics package enables users to research and evaluate every aspect of their game based on hands played, position, and opponent.
Another comment by Smith: “Getting your hands dirty with the bots that you can tweak to attack your own play style will ultimately make you a better player. And then you can head to Vegas.” To read the full review, pick up your copy at the news-stand.
Poker Academy Pro helps you discover your weaknesses and refine your game. Other distinguishing components of Poker Academy Pro 2.0 include:
Poker Academy offers a fully featured demo. Download Poker Academy Pro now and see everything this software has to offer.
You have to be happy with an 88% review from such a respected source. Proclaiming the best poker review with the limited competition presented may be a stretch, but boasting the best poker AI definately is not. The review is short but glosses over all of the major components that Pro 2.0 offers. A very important concept is that Poker Academy Pro's goal is to teach poker. Some other software offers good entertainment and cutsie features. We pack our features with one goal – education. It turns out that getting better at such a dynamic game is entertaining, and all of the tools included increase the enjoyment of learning, but our goal is still to train.
We thought we should include just a couple more points we would like to get across in our software.
The one area that cannot be stressed enough is the abilities of the bots. If the bots play a static set of rules, there are always ways to manipulate and take advantage of the AI. Poker Academy Pro proudly features the best poker bots developed in any poker software. They will adapt to your play and learn from your moves. This means if you like to bluff too much, they will know this. If you fold too often to a big bet on the turn they will exploit it more. If you practice 1000 hands against easy competition, you learn how best to exploit it – what you want to learn is how to fill holes in your own game. Great poker AI makes you focus on playing better poker. We have packed our game full of features that we would want in a game, but our software would have no credibility if the AI didn't push you to learn better poker.
There are many advantages to having poker training software. If you attempt to learn on the play money tables you will get play money moves. Everyone calling with any 2 cards, hoping to take down the 10K pot. When you play against good competition, you learn that calling with any 2 cards loses you A LOT of money. Suddenly, instead of focusing on how many hands you can win, you start to watch your bankroll and see how much you win.
You don't learn to play your best poker over-night. Reading books helps, but sometimes you need a training ground. One of the best advantages of poker software is that it let's you play 10 – 40x the number of hands you normally can play in a real game. Our software also features Zip play – this allows you to watch the rest of the hand played at a very fast pace. It encourages strong play but saves a lot of time in the process. With Zip play you can focus more on your game techniques, rather than just your starting hand selection.
