World Championship Poker 2: All In – One of the Best PS2 Poker Games
The following tips were provided by Oxygen Games providing a a lesson in poker faces, psychology and skill with in-depth tutorial modes for all formats of its PS2 poker game release back with World Championship Poker 2: All In.
Labeled as, ”The most realistic playing poker simulation out there”, World Championship Poker 2 captures the challenge and intensity of the uncompromising real world game and dares the player to take the challenge…and become a winner!
No longer a game played in smoky back rooms, when you check for casino games, poker has become a hugely popular tournament sport that requires skill and judgement from its players as well as bravery and no small amount of luck. Poker today, as played in high-profile televised tournaments, is an exciting spectacle as players battle it out for dominance and fortunes can be won or lost on the turn of a card. World Championship Poker 2 brings this excitement to the PC, not only capturing the nuances of Texas Hold’em and other poker varieties.
You can practice to your heart’s content and learn all these skills before going online and showing how tough you can be on the bales. While many games attempt to recreate poker as a mere card game, World Championship Poker 2 re-creates the whole game, capturing the full range of skills required to be a master – including bluffing and keeping a poker face. This isn’t just a game, but a career, where you’ll try to win the money to find a better pad to crash at and more advanced tournaments to enter. World Championship Poker 2 begins as you create your character and enjoy the easy to enter “quick play” mode – the ideal place to practice your skills. The real centrepiece of the game though is the career mode.
Here in addition to earning money success will also bring you skill points which are used to increase your ability to tell when an opponent is bluffing, increase your own ability to fool your opponents and ability to read the game. The most popular form of tournament poker is Texas Hold’Em, which is simple to grasp yet complicated to master. The principle of the game is that each player is dealt two cards, with five cards being dealt into the middle of the table. The victorious player will be the one that holds the best five card hand made from the two they hold and the five shared cards. At the start of each hand each player is dealt two cards and the betting begins. After the first betting round has finished the dealer plays the three common cards onto the table, this is called “the flop”. Betting begins once again. Following this betting round the dealer adds a fourth card, this point is called “the turn” and another betting round follows. Next we have “the river” where the fifth and final card is dealt. Players can now see all the cards available to them and another round of betting begins to see which player will snatch victory from the others.
World Championship Poker 2 features several forms of poker, in addition to Texas Hold’Em there’s the similar games of Pineapple, Crazy Pineapple, Omaha, Omaha High-Low and Omaha Eight. Other classic forms of poker such as Seven-Card Stud High, Razz Ace to Five and Draw Poker also feature. Poker is so much more than just a card game. An inexperienced player is likely to give clues to other players about their hand via facial expressions and body language. This thrilling aspect of the game is simulated in World Championship Poker 2. For example, faced with a very strong hand and inexperience player is likely to display a “tell” or visual clue to other opponents. When this is likely to happen the “Mini Tell Bluff Game” appears in the corner of the screen. As the clock counts down from five the player has to control a marker on a circle that’s split into zones. He/she uses the arrow keys to keep the yellow marker in the black zone for a poker face, the red zone to bluff and the large purple zone to present a tell.
As the player makes use of earned skill points this mini-game becomes easier and the bluff/poker face zones will grow in size while the tell zones shrink. Very skilled players can also stare down an opponent making WCP2 as much a psychological game as it is one of skill and chance, just as in the real world of high-stakes tournament poker. Combining your increased skill in bluffing and keeping a poker face, with more experience of when to bet and when to fold, you’ll soon be bringing your “A” game to the cut-throat computer-controlled competitors in World Championship Poker 2. For the ultimate experience you’ll also take the game online and play real people developing the same skills as you.
The deep career mode, coupled with so many ways to play, plus the introduction of poker psychology add up to make World Championship Poker 2 one of the best poker games you’ll play on PS2.
