Paul Newman once proclaimed that, “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned,” in his pool shark movie The Hustler; now, I’m sure that I could get some pretty decent odds in trying to sink the 8-ball with my iPhone but I decided to take the safer route and try and fleece some online players at Fresh Deck Poker, the new release from Idle Games. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn sour before I can make a break for it…
There are several free poker games on the market now, aimed at players who want to play for fun, without risking losing the farm on a pair of deuces. What separates FDP from the others is the fact that it’s the only free poker game to have its random number generator certified by a 3rd party, just like real money poker sites are required to. Concurrently, you can choose a cartoonish avatar to play with instead of just uploading a selfie; you can choose the character that has the most likeness to your own appearance, or go for pure fantasy (the bikini-clad babe that I selected is a possible hint at some truly worrying issues going on beneath my skull…).
Freudian nightmares aside, I took my character on to the beginner’s table with a $5/10 small/big blind minimum and started to eye up the competition. The ‘Chat’ function comes in handy for trash talk, making friends or flirting (although, as I have already explained, what you see may very well not be what you get).
The game is Texas Hold ’em and each character is dealt two cards with a aural flourish from the SFX; you can choose to chuck your hand or ante up and enter the ring with a decent bet of your own. With each card dealt you’ll have the option to check, raise or fold and the 5-second time limit means that you have to make a quick decision, so no dilly-dallying.
You can see the other players’ cash bundle, so you know who to watch out for, but the fun for me was guessing who was going to bluff or not. After a few decent runs my luck sprinted off and I lost all of my money to a bespectacled bald man with a Full House. I was offered a ‘Buy In’ but I decided to explore the lobby where I found a ‘Royal Poker’ tournament in which the deck only contains Royals and Aces. This was a bit intense for me so I checked out the slot machines before heading back to the standard poker table to try my luck once again.
There are lots of opportunities to earn more chips besides holding a winning hand, such as signing in with Facebook, inviting your friends to play and generally engaging in all facets of the app.
All in all, FDP is a decent, fun and engaging game with enough graphical innovatism to keep players entertained for a long time; as the number one-rated poker app on Google Play store, it seems as if it’s already holding all the Aces.
Get it here:
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/app/
Android: https://play.google.com/store/
