Wilson Turbo Hold Em 4.0

NOTE: Current Version is 5.0

DELIVERY - Quick. White CD envelope, User Guide for new product, (not lower-priced
upgrades), install troubleshooting and new feature overview sheet

INSTALLATION - Very simple and easy, a few mouse clicks and minor entries. More flexibility
in allowing where Start shortcuts are placed would be nice. This might be an InstallShield limitation. - There is an option during the InstallShield process that allows you to load the
demos of the other programs that Wilson offers.

INITIAL PRESENTATION - Software flashes pictures of various card casinos, unless you turn it
off in the Problems area. - Upon opening, the plain green table felt is displayed in the window, with the pop-up Tips window. After closing, the versioning information is displayed by itself on the felt - No Start Game button exists, but Hold Em menu choice at the top right is intuitive enough.

INITIAL CONFIGURATION - There are several areas for configuration: - Initial shortcuts
- Problems launcher. Allows some one-button changes for display problems and startup preferences - Pre-game menu selections- Various configurations for how the rake is handled (percentage max and amounts down to $0.25 increments); how existing player Profiles will adjust their game(s)- their Toughness, as it were; settings for Hold Em rules and variations (max $200/400 fixed bet, $2-10 spread limit, also allows 1-4-8-8 and other by-the-street bet configuration, among other settings); speed of play; sound/animation options; number of
hands dealt per hour, etc. - Also has a number of settings for analysis variations (no bet/no
fold hand comparisons; simulated high-speed, high volume "intelligent" play evaluation; player/position locks; repeatable scenario plays; etc.) - There are methods to create and use custom players or lineups - User can also make adjustments to settings in order to influence the recommendations of the Advisor Profiles (of which there are several, mainly dependent on the number of players in the game at the start) about raising vs. calling, multiple recommendations and choosing an Advisor from available Profiles During hands, many configuration choices are still available. This becomes especially useful with the instant
Replay option, to allow you to analyze the play decisions that you make under different game structures.

There is a high level of flexibility in the system, allowing beginning users to enable a large number of tools for help, while experienced players can focus on specialized areas or
in-depth analysis.

ACTUAL PLAY - Just after you trigger a new game, a window always appears, allowing you to reconfigure:

- Types of hands dealt (All, Only calling, Only raising).. Latter two skip hands that don't match bet/cost criteria based on Advisor's advice, I assume.

- The amount of raising and check-raising

There are also new buttons in this window, with the 4.0 release- shortcuts to Advisor settings and various Toughness screens, for last-minute changes.. or if you missed configuring them originally.

IN-PLAY FEATURES

- Graphics - Standard table has a rectangle-shaped display format, with 5 hands in a row at
top and bottom.

- User can configure whether some details are presented or hidden for each player.

- Graphics are clean, simple, uncluttered. If software is configured to display it, player names, seat and table amounts are displayed in yellow text.

- Your cards are easy to see and read, as they are pretty large, as is the board when it is dealt. Actions for each player are distinct and easy to follow.

- The Deck button also allows user to flip between red or blue-backed, herringbone pattern cards.

** Omaha/8 has a second table layout choice, supposedly mimics Internet play table views. Entire rounded table is seen, along with chip racks. When my eyesight isn't bad, I like the view. My one main gripe with this feature in Omaha/8 was that it was harder initially to differentiate
the action from the cards for each player- I have to look more carefully to see what happened. This was due to smaller lettering and yellow-colored text that didn't stand out as well for
certain details. Once I got used to the change, it wasn't a big problem.

You can switch back and forth by configuring this view in Problems prior to opening the game.
I'd assume that this addition is appearing in release 5.0 of Hold'em.

I generally turn off the sound and animation options. The chips in the pot sounds startled me when I first heard them. and I don't need to hear a COMPUTER tell me "Bad beat!" At certain
fast playing speeds (configurable delay between each computer player's action), many of
these settings are overridden in favor of card speed anyway.

The ring game play mimics b&m play well, given that the graphics are not three-dimensional and you don't see any physical players. A white Dealer button sits on part of the current button's cards. It remains in place, clearly visible, even if the button player folds.

A small red arrow sitting just above the player's left-hand card's corner indicates current action. Action taken by each player displays in yellow text above the cards; their name is displayed below the cards (if configured to), also in yellow text. Their accumulated profit/loss status, updated instantly, is displayed in red on a yellow bar that is hiding the bottom edge of the
cards (this also can be removed). Players that fold disappear from the screen completely.

When the action gets to your player, and the game is fixed limit, the Call and Raise amounts
are displayed in white under your cards. It's easy to ignore this as unnecessary. When a
spread limit game is running, this does not get displayed, as the amount isn't set.

One problem- If you Hit the Bet (for spread limit) or Raise (spread or fixed limit games) button, and then want to change your mind, you cannot. There is no way to cancel the action, you can only limit the amount if allowed.

IN-PLAY OPTIONS - Besides betting/folding options, the following are available during the
hand:

ZIP - allows you to fold out of turn and zip the hand to the conclusion. Hand is played the same way as if you folded in turn. Nice feature if you're being lazy and not analyzing others' play. or
in a Challenge. or if you're tired and want to move the unplayable hands along faster. Now,
if only this option was available to me in the cardroom.

ODDS - new for version 4.0, I believe. Selecting this button either shows the odds of your
hand's improvement on the flop, when you reference the screen pre-flop. or it displays the
odds of your hand improving by the turn and river (post-flop). On the turn, it only displays the current pot odds and your current hand. Each stage before the river also shows current pot
odds.

STATS/RAKE - This button leads to a dozen evaluation areas, which contain a number of choices on charts or graphs that illustrate various aspects of your play. Most of these tools
can be configured on the fly to show a large variety of information, as well as show that information in different formats (bar charts, pie charts, grids) Some of the included tools that I find very useful:

a) An overall play evaluation against the Advisor's recommendations (rankings based on the percentage you were off from that advice in 4 areas),

b) A cash results record of various starting hands you've repeatedly held, with details on how much you've invested and profited with that specific hand,;

c) The Rake/Toke analysis, which is an illuminating tool for examining the effects of rake structures and tipping procedures

d) A record of hands held, by seat, by street, by type as you choose.

e) The number of whole and split pots won (which I would assume would be VERY helpful for
a high-low player)

You can also view Winning/Losing streaks, tightness/aggressiveness tracking, bad-beat
jackpot frequency (a raking option can be set for this). most by player, by street as you choose. The graphics on some of these charts is very nice, whether a choice of pie chart or bar chart, or 3-D view, or other options.

One other playing option that can be used throughout the play of the hand, rather than just at the end: a mouse Peek option, which can reveal one hand at a time (including your own, if you hid it). This option can also show folded hands that aren't currently visible.

POST-PLAY OPTIONS - The two main options that are available after a hand has completed play:

REPLAY - This feature allows you to instantly replay the hand that you just played, without affecting the ongoing statistical tracking of your play. You can try different tactics in the same scenario to examine best practices directly. You can even change most of the various game settings before you replay the hand, including ante, rake and bet structure, and player toughness. This feature proves very useful in instantly trying out different strategies for a particular circumstance. or if you want to investigate how pot odds could alter the Advisor's recommendations.

LOOK - available at hand's end, shows all hands originally dealt, including folded hands.

When quitting a game, as opposed to closing the software, you can save that game for future use. This is handled in a simple, efficient manner.

HELP - In the Start Menu shortcut, there is a Readme doc that contains general summaries of functionality, how Profiles (player types) are designed on a high level, review of included Lineups (player table makeup), general concepts of poker, etc.

- Some of this information seems more in-depth, or isn't even found, in the online Help opened from within the game. I'm not sure why this separation was chosen, as most players are not going to go into this document

- Tips- initially a Tips window pops up with a "tip of the day" window. This can be turned off, or reopened from within the game at any time. The Tips are summaries of steps required to implement or execute certain functions within the game, serve as quick reminders, in a sense.

- Help- This standard Windows on-line help has information on various game-required topics. More in-depth that Tips, but not overwhelmingly so. Has standard Windows help Search functions (Find, Index, Contents) and format.

- Organization- of help documents is okay, though I've seen better on-line help systems. A little experience made it fairly easy to navigate through the Contents window and links, and they were organized in a fairly logical manner. The Index tab allows for type searching for topic headers.

- Overall, fairly easy to use and find what I wanted by matching titles to headers. Some of the links could have been eliminated, just by listing the brief descriptions on the same page as the original link. - There is some discussion of the functionality involved in the settings. More in-depth information on configuration hints, or examples of settings' effects on play, would have been helpful. - No F1 links are available that I could find, from game table or Report windows.

CHALLENGE - A one-to-one challenge between you and the default Advisor. You each play 50, 100 or 200 hands against the current table settings that you have in place, whether a full table or less. The exact same hands are dealt to both of you (the Advisor plays all of the hands first, out of view), so that you can compare cash results based on the same cards. Advice, mouse peeking and other related items are not available, forcing you to play the hands based on your own knowledge. Only the betting and Zip/Quit options are available until the hand is over. There is also the option to see the standard Statistical Data charts, which analyze your play in various ways against the Advisor's recommended plays, during the Challenge. Unfortunately, this is not available after the Challenge is over, which is a mistake in my opinion.

** Note that the latest Omaha/8 Wilson product has removed the available statistics and replaced them only with a simple indicator of your cash status at the time that you check it. Hopefully version 5.0 of Hold 'Em will not duplicate this change in functionality. However, I hope 5.0 WILL include the Challenge history feature that I see in Omaha/8. This feature is an ongoing win/loss/profit total of your own play and the Advisor's that is retained for as long as you'd like.

My experience has been that I match up pretty evenly in the Challenge. My swings tend to be smaller- I lose less and win less than the Advisor when it plays- and while I question some of the hands the Advisor plays, I'm sure he'd question mine if he could. This feature is very playable. I use it a lot and enjoy trying to catch up when the Advisor builds a lead. This feature also gives you another tool to analyze your play- if the supposed 'expert' has results different from yours, you can then use the charts and other tools (including Repeatable deals) to
examine where you may differ or other ways to play the hands that you encountered.

CONFIGURING PLAYERS The system has a checkbox format for configuring existing players, called Profiles. Using simple clicks and edits, you can configure how the player will: play each type of hand combination, preflop; react to various pot statuses, such as re-raised pots,
based on table position, your hand and how it fits with the board at each stage (pre-flop, flop, turn, river); and how to play the hand based on the various board card situations. You can also add an alternate play for each selection with a percentage adjustment, but only for before-the-flop play. I'm not sure why this alternate option wasn't included for post-flop choices. Maybe it would be too daunting a task for anyone but the most knowledgeable player to configure these settings with any degree of competence?. or maybe it would affect software performance too much. You can adjust or replace the settings for all of the Advisor Profiles, as well as create
your own custom Profiles (there is room for about 40 additional Profiles, if needed).

In fact, there are so many choices that I think it would be daunting for a beginning player to accurately create or extensively alter a Profile in ways that make playing sense. For example,
the settings for how to play with one pair on board allow you to individually configure actions in 35 board-fit scenarios, for early/middle/late positions during the flop, turn and river. Certainly, when first presented with the plethora of data, beginning users may feel intimidated in my opinion. (Maybe those users who have the software currently can comment on that.)

While the process itself is not that complicated and can be grasped quickly, I believe that this tool is primarily for experienced/advanced players. Knowledgeable players will have a better understanding of the game and the combination of factors that are involved in accurately configuring valid reactions for a certain type of player. Those types of users, who have the experience and the drive to fully define the criteria that they are looking for within a Profile,
should find that the depth of coverage is more than enough to achieve their ends in
simulations and research. (Again, for experienced users who have extensive experience with this feature, maybe you can share your opinions on the ease of use and accurate complexity
of the Profiles)

Fortunately, for beginning users, an in-depth review or editing requirement is not necessary
to utilize Turbo Holdem's flexibility. There are 45 pre-defined Profiles, with a descriptive phrase and categorization of their play type, which should give most users more than enough playing flexibility, especially when combined with Lineups.

CONFIGURING LINEUPS This is much simpler to accomplish. Users can load any of the
existing 22 Lineups, edit them, or create your own. You can set the starting positions of the players by seat number in a simple drag-and-drop manner. The only thing missing is a simple way to delete a lineup- you must navigate outside of the game to the folder where the offending Lineup is saved. With Lineups, you can configure different player combinations and use
them as you'd like, whether in live play or for testing purposes. You can add the pre-existing Profiles or custom Profiles that you create.

TESTING TOOLS One of the standout features of Wilson Software's Turbo products, in my mind, is the various high-volume, high speed testing tools that you can utilize:

Automatic Test Capability- You can define, save and run up to 50 tests automatically, in order, utilizing various data sources: - Saved Lineups, with various player mixes; - Manually assigned player hands and flops (Stacking the Deck); and/or - A specific run of random dealt hands that you played and captured previously (of any length as to number of hands dealt), known as Repeatable Deals.

Once all of the tests run, all of the related statistics can be displayed and analyzed as you choose.

One important note about Stack the Deck. This tool has a lot of flexibility in and of itself. You can: - Assign all cards to all players and the flop - Assign some cards to some of the players and/or some of the flop.

The system fills in the blanks with random cards, changing randomly on EACH deal, for as
long as you leave the deck stacked. - Easily re-assign or remove cards, allowing quick
changes that can be quickly analyzed.

With this feature, you can lock in as much or as little of a situation as you choose, then continue to play and replay that same situation with button changes and action changes without EVER changing the locked in cards. Combined with Repeatable Deals, this is a great tool that you
can use for high-speed testing. You can easily turn it off by unstacking the deck at any time.

Showdown Holdem- a no fold/no bet simulation that continuously runs hands, using the
number of players currently set for the game, for analysis. You can pause the simulation at
any time, view data through some of the standard Stats/Rake charts, and then continue or end the simulation. This moves VERY quickly- on the level of 5 million hands an HOUR according
to the posted stats (and also my manual estimates) This feature sounds somewhat similar to what I've read about Mike Caro's Poker Probe software, not that I have ever seen it.

Neither tool above displays the actual play of the hands on screen, hand by hand. That isn't the purpose, evidently.

In different ways, both of these tools give the user powerful methods for quickly analyzing different scenarios, with enough repetitions to approach statistical significance, without having
to tie up you computer for days on end. You can easily change criteria and rerun the tests, thereby quickly and thoroughly investigating different possible options.

Detailed review of AceSpades Software