It would appear tell-tale is working on a game-themed poker game featuring people like the TF2 Heavy, Max from Sam & Max, Strongbad, Tycho from PA and presumably many others.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/31280/

Is incredi-cheap and looks fun enough. It is also supposedly coming packed with a ton of voice interaction lines. Since it's so cheap anyway (preorder discount doesn't matter much) I'm gonna wait and see what else becomes known before maybe buying it.

I've never been a big fan of poker games on the PC... or any card games really. I had Hoyle's Book of Games on my 8088 in 1989... I think that's the last card-based PC game I played with any fervor.

http://www.squakenet.com/computer_games ... nload.html

And I mostly played Cribbage, believe it or not.

Cribbage? lmao. Isn't that an old people game?

I'm not particularly into poker -mostly because I resent the whole "Poker is totally a skill-based game" BS image it has - but with these characters dropping catchphrases I might be tempted to buy it with some friends.

Also, if there was money to be won. I have a nasty gambling streak. I bet 5000 € during the World Cup football (and won 550 € on top of my investment)...it was a sure bet, but still. Looking back that wasn't too smart.

5,000 euros? Jeez dude, you may have a problem. That's a fuck-ton of money. I wouldn't bet more than $100 or so... basically what I could part with without feeling any kind of a pinch. 5,000 euros? I could go to freakin' Chernobyl for that.

lol, yeah well, I did bet on the safest bet ever: that North Korea wouldn't qualify for the knock-out phase from their group. In a group with Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast that's never going to happen. But because of that the odds were so short that I needed to throw a crapload of money on it to make a real profit.

You're lucky Kim Jong-il wasn't playing. You would've lost your bet. That guy can score a goal from in the stands on the opposite side of the field.

Jesus rinox, 5 g's? :O

I love poker and I do think skill forms 75% of it.

There is no more skill to poker than, say, Risk. That's not to say there isn't any skill involved because there is (I wouldn't say 75% though), it just gets overrated compared to other games. I'd love to see Late Night Risk.

Meh, Monopoly is the only true board game in existence.

I swear i have a 5 year winning streak on that game

Shiny has a monopoly obsession. However, i would agree that poker does not have much skill in it. It's mostly luck... or reading people to tell when to fold or whatever. Same with blackjack and craps and whatnot. None of that really holds my attention too much. And if I'm playing any game that seems to devolve down to more chance than skill, I get bored quickly.

Yeah, anyone above averagely intelligent could easily learn the rules and the odds on the cards. I think skill becomes a very relative factor at professional levels.

And Monopoly is almost all luck except for the negotiations on the buying/selling of hotels. But that part is always awesome.

No way, come on. If you're playing Poker based on the scientific element, they you're either going to lose all the time, or you're playing against rubbish players. What normally happens with casual noob games is that they play the cards and maybe 10% of the time bluff or play mind games. So yeah, not much skill involved.

As you play with better players, you'll find that they take alot more risks and play far more aggressively. Suddenly it's no longer that easy to win according to your cards because it's harder to understand your chances. Normally you'd do this by:

a) Seeing how strong your own hand is
b) See how everyone responds to the stakes
c) General body language

Against good players, A becomes harder because B is more erratic. C is practically impossible.

Yes, but that's the point. They're almost all good players so the skill factor lessens on b) and c) the higher you go.

The reality is though, once you've learned to read the flop (ie instantly see what is possible with the cards on the table) and you see your own hand you almost instantly know what your chances are, statistically speaking. And yeah, trying to judge other player's behaviour is vaguer and can't be put down statistically, but it still is prone to luck.

I agree that there are gut calls that you need to make to be a great poker player, but I wouldn't call a gut feeling a skill per se. The bluffing aspect of poker cancels out the statistical aspect to some extent, but reading bluffs isn't exactly a reliable skill given that the other players at the table are all (you would assume) master bluffers/readers too.