Acespade Pro 2002 Hold Em

DELIVERY- Quick. CD came in clamshell box, similar to the ones that the old Turbo deliveries used to come in, years ago. Also included were 2 marketing flyers (one outside, one inside the box. in case I missed the first one??). These flyers gave bullet point overviews of the features, minor installation instructions and other marketing/sales lists of Acespade products.
Bonus- My delivery contained a logo'd hat. I don't know why. Decent hat, though.

INSTALLATION- Just as simple as Wilson. AutoRun is not enabled for the software, but no big deal. Surprisingly, no license agreement check-off is required. I was expecting one after the "help us prosecute copyright thieves" plea in the flyer.

- Same problem with lack of flexibility in placing Start icons. this must be an InstallShield limitation.

- Unlike Wilson products, you can uninstall Acespade's game through the Add/Remove Programs process.

** One installation note for Turbo owners- After I installed Acespade Pro2002 initially, I could no longer launch my Turbo Hold 'em 4.0 software- I generated application errors, indicating an invalid pointer. Turbo Omaha/8 still worked without issue. When I uninstalled Acespade and reinstalled first Wilson, then Acespade, I didn't run into the problem again. and I tried several Acespade installs after that without recreating the problem. Therefore, it may have just been coincidence.

INITIAL PRESENTATION: The game opens up to an initial view of the main game table. Initially, there is a pop-up disclaimer about computer advice not being 100% accurate, since it's not just mathematics, and to use at your discretion. The game then presents its default opening view:

• There are 10 pink boxes representing player statistics on the table. The whole view is a very boxy rectangle with 5 players in a row at the top, 5 at the bottom.
• A complete card deck, spread upright by suit as in a casino blackjack table, is also displayed
• A series of blue bars, one per player, which say "Cur Bet AllBet" on each, run through the middle of each table half
• In the center of the green table are the following:
• On the left, a gray box with three fields: Normal play, Hands: 0 and Time: 0
• Just to the right, a pink and yellow configuration indicating Rake, Pot and Limit
• Most of the rest of the table's center- a series of gray boxes, of various shapes (in an overall rectangle) with 14 choices, including Normal, Case and Complete play, Statistics, Know Players, Watch Play and others.

Overall, very crude-looking, especially in this day and age of more sophisticated graphics.

INITIAL CONFIGURATION - I was a little unsure of where to start, so I went to Help and deducted that the Option box was my start. Since Help didn't provide much help in general, I browsed around various buttons on my own. Initially you can configure bet range ($200/$400 max, or single spread limit available of 1-4-8-8 with a checkbox) and rake type, although structure is limited by the software to setting 3 blocks for raked pots and a $10 per stage rake limit.

This is handled in a misleading way, however. Instead of entering the dollar amount of rake for the first, second and third dollar thresholds- $10 in my testing- you set the value for the rake divided by 10. So, to get a $0.50 rake, you set the rake to $5. which is then divided by 10 during play to get the desired value. After playing with the games for a while, I finally realized why my $3/6 game was raking by dimes..

You can also set the delay in milliseconds between actions, other checkbox options such as skipping "garbage" hands and showing cards during play. There are also settings to affect certain Play types, such as Watch Play or enabling the Advisor. Disabling the Advisor doesn't block you from using the Hint advice; it only prevents it from popping up automatically when
your actions disagree with the Advisor's.

One unusual Preference choice- "Display the next card in the deck at the end". Since I didn't understand it (a teaser to torture yourself with?), I tried it and nothing noticeable happened. It must be a Blackjack game setting?

One difference from Wilson- you can resize the main window from full screen into adjustable screen. You are not locked into full screen, always on top mode like you are in Turbo Texas Hold'em.

Another feature, one that is much simpler to configure than in Wilson's product- you can quickly move the dealer button before any hand to any seat position that you want, even in the normal play game, in a clockwise direction. It may screw up your Statistics to do that, but that's your choice.

You can change any configurations by stopping the game in progress, making adjustments
and restarting a new game. Not sure yet if that affects your Statistics.

CONFIGURING PLAYERS You can configure the 20 existing Player Types, which initially all have the exact same settings- slightly more tight/aggressive than the midpoint 50/50%. You accomplish this by using either sliding percentage scales (0-100% for More or Less Tight,
More or Less Aggressive for each street), or by hitting the preset Model buttons (Solid, Caller, Loose, etc) which have various street-linked percentages assigned for both areas.

One problem- the features list says I can configure "thousands" of players, but the software seems to limit me to the 20 existing Player Types. I could not find any information anywhere in Help about how to add new additional players onto the existing list.

You can select Player Types or selections such as Solid, Caller, Loose from a list for each seat and assign that playing type, or set Player Type NoPlayer for a empty chair. Unlike Wilson, you can choose what seats are empty. The human player is always in seat #3. There is also a
Player Type called Unknown, which could randomly be of any of the preset Model types.
Only this player can be replaced randomly at each specified seat, based on a set duration of time before someone takes his or her place.

One interesting feature with this Unknown player is a timer of sorts for figuring out their playing style. Question marks "?" are steadily removed. The description from Help (yes, I found something in Help!): " One '?' mark will be erased every half an hour (18 hands), it means
that you should have been getting familiar with the playing style of that 'Unknown' player.
This is for the purpose of testing your skill of recognizing the playing style of an unknown player"

Of course, the Know Button lets you cheat and reveal all of the Player Types at each seat (including the Unknown player). Not sure why we needed a whole permanent button for that function.

CONFIGURING LINEUPS- there is no direct equivalent in Acespade's product. You can save the current game, with settings and assigned players, into a file, then reload the file. You can't plug in this game situation within your current Options settings- those are replaced with the saved file's values.

HELP- only source of Help is a Help button in the button block in the middle of the screen table. No F1 links are available.

NOTE- Browsing through the online documents seems to indicate that this is the Help file for ALL of Acespade's games. The help documents themselves have comments that all listed items might not apply. There are several one-page sections on tournaments, which is a separately purchased game that is not included . and there are some references to buttons
and functions in Blackjack, as well as other mentions of casino games.

There is very little actual help, in that when I eventually found the area related to what I was looking for, there wasn't much description in many areas.

Another problem is that the help documents don't give complete information for all of the items. For example, the Option button opens a yellow window with 8 buttons- Rule, Preference, Payer Type (which was supposed to be Player Type, evidently), CardBack (which gives a choice of 13 standard Microsoft card types), OK, Default, Load and Save.

In the Other Buttons topic, the Option Screen Button section doesn't even MENTION the
first four. There was nothing available in the Index list about some of them (I found Player Type). When I used the Find option in Index, and carefully read the document, I found Preference..
not that it explained anything about it. Rule I couldn't find anywhere except in documents discussing Blackjack.

Overall, it was a pretty frustrating experience of limited success trying to find setup help or explanations in the Help system.

ACTUAL PLAY- Pro 2002 From the main screen, with the 14 choices, the selection you make determines the type of game that you play. There are 5 playing options- Normal, Case,
Compete, Internet and Watch:

NORMAL- This deals the regular ring game. Cards in Pro 2002 are smaller than Turbo Texas Hold'em, but still visibly discernable when dealt out initially. The current button position is
noted by a small circled D on the blue bet bar of the associated player seat. The blinds appear as small blue bands across the cards, with the amount of the blind indicated.

GRAPHICS The left middle of the table shows the game box with the game mode (Normal play), the number of hands dealt so far and the elapsed time, in minutes and hours. The ongoing Rake amount, game bet limits and current pot are displayed in the pink/yellow area. The right side of the table displays a yellow "Please wait" box that is eventually replaced when it gets to the human player.

An orange frame box that encompasses one player's cards indicates the current acting player.
At the same time, a yellow "bets allowed" box appears which obscures most of the hand that
is currently being acted upon. This box shows three lines, listing what amount is needed to
call and what the minimum and maximum raises are. You cannot turn off this box, even if the Advisor is turned off.

This feature seemed pointless to me. Even if it is a spread betting structure, I should know
what I'm supposed to bet. If a player needs THAT much help, every round, then they really
need more help than any software game could ever provide.

The CurBet portion of the blue bet bar shows how much each player has bet on the current street, up to that point, while the AllBet section shows the total bet throughout the hand. I didn't get any value out of the first number at all, personally- who cares what I've put in so far on this street?

One note- when any player folds, including the human player, the CurBet value is replaced
by a note indicating what street the player folded on. Again, other than making it easier for
me to work the hand backwards and see how many players my opponents and I were facing
at different times to try to figure their possible hands out, I don't see the gain from this feature.. and it's a crutch for the lazy, in my opinion.

IN-PLAY OPTIONS When the action gets to the human player, a gray block containing various
In-Play buttons replaces the yellow wait box. These options are available also when you stop a game and exit to this screen. Besides betting actions, Help and Quit, the options are:

· Peek Others- shows all of the other active hands at the table at once. Can't be configured to show only one hand at a time. The number of hands shown is limited to the hands that are currently active- folded hands aren't visible. The only way to show everyone's cards is to use
the Replay Mine feature that appears after the completion of the hand.

· Hide Mine- turns your cards face down. When this is enabled, the button changes to Show Mine.

· Hint- shows several small windows that open in pairs in various places. Alternates between sets for every click on the Hint button:

First Set:

1) Action expectation box (middle of table)- Shows calculated value in dollars for each betting action available, along with a recommendation and a canned explanation of the reason for the recommended action. This action advice seems to be based on the most profitable or least costly option as displayed

2) Strength box (on top of your cards)- Pre-flop, calculates Win and Loss percentages for your
2-card hand. but I'm not sure what the percentages are based on. Post-flop, displays you
hand's strength in relation to the other active hands, along with a calculated win/loss
percentage as calculated at that stage of the hand.

3) Opponents' Strength boxes- Blue boxes, over each opponent still in play, showing their last action, hand strength relative to all other active hands, along with win/loss percentages as calculated at that stage of the hand.

Second Pair-

4) Possible hand window (middle of table)- displays calculations on possible hands for each seat number that has made an active action in the play so far. Example, the UTG raiser in
seat 6 and my button hand are displayed with values, the SB and BB are not. There are 5 categories displayed, depending on the street:

· Pre-flop- High Pair (JJ), Middle Pair (7's- TT), Low Pair, Two Offsuit Cards QJ or better and
Two Suited Cards. Percentages never add to 100%, as the unsuited hands below QJ (as detailed in the Statistic charts associated with hand strength, I assume) evidently take up the rest.

· Post-flop- Two pairs or better, Top Pair (a pair equal to or greater than the highest board card), Lower pair, Overcard and Flush Draw.

5) Bets allowed box- Call, Min and Max Raise window, over my cards, as previously described.

6) Opponents' action- Small blue bar showing only the associated player's last action

Some strange quirks that I noticed with the possible hand calculations window:

a) When the action first arrived to me, all my statistics were 0%, as if I didn't know what my hand was yet. After I acted and it was my turn to act again, my hand is now 100% determined.

b) If my hand falls into two categories such as Overcard and Two Suited, the percentages
can be duplicated. Seeing 100% for two possibilities, while technically accurate, seemed silly. There is no need to see percentages on my hand- I know what it is.

c) Opponents' hand possibilities and related percentages may be based on the cards that have been folded, that you shouldn't normally know about, as well as the current pot odds and the cards that you hold. I'm having trouble nailing down exactly how these are being calculated.

d) Flush draws that are possible are listed individually, but straight draws aren't- I assume they are lumped in with 2 pairs or better stats. Example- I have A8off, other player has Ad10d. When the flop comes JQT rainbow with no diamonds, no flush draw is listed currently (I'd seen other hands where a four-flush on the flop, or the turn, was listed as a separate category- this
category must be situation-specific). However, the gutshot Broadway draws aren't listed either.

e) The Fold expectation is never anything but $0.00, as if folding incorrectly and losing a pot
that should have been yours doesn't cost you anything. I guess we only care about this
individual bet's expectation.

f) I could rarely get the Win/Loss statistics to be 100% Loss, even when heads-up on the river.
I haven't yet seen a 100% win (except when everyone folded).

· Fold- you fold your cards, the play of the hand continues as in a normal game. There are strange delays in computer players' decisions, of whole seconds, that don't seem to make sense. \ The delays seem to be mainly associated with a computer player that has to initially react to another player's bet action, even if it's a simple fold. Later folders whip by, until a
different action is taken. which also slows down the next player's processing time.

· & stop- Folds your hand AND stops the action of the game, sort of . The hand is not played out in the same manner as when you folded. Instead, betting and raising actions are suspended, while calling actions are allowed. The same players that stayed in during the round that you folded in all remain. yet they stop their actions as well. The pot is frozen after the players that remained have called, the rest of the cards are dealt out very quickly, without any other action
by any of the players and the winner is declared.almost as if it's a strange Zip feature.
No decisions are being made, so no obvious delays are occurring.

This leads to a situation where, if you fold, the pot can be much larger (because of post-fold action) and have different players than if you Stopped the game. An example- I folded pre-flop UTG, the KK in seat 5 re-raised the AToff in seat 4. Only seat 4 called. The two players went to the river, the KK won $49. When I Stopped pre-flop, the AT, KK, seat 7 and the BB all just called the flop. The four players were still in place when the KK took the now-locked $12 pot amount (no rake is evidently taken, either). This does affect Statistics, since it's the last played action
that is committed to the Statistics, regardless of how you got there. a MAJOR failing, in my view, as it makes no sense why the other hands are played differently, merely based on my type of folding action.

POST-PLAY OPTIONS- Besides Continue (deal the next hand) and Stop (exist Normal Play, return to main starting screen), the two other choices are: - Play it again- Starts the hand over
as if you haven't played it before, play the hand again. One problem that I noticed- the action dollar value calculations can change on each replaying of the hand. I kept re-running a
scenario where I was UTG with Qc 9c and the only caller was the BB. During the flop and turn, the BB would bet. On the flop, the calculations changed from $0.40 for Call, -$0.60 for Raise to -$0.70 for Raise (seemed to alternate). On the turn, Call ranged from $2 to $2.20, Raise from -$0.10 to $0.00 to +$0.10. I'm not sure how an action on the turn could be calculated as a loss one minute and a gain the next, when nothing has changed..

Another problem I saw during the replaying of the hand above- Raise was clearly financially inferior to calling, yet the Advice was to raise the turn, whether Raise was a negative
expectation or not. - Replay mine- Replays the hand while exposing all players' cards. You
must click the Continue button to initiate every player's previous action. These actions are
locked in; you can't change any of these, including your own, on every street. If you hit the Stop button, the play aborts quickly and exits the Normal Play mode, returning to the main screen.
I can then use the main screen's Continue button to jump back into Normal Play mode and receive my next hand, with the button having moved. I cannot get back to the hand that I was walking through. so, if I want to replay it, I have to remember all of the cards and reconstruct
it in Case play mode.. Hitting the Continue button repeatedly, just so I don't exit the game and lose my current hand, gets tedious very quickly.

One problem- statistics aren't available during game play (or during the replays of a hand).
You have to stop the current play mode, view them, and Continue on to the next hand.

Also note that raises are always limited to the setting, even when heads-up (no unlimited
raising is available, as it is in b&m play).

STATISTICS These are only available from the main screen, after you temporarily "quit"
whatever game mode you are in. All game modes seem to affect these statistics. Two buttons access the same screen: Hand Rankings and Statistics. Once you open the bland turquoise statistics window with either button, all of the same choices are available, using 18 available buttons on the bottom of this pop-up window. There is no way for the software to print directly
any of the statistics charts. It also seems silly to make the awkward path in and out of the
game, just to see the statistics. but since they evidently aren't committed to the overall totals
until the game is existed, I guess the Acespade folks didn't have any other way to accomplish this.

Hand Rankings button- Opens the statistics window to the Ranking10 choice, a grid that displays pre-flop rankings of 2-card hands, based supposedly on having 10 players in the game. Ace through 2 runs across the top as columns, A-2 down the left side as rows. The ranking for the pairs is above the column headers, with AA being 1st and 22 being ranked 76th. Unpaired hands are read by pairing the row card with the column card. Each combination is assigned a ranking number, between 1 and 169. A diagonal gap separates the suited from
the unsuited cards combinations.

The statistics window has 8 other buttons, Ranking2-9, that supposedly adjust the hand rankings based on those number of players. Some of the numbers do change, although
I'm not sure how accurately.

Statistics button- Opens the stats window with the Current Statistics Report displayed. This displays the stats for each player in various categories, from the Play Mode that you just exited
to get to the statistics window. Stats such as Highest/Lowest Win, Profit by the Hour and Year (seems to be based on 5 ½ hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year), how often each player folded pre-flop. The associated Hist/Curr button flips between this screen and the Historical Statistic Report, which is the on-going accumulated statistics (from all play modes). The stats window has an Erase button (to clear stats from both views) and an Update button, which clears the Current Stats and adds their values to the Historical Stats.

There is a Next button that scrolls through 5 displays, related to either the Current Stat or Historical Stat view. Besides the Curr/Hist charts, the Next button pulls up grids that can show, for the human player, profit/loss by 2-card hand type (same format as Ranking grid). Other choices show the Confidence Limit for all players (range of the expected hourly profit with a certain level of confidence, based on the player's past playing performance and with a Confidence percentage), as well as the consolidated percentage of hand types held by all winners.

Strangely, two specific charts that Help mentions are intended specifically for Hold'em- Hand
Per Occurrence Value and Hand Total Value, showing the average and total profit by hand
type- are not anywhere in the available charts.

Other buttons in the stats window include Saving and Loading statistical files, access to
general Help, a finally a Chart button which displays what must be the ugliest graph that
I've ever seen. It charts the human player's profit by hour on an XY-type axis grid, using a barely discernable red line to map profit swings.

OTHER PLAY MODES

INTERNET- This feature is described as an advisory tool to use during Internet play. It operates somewhat in the same manner as Case. Cards are dealt down until the human player is reached, then you pick each card that you receive in the Internet game from the entire deck. Thereafter you control each player's actions, without being able to see his or her cards, and select what cards come on each street. The Advisor kicks in with advice on actions as usual.
At the end, you assign the Internet cards to the players that showed their hands after the river. The system evidently then calculates statistics. I'm assuming that the idea is that you have this game up and mirror the Internet "live" game that you are in, so you can get advice on how to
play. I guess that, if you just accepted the Advisor's recommendations without thinking, you
might be able to keep up with play.. I'm not sure what you'd learn, however, unless you
captured the hands somehow and replayed it back later for learning.

COMPETE- This feature is what matches up the closest to Wilson's Challenge feature. This
Play type is a tool for you to directly compare your play results against the Advisor player,
named Roy, using the exact same cards and hand order. Advice is available, including the
pop-up action suggestion when you make the 'wrong' decision, as is Peek Others. The latter option shouldn't be available, in my opinion, until possibly after the hand for analysis. You shouldn't be able to get help with the play of the hand- that's why you're competing.

It seems as if the human player and Roy are playing the hand street-by-street, one after the other. After both players have completed the hand, a yellow money comparison Post-It, for this hand and accumulated total, displays showing totals for your player and Roy. You then have buttons to either play the hand again "live", with the same choices of regular options as if you didn't play the hand the first time, or to walk through the Replay your hand or Roy's hand.

The Replay options are not live, but walk through the hand's progress, seat by seat, action by action with all cards exposed for every seat. You have to trigger each action, for each seat,
in the process by hitting the Continue button, or Stop to end the replay. You do not control any actions, or have the ability to change any actions- you only control the step-by-step walkthrough.

Unfortunately, once you are in Replay mode, you again cannot Stop the review and go back directly to the Compete game in progress. If you don't tediously hit Continue through the entire review, it closes out the Compete Play mode and you have to restart Compete Play with a new hand.

You cannot save the game in Compete mode and come back to it after closing out Pro 2002. Statistics can be saved, but Options didn't save the current state or hand position of the game that I closed.

One other comment- Stop doesn't mean stop the hand, it only stops your play of the hand (i.e. you fold). Roy's hand is played out, a small yellow sign ask you to wait for Roy's play. This also occurs if you force everyone to fold, but Roy evidently did not. You have to use Quit to escape the hand. I'm not sure that the distinction is clear enough between Stop and Fold.

The same irritating delay in the decision-making process can be see here in Compete Play.
The example I ran into: All fold to me, where I sit in early middle position with A6off. I raise instead of folding as advised- only the cutoff seat's Solid player calls after a second's delay with Kd Td. After about 4 seconds, the Caller BB calls with 10c3c.

The flop comes 7d 4s 2h. BB checks to me, I bet, cutoff calls. It takes 8 whole seconds for
the BB to decide to CALL (?!?!while having only a backdoor straight double draw and a weak overcard, against a pre-flop raiser and cold-caller?!). Turn is Qd. I bet, KT flush draw of course calls and BB takes TEN SECONDS to finally make the fold. I can see no reason for all of the delays, even though the BB was a Caller and a dumb one at that.

By the way, Ad hits the river, KT instantly bets his lock after my check. I guess Solid players
don't have to think...

Detailed review of AceSpades Software - Part 2