Duncan Oxley wrote:
"Tyrone Slothrop" wrote

I suggest
downloading the commercial version of UofAlberta's Poki
(http://www.poker-academy.com/), and giving it a go yourself.

Is it the "Poker Academy Pro" Trial you are suggesting? Or the paid
version?

I am recommending the paid version. That is what I own and train with.
It may be that the free trial is the same thing but stops working
after a limited time, however I have no experience with the free trial
version. Download it and see!

I do have experience with Poki's only real competitor from Wilson
Software. I recommend against Wilson as the University of Alberta's
Artificial Intelligence lab has come up with a much stronger product,
and the prior weak areas where Wilson shined have all been addressed in
the 2.0 version of Poker Academy Pro (Poki). Besides, Poki continues to
be worked on as an ongoing research program at the University of
Alberta, and one could reasonably expect the AI in subsequent versions
to get only stronger and stronger.

Forget all of the so-called "tournament poker" software you find at the
local computer store. They are cheap software for the masses -- sort
of like buying a no-name chess program for your kids because it is
$9.95 instead of Fruit 2.2.1 or something from Chessbase.

By then way, training with Poki is a bit like training with a table of
good tournament (or money) poker players. You are not playing with
Doyle Brunson, but then most poker players don't need to be to improve!

Can someone suggest a site for me to play for free or with "play money"?

Two of the largest poker sites are pokerstars (www.pokerstars.com) and
partypoker (www.partypoker.com). Both of these sites have
no-obligation "play money" tables you can practice on. I would not
however recommend such free sites as Yahoo! Games. The players there
don't even pretend to be serious about the game and the play can be
incredibly poor and indifferent.

If you practice with play money and then move to low-limit poker, you
will find that the tables are very loose. In general, players play
tighter when there is more real money at stake. This *significantly*
affects the strategy. I would suggest a good low-limit book to
accompany your first foray at the table. My favorite these days is
"Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play" by Ed Miller. In
my opinion, this is a better book, and more (mathematically) sound than
the older low-limit Hold'Em standby by Lee Jones, "Winning Low-Limit
Hold'em". Stick with Ed Miller's book and get no others until you have
completely digested it and got the LL game mastered. The ruin of any
poker player is buying too many books at one time and getting confused.
I've even heard tournament players say that they love to play against
players who have "just read" a new book! This is not to say books are
bad. They are great! But it always takes time to adjust your game to
the new information and fit it into your own style.

I have not played in over 20 years, in fact we would do "Tuesday Night with
the Boys" nothing serious at all. However, I'd like to explore a good, safe,
free poker site. Any suggestions? TIA.

I suggest both pokerstars and partypoker. These are both now
billion-dollar enterprises that have a strong incentive ($$$) to keep
the game as clean as possible so as to keep player confidence up.