Texas Hold'Em On iPhone - By Phil Hellmuth

Phil Hellmuth's latest commercial venture has gone live Joining the growing number of Texas Hold'em games available for the iPhone and iPod touch is "Phil Hellmuth Poker," backed by the 11-time WSOP bracelet-holder himself. Along with rival offerings, the new game is available at the iPhone App.Store for around a dollar. Instead of requiring players to start at any easy level and work their way up to higher stake games, the Hellmuth offering is customer-adjustable through five difficulty levels from the get-go. Settings include number of opponents faced, from five to a heads up; size and how often blinds are raised and starting chip stacks between 20 and 10 000. The range of players varies to keep the game interesting, and depending on the difficulty level selected, the player faces amateurs and finicky players, aces like Hellmuth himself. Before the action starts, the player can review the opposition's backgrounds, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. There';s also an intriguing and potentiall annoying "Opponents Talk" feature, again an option that can be turned on or off by the player. This comes with trash talk, exclamations, and other poker-table style comments. In contrast to the speed-controllable earlier Hellmuth games, the action in the latest offering moves around the table at a set pace, although the player can to some extent set the game for faster opponent decisions.