There are two Hold'em programs at Best Buy. This is the one that has Poker Pinup Annie Duke on the cover. Sadly, there does not appear to be an Annie Duke screen saver, so get over it*! The price was $23 with tax, so it's cheaper than most tournament entry fees, and lets you play lots of practice hands without spending a dime after the initial investment.
The artificial intelligence players in the 10 man tournament at medium level seem easily bullied, but they're not afraid to bluff you right back. There's a really good cheat mode which shows the cards of the winning hand even when there is no showdown. I have a feeling that if one played this enough, and got to the point where one could win the 250 person super-satellite tourney against the highest level artificial intelligence, one would be in pretty good shape to play humans, except for the tells and other human details.
Won my first 10 player tourney against the 'Medium Opponent' on May 2. The AI is good, but you can see mistakes in that the starting requirements and/or bluffing requirements do not modify as there are less and less players at the table, which makes it increasingly easy to bluff the AI to death. I think the best thing about the tool is getting used to thinking about position play in general.
* For any female readers currently rolling their eyes at this point, bear in mind that Annie is also a mother of at least two, depicted as the poker-playing very pregnant Madonna in 'Positively Fourth Street' by McManus, as opposed to some vacuous young thing with high cheekbones. McManus thoroughly bums out the audience by knocking Annie out of the 2000 WSOP. Beauty is as beauty does.
