DD Tournament Poker Review

www.ddpoker.com

DD Tournament Poker is a poker tournament clock and poker hand simulator. It will time your home poker tournaments but it will also allow you to play limit, no-limit, and pot limit poker tournaments against computer players and ... you can set up your own online poker tournament that other players can join in! That's right, you can host your own online poker tournament and invite your friends and family to play. You can then use the tools in DD Poker to analyze every hand that you have played to help improve your poker performance.

Installation

Download the 30MB file and install it on your computer. That's all there is to it. There is a demo version available that has limited features - you can only play a certain number of hands and the poker clock is limited to three five-minute blinds levels.

Timer Screen

The timer screen is fairly basic. It shows the countdown timer in large numbers, the level, ante, small blind, and big blind. You can't change the colors or rearrange the layout of the screen. You can pause the timer, restart the level, or skip to the next blinds level. You can set the timer to pause at the end of each level or to automatically restart the next blinds level. There is a chip color up notice.

Tournament Structure

There are 15 preset tournament structures that you can use. These range from a Beginner Game to the World Championship 2005. You can alter the blinds, antes, and tie lengths for each tournament or create your own structure. You can enter how many positions to payout and use percentage or fixed amount payouts. You can take a rake from the purse. You can use these structures for your own live games or for games played against computer players.

Solitaire Play (playing against the computer)

DD Poker has the capability to create tournaments where you play against computer opponents. You can play against over 5500 different computer opponents, ranging from fish to rocks to solid players. You can practice your poker tournament play by playing in 15 different pre-defined tournament formats. You can play at a full table of 9 players, short handed, very short handed, or heads-up.

Create Online Poker Tournaments

DD Poker allows you to set up your own online (or LAN) poker tournaments with other live players. Each player must use their own copy of DD Poker to play in the tournament and demo players can only play 15 hands. This is a very nice feature that may be of high interest to readers of this website. Imagine setting up your own password-protected online poker tournament with your friends and family! You can play with people from all over the world and there is no rake (cost). You can set up a player action timeout (a certain number of seconds to act on your hand) and a time bank to allow your players to think a bit longer. You can set up a tournament with any combination of live and computer players and you can also limit the number of observers.

Hand Calculators

There is a Showdown Calculator to determine what the odds of your winning the hand are. You can enter your two hole cards and evaluate your chances of winning the hand against anywhere from 1 to 9 players. You can use the Hand Ladder tool to see how your hand matches up against other possible hands or groups of hands. Every hand you play is saved and can be analyzed later. You can analyze your play by hand, preflop, flop, turn, and river.

Overall

No doubt about it, if you are looking for a way to host your own online poker tournaments, DD Poker is for you! If you want to improve your poker performance by playing against computer opponents and analyzing your play, DD Poker is also an excellent choice. If you simply want to time your own live poker tournaments, it does a basic job. The price is $29.99.

DD poker is a different breed of animal than all the other poker clocks that I have reviewed here. There is much more to this software than just a poker tournament timer, in fact, the other features probably outshine the timer feature. It has basic timer functions to manage your poker tournament but really shines in it's ability to host your own online poker tournament,  and in the ability to play tournaments against computer players and rank your hands and analyze your poker performance.

Visit the DD Poker website at

www.ddpoker.com

Poker Clock Reviews

All-in Organizer & Timer Button Timer DB Dealer Digital Dealer Button DD Poker Dr. Neau's Tournament Manager Electronic Dealer Button ESPN Texas Hold'em Timer Poker Ace PTD PokerTimer.com

PokerTimer.com Poker Tournament Manager The Clock The Poker Genie The Poker Planner The Tournament Director Ultimate Dealer Button Visage 300XT