Poker. The word conjures up images of the Old West, of men wearing Colt revolvers on their hips sitting around a table and glaring at each other, cards in hands. Or perhaps for you poker means Friday nights with your friends, sharing beers and jokes while secretly trying to figure out what cards everyone else is holding. Perhaps you’ve dreamed of playing against the pros, pitting your skills and luck against theirs for stakes thousands of dollars high.

Dream no more. Poker Superstars II lets you take a seat at the table with 15 of the world’s best poker players for a game of no-limit Texas Hold’em. You can play against just five of them in a single round, or go against all 15 in a multiple-round tournament. Think you have what it takes? Then read on.

The game’s graphics are adequate but not fancy. Each Superstar is represented by a photo that changes according to what the player is doing: looking their cards over, placing a bet, or winning a hand. The feature that allows you to import your own photo to represent you at the table is a nice touch. Other than that, the graphics give the game a casino feel without getting in the way.

Two nice features: control of play speed and game save. The default speed of the game--betting, dealing hands, etc.--is a little fast at first. You’ll want to slow things down until you get a feel for the game. For those who want to play through a season tournament, but not all at once, you can quit the game at any point and resume right where you left off later.

The "How to Play" help file is nice, but always came up as a separate window behind the main game window. I had to minimize the game window before I could read the Help file.

The game ran smoothly on both my 1.8 GHz iMac G5 and my wife’s 2.0 GHz MacBook.

For just twenty bucks, this game delivers. The AI is good but not impossible. I didn’t see any obvious “cheating” by the computer players, and the randomness of the draw means you’ll have a different game every time you play. You can get the thrill of playing poker against smart opponents without having to bet a single dollar of real money.