November 23, 2004 - If Mason Malmuth or any of the other preeminent modern gambling authorities could spend 100 years milling about card rooms the world over, they still would not be able to compile a list of plays as ridiculous and hilarious as those found spread throughout just one hour of High Rollers Casino. If you're looking for a casino compilation program that's guaranteed to kill more brain cells than huffing an entire can of industrial strength keyboard cleaner, pick this baby up because it's a damn spectacle.

Want to open a one-to-one craps table where the house pulls a massive advantage and you're limited to two comes? How does spinning a double zero roulette wheel and placing bets on something stupid like 17 sound? Not very good, huh? Well then why don't you just enjoy a variety of other pointless games that offer a seasoned gambler no incentive to invest time in? Maybe you're a novice and would instead like to read through a lot of generic tutorial text that offers exactly zero insight into anything! Yes, High Rollers Casino is a beautiful bastard of a game capable of leaving any man, woman, or child unsatisfied in a variety of new and exciting ways.

It all begins by building a freakish character out of an odd combination of preppy clothing and mentally handicapped faces to the tune of an obvious Texas Radio and the Big Beat knock off. Once you begin playing, it gets even more surreal. Anyway, I'm pretty sure razz players aren't the kinds of cheery fellows who wear pastel polo shirts while belting out cute little phrases, "Like a hydraulic, I raise!"

I know razz players. They're the depressed beyond all salvation bastards that travel in a gaseous state within protective plumes of rank cigar smoke. In any unrespectable card room that offers the horrid variation of low ball known as razz, you can find these bitter old zombies that frequent that wretched game tucked deep under the cloud of Mordor toward the back (it's just past the Gorgoroth Buffet). It takes a special kind of insane to become a dedicated razz player. Most are actually stamped lunatics, but at least relatively few are certifiable idiots. In High Rollers Casino, everyone's an idiot!

Not Slick Enough

In some way this lack of intelligence could be seen as realistic, provided The Mirage suddenly let South American Lemurs nest in its casino and play the occasional game of Omaha. Only when inept primates are recorded checking to eventually call at the river with quads will I believe that High Rollers has delivered on the authenticity. And yes, one of the computer opponents did this quad check and call tactic to me without a single raise. I laughed for twenty minutes. I do honestly believe High Rollers' Omaha is more horrifying than watching a train loaded with moose wreck into an enormous wood chipper.

In fact, playing any of the poker games here is worse than participating in some lovely 2 - 4 clueless at any casino that still serves Neanderthals. I can make a good argument that there's still money to be made in a game as awful as that, but frankly, it's not fun money -- at least it's not the kind of game you'd want to play in your free time for nothing in return. 2 - 4 is pretty much a game of fearless anteing. Just add up a capped bet on every round and ante in the total to see the river. It's the High Roller way! Every single poker game offered in this compilation is an exercise in cumulative anteing. It makes me nauseous.

Go ahead, Roberta, call me down with pocket sixes in a 25-50 limit game when four people are playing to you and the board reads three, ace, jack, ten, and nine. There are only four over cards and a two-way straight draw; your pocket sixes are still good, sweetheart. And, even though every person at the table is raising and re-raising like mad, you should just keep right on calling. Ante up, moron. And so she does.

In four-handed Omaha I was often called down by some pretty amazing losers with no draws. In one hand my playable two of interest were suited ace - rag of spade because the flop came two of spades, jack of diamonds, and queen of spades. This is Omaha and it's not high-low. In a four-handed game, low hands are now fighting multiple open-ended straight draws, winning pairs, and my nut flush draw. The turn showed a six of spades. I made the nut flush and kept betting as the computer kept blindly calling. If the river didn't pair the board, I'd win. The river was a blank.