Texas Hold'em

Apple has quietly killed off Texas Hold'em, the first and only iOS game the company ever offered.

As spotted by MacRumors this morning, the game is no longer available on the App Store, giving users an error message if they try to click through to its product page.

An Apple spokesman confirmed that the company is no longer selling the app, but declined to elaborate.

The $4.99 card game, which continued the card-playing franchise from the clickwheel iPod era, went on sale just weeks after the launch of the original App Store. Apple pitched it as an example … Read more

The Kindle as portable gaming platform? Seems like a misprint, but the number of Kindle games is growing, with a new one, Next, released today, and eight total in the Kindle Store.

The latest include Sudoku, Texas Hold'em Poker, and Panda Poet, a new word game in which words you form turn into pandas and the goal is "grow the biggest panda possible."

Due to the rudimentary nature of e-ink, none of these games are terribly sophisticated, but they're all big hits with Kindle users and some claim they are very addicting. A few games are … Read more

With a continuous stream of cable TV Poker events, online Poker sites, and endless videos, books, and Web sites devoted to Poker strategy, it is no secret that Poker is incredibly popular all over the world. This week, I'm taking a look at Poker games for the iPhone. But instead of covering three similar games, I decided to give you some options for getting your poker fix, with three very different styles of Poker.

I should warn you in advance, only one of these games is free (with an optional paid version), but the other two are pretty affordable … Read more

If inventors of high-tech gaming tables would only apply their formidable skills in other areas, the world would surely be a better place. Recently there have been some ingenious creations to automate parlor games, whether they deal cards or shuffle mahjong tiles.

Now there's a fully digital poker table that makes the deck of cards (as well as their dealers) obsolete. The "X10 Ten Player Automated Table" can accommodate up to 10 players in the tournament staple of Texas Hold 'Em, each with his or her own 12-inch touch screen and a 27-inch LCD in the center … Read more

Just days after the lazy host's cooler made itself known, the perfect companion for it has surfaced for indoor recreation. Actually, make that the "iDeal" companion.

That's the trite i-moniker of this robotic poker dealer found on Coolest-Gadgets and the WPC888.com poker site, the most Crave-worthy piece of card-playing equipment we've seen since the "Tech Shuffler." Truth be told, it's not just something borne only from chronic indolence: Among strangers the iDeal would presumably assuage concerns of dealing from the bottom of the deck; and among friends, it would come in … Read more

The poker boom has given rise to a variety of related gadgetry, ranging from poker-chip flash drives to wireless on-screen games. But there's a staple of the card table that's been surprisingly ignored: the automatic shuffler.

Shuffle Tech is trying to capitalize on this egregious oversight with a state-of-the-art version that promises to speed the whole process so you can lose your money as fast as possible. It has two options, one with three riffles (45 seconds) and the other with seven (90 seconds), which is certainly faster than most poker buddies are capable of, especially after several … Read more

We're all about poker here at Crave, and we could go on obnoxiously about how we've been stacking chips years before today's bandwagon jumpers knew the difference between a bluff and a blind. That's why we're none too pleased by products like the "Wireless Multi-Player Poker Game"--not only because it degrades the hallowed traditions of Texas Hold 'Em ("the game of champions"), but it's just ridiculously unnecessary.

So far as we can tell, this basically replaces a perfectly good deck of cards with six handheld controllers that wirelessly transmit … Read more

While companies are making use of LED technology in such products as lamps and watches, it's good to see that some people are applying it to something that really counts: games.

Techie Diva reports that designer/inventor/technologist Moritz Waldemeyer has used LED lights and touchpads to transform ordinary tables into interactive game platforms that are on display at London's Rabih Hage Gallery: "The white table transforms itself into a ping-pong machine at the flick of a switch, while the roulette table (pictured) shows an illuminated map." We hope he'll turn his attention next to … Read more