There's nothing like a little stomach-churning, sweaty-hands poker to remind you why Texas Hold 'em is so popular.

You'd think that some of the stress and excitement of poker would be leached away when the clay chips and the people fiddling with them are all digital, but World Poker Tour manages to maintain the thrill despite the lack of real world consequences.

The Playstation Portable version of World Poker Tour is broken into two types of play: offline and online.

In the single player, offline mode, you can play through a WPT season or sit down for a pick-up game.

If you elect to forgo the season for some instant action, you can whip up your own game selecting where you play, the limits, buy-in, number of players, skill level and even the type of game you'll be betting over. (The games include a disorienting collection of eclectic card play with names like Crazy Pineapple and Billabong, mixed in with standards such as Texas Hold 'em, Five Card Draw and Seven Card Stud.)

This ability to craft the exact sort of game goes a long way toward making World Poker Tour a lasting and enjoyable title.

For more regulated gameplay, WPT offers a full season in which you battle your way from Satellite Game to Super Satellite Game to Tournament Finale. The game includes a number of different tournaments broken down into different levels, and each can support up to 1,000 players.

If you manage to do well in the season events, the game also has 20 invitationals that pit you against the best in the World Poker Tour.

Unfortunately, the game makes enough missteps to undercut its successes.

The graphics, while detailed, don't lend nearly enough animation to your opponents. Worse still, the voice acting and recordings from some of the WPT's stars come across as stilted and are so repetitious that they begin to grate on your nerves.

I also noticed that the game would occasionally seem to hang-up, taking an inordinate amount of time for the game to progress to a new hand. This seemed to happen most often when a competitor was entering or leaving the table.

World Poker Tour features graphics that, while detailed, don't lend nearly enough animation to opponents. Worse, the voice acting seems stilted.

While the look and sound of a video game is important, in poker, that's really just a veneer. What matters most is the intellect behind the game.

With hundreds of different computer-controlled players, each with their own playing style, it's hard to judge the game's artificial intelligence.

Players who initially seemed too willing to get bluffed out of a pot often return with a vengeance to maneuver you right off the table. That being said, with enough time, it's easy to figure out the faked foibles of each character and mercilessly exploit them.

Fortunately, the game also has a very robust online mode.

In online mode, you play against all real people from around the world, including ones who are logged in through their Playstation 2, a very neat touch.

While I love playing against real players, the inability to interact with the other people in your game, through voice or text chat, knocks the legs out from under the experience. You can still bluff and fake people out of their chips, but the dynamic changes when you don't have to worry about tells, yours or theirs.

World Poker Tour is a mere $20 if you buy it for your Playstation 2, Xbox or GameBoy Advance, a price that makes this game well worth picking up. But for some reason, this PSP version of the game lists for twice the price. It's a fun game, but technical glitches and lack of online interactivity make it a tough buy for that price.

World Poker Tour

• Platform: PSP (Also available on the Xbox, PS2 and GBA)

• Grade: C-

• Rating: Teen

• What we liked: Online play is addictive and lets you take on PS2 gamers as well; ability to earn your way into invite-only tournaments.

• What we didn't like: Lack of voice chat in online play; repetitive phrases by both players and commentators; odd graphic hang-ups.