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Let’em Ride PRO

by Eric March on January 26, 2009 at 12:27 pm

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App Name:	Let’em Ride PRO
Developer:	Avalinx LLC	Version:	1.0
Publisher:	Avalinx LLC	Size:	6.0 MB
Category:	Casino Games	Price:	$4.99

I’m ashamed to say that I’m a little too long in getting to this one. Brad Dunnington sent this to me almost two weeks ago and I promised to get to it in a few days. Does 15 days still count as a “few?” I dunno, but in my defense, readers of Flog! (both of you) may have noticed that the last couple of weeks have been a little bit crazy for me for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless I aim to rectify that now with an apology to Brad and a nice round review of Avalinx’s latest professional card game, Let’em Ride PRO.

Long-time Frapstr readers may recall my review of the sponsored version of Avalinx’s 21 Pro: Blackjack in the last issue of Frapstr when it was still on Touch Podium — and by virtue of that issue’s migration when this site opened, its cross-posting here. It was one of the most solid and feature-rich blackjack games around. Avalinx have taken that same formula and applied it to their latest release, Let’em Ride PRO.

This particular poker variant is based on standard 5-Card Stud rules, with the primary difference being that your only opponent is lady luck herself. The object of Let ‘em Ride is to bet on what kind of hand you can build in a single 5-card deal with no discards and two blind cards. If that sounds like pure slot machine luck, you’re right; the control you’re allowed to exert is in the betting, though, not the cards.

Let ‘em Ride takes place in three stages, and you must place a bet for all three stages up front, so keep in mind that whatever you pick will be tripled and added to the pot Chip values can be tapped on multiple times to add increasing amounts of that chip. One you’ve placed the bet, you’re into phase one and are dealt three cards face up in front of you, followed by one to the discard pile and two face down to the dealer. Now you have to evaluate what kind of hand you have so far, and what the odds are that the remaining two can be helpful. If you aren’t very confident, you can “pull down” one-third of your initial bet and go on to the next phase with a smaller pot. Otherwise, you can “ride on” with the pot as it stands.

The second phase reveals one of the two blind cards and gives you a better guess as to what sort of hand you can build, again with the options to pull down another third of your initial bet or ride on. Finally, the third phase reveals the last card and your hand is evaluated and scored as a normal poker hand.

As with 21 Pro, Let’em Ride PRO features pretty much the same graphics and style, which is to say clean, professional, and the next best thing to losing your shirt at a real Vegas casino. A full tutorial and help menu is available in-game, and the same “Ask the Dealer” option shows up here too, which can offer suggestions on what it thinks your next move should be. To add to the feeling of real casino action, you can also switch between three different tables of increasingly higher stakes at any time, each with higher minimum and maximum bets.

The bottom line here really is that if you liked 21 Pro: Blackjack, you won’t be disappointed by Let’em Ride PRO. All of the same quality and attention from the former is still here in the latter, albeit in a different game, so there’s nothing here to disappoint. It mainly just comes down to a question of whether you enjoy a good game of Let ‘em Ride. I happen to think that despite — or maybe because of the high element of chance here, it gets pretty addictive, especially when you start in on the high stakes tables. Check out the full gallery below.