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With your back pay burning a hole in your jeans, you ride into Tucson and tie up outside Molly's Salloon. Inside, you see Matt Dillon, Black Jake, the mayor, Billy the Kid, Joshua Smith and Doc Holliday playing poker.

Dropping your $1,000 on the table, you draw up a chair.

The rules are simple. You have five cards and you see or raise until raising stops, discard and draw up to three cards, then see or raise until the showdown. Molly offers advice when asked and the instructions and prompts are enough to teach you the rudiments if you didn't know how to play.

Your companions cuss and shoot a lot - good poker players but bad losers.

The display is excellent, with each player's remaining money and bets shown, and facility to speed up or slow play.

It's some years since I last played poker but, if the betting level is five and I raise ten, shouldn't I have to put five plus ten into the pot, not just ten.

This aside, I had fun for a while and losing doesn't hurt your pocket. It's a change from zapping.

D.C.