(Yes, "Champion?" with a question mark.)
The world seems on the verge of social change as the scientific community announces it is on the brink of perfecting a test to identify real psychic ability. You, however, are mostly concerned about cold, hard cash you can earn as you achieve your childhood dream of World Poker Champion. You know that you can achieve that dream, because you're a real psychic, gifted with clairvoyance. For you, winning Poker is the easy part.
The hard part is not getting caught.
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Poker Champion? is not a Poker game, although it has Poker in it. The focus of the game is not winning or losing individual games, but on playing in the most convincingly "I'm not cheating, honest!" way possible. Over the course of several in-game years, the player must try to have a successful Poker Champion career with the greatest winnings and net worth possible, while still retiring before the world can learn that you're a psychic, and a dirty cheater to boot.
When in a poker match, the player can see his own hand, all his opponent's hands, and the top ten cards of the deck, making it easy to know when to fold and call, and which cards to throw away. Winning individual hands and games is no longer difficult. The challenge is playing naturally with access to this extra information, while still exploiting it to make as much money as possible. It's the overall ratio of wins to losses, the types of hands the player constructs (are you getting too many four-of-a-kinds?), and how organically the game plays out that determines whether people get suspicious or not. Starting in local beginner leagues, it's easy to get away with a lot, but as you ascend to higher leagues and time passes, you have to be more careful, so you don't arouse suspicion.
Eventually, the game will have to end, as scientists perfect a test for psychic ability and most competitive sports and games make testing mandatory. Over the years, the topic of clairvoyance becomes more popular, other famous celebrities "come out" as psychics, and so forth. The player has the ability to read the latest headlines between games, to get a feel for when the best time to retire would be. Failing to retire before getting tested and outed as a psychic means hefty fines and jail time, and causes the game to end.
In between games and tournaments, you can do things like do interviews, schedule which tournaments you'll attend, and read the latest news. Creating good PR for yourself can make you more popular and get you more money and sponsorship deals, but also puts you in the spotlight, which can shorten how long your career can safely continue. You have to balance money-making opportunities carefully.
After retiring or getting caught, your career statistics are recorded in a high score table, for other players to try and beat.
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This game follows my recent design philosophy about it not being whether you win or lose, but how you play that's important. I wish more games tracked how players did things, rather than mere success or failure. I want losing to be OK sometimes, and I want the definition of success to be different on small and large scales!