# Game Options

The options are accessible from the Options Menu, and are described below.

- Advanced Actions
  If Advanced Actions is checked, then a panel will appear on the game screen where your action buttons normally appear to allow you to pre-select an action before it is your turn to act. If you pre-select an action which no longer makes sense after another player has subsequently acted, then your advanced action is automatically cleared. Advanced actions are particularily useful to speed up game play when playing Poker Academy Online.

- Auto Deal
  Auto Dealing will automatically press the Deal Hand button for you after each hand. The delay between deals can be set in the Throttle settings. Auto Dealing can be used during ring game or tournament games but does not do anything during online play or during Hand Playback.

- Freeze Button
  Selecting this option so that there is a "check mark" in the menu will force the button to stay in its current position during ring game play for as long as you have the button frozen. This option is useful if you want to practice playing a specific position. This option is ignored during tournament and online games as well as during Hand Playback. When the button is actually frozen, a lock will be shown on the button when you see it on the table.

- Four Color Deck
  The four color deck makes different suits easier to spot. Diamonds are blue and clubs are green.

- Muck Losing Hands
  Players will automatically fold their hands at the showdown if they are beat. If this option is off players will always reveal their hands at the showdown.

- Peeking
  Peeking allows you to click on a player's cards to see them. If you don't want to be tempted, or accidentally click and see the cards, then use this option to turn peeking off. This option does nothing when you are in an online game or when you are in Hand Playback.

- Play Face-Down
  In live casino play, you need to keep your cards face down, and remember what you hand was throughout the hand. You can play this way (and click on your cards to peek) in order to practice for live games. This option does nothing when you are in an online game or when you are in Hand Playback.

- Play All Face-Up
  All cards will be shown face up. You will be able to watch how the opponents play their hands. This is an excellent mode for novice players to learn the game. This option does nothing when you are in an online game or when you are in Hand Playback.

- Hide Names
  This option when selected will replace each computer opponent's name on their seat and in the Sidebar Transcript with a generic name, of the form "Seat x", where x is their seat number. It is important to note that this option does not mask each player's real name when keeping statistics and when logging the actual hands played in the Hand History Database. This option is useful when you want to practice how to quickly classify an opponent based on their betting tendencies and get feedback on your improvement. For example, you can start a table with known opponents, then hide their names using this option and then shuffle the seats. You can then play at the table for a while and try to figure out which opponent is which based solely on how they play. Once you have a guess of which player is which, you can flip this option off and see how accurate your guesses were.

- Advice
  Poker Academy will display advice in the Sidebar to suggest which actions it feels are appropriate to take every time you need to act. This option allows you to choose between having this advice hidden or visible. In addition, there are certain situations in Poker Academy that trigger warnings when you make certain actions in those situations. When this happens, Poker Academy will warn you by displaying a warning overlay over the poker table. When these overlays appear, you are able to tell them to not display again in the future. This option allows you to re-enable all warnings associated with each of the fold, call, and bet actions.

- Background Image
  Allows you to choose your preferred table color, carpets, and chairs.

- Animation and Sound
  Turn the various animations and sound effects on or off. Additionally, there is a drop down item that allows you to select which sound engine you want to use to play game sounds. Sound engines seem to perform differently for different people, so this option gives them the choice to experiment with alternative sound engines.

- Throttles
  Throttles control the speed of the game. If you find the game moves too slowly or too quickly for your taste you can adjust the throttles to move the game at your desired speed.

- Hot Keys
  Allows you to customize the hot keys assigned to various game actions. The defaults are 'f' to fold, 'c' to check or call, 'r' to bet or raise, 'd' to deal, 'z' to go into Zip Mode, and 'enter' to automatically take you from the poker table to the chat box for chatting in online play.

- Window Options
  Allows you to decide how you want the Poker Academy window to be displayed. You can choose between playing Poker Academy in Compact Mode or in Regular Mode. In addition, you can choose between available color schemes. It is important to note that these options require Poker Academy to be restarted in order for them to take effect.