Poker Smash shares more in common with the DS's
Planet Puzzle League than it does other color-matching puzzle games. Rows of blocks scroll in from the bottom of the screen and it is your job to make sure they don't reach the top. The basic idea is to clear the playfield by matching three or more like-colored blocks, though you can also try and match poker hands like Full Houses and Three-of-a-Kinds, which are matched by the card type each block represents. In other words, if a series of blocks create a Flush, they are still destroyed regardless of whether or not the colors of the blocks match. You can also set bombs that destroy single blocks and open up gaps or help you move columns of blocks into place.
Since matches can seemingly happen at any time, the game's pacing is much quicker than other puzzle games. This also makes combos more common, which are a sizeable component of the gameplay. With enough foresight and planning, combos can quickly grow into long combo chains; sometimes going as long as 50 or more block clears in one chain. While most players will likely never see these long chains, even the smallest of combos come with some sort of celebratory fireworks and poker chips, which can later be spent on new items like themes in the store.
This style of play carries through to all of Poker Smash's play modes with minor variations. Action is something of an endurance mode where you continue through levels with a row scroll that gets progressively faster, while Practice lets you continue with an endless game and Time Attack gives you a few minutes to create as many combos as possible. Multiplayer games feature two players and an added goal of being the guy with the most money. All are enjoyable modes, though like most Arcade games, the multiplayer community still hasn't developed, so online games can sometimes be hard to come by.
