No. Just no. One of the main reasons TTG made this game was for the CONVERSATIONS, not the poker. If you take the characters(Max, SB, Heavy, and Tycho) out, you are just left with poker, which you can easily play elsewhere or IRL.
Poker is the just the casual medium for you and these characters to get together. It's not supposed to be 'compete with friends' poker as there are plenty of places on the web for that.
Complaining that the game is single-player is like complaining that a chatbot isn't a real person. If you want to talk to or play poker with real people, no one's stopping you. The appeal of the game is that you're playing with these cool fictional characters.
A large part of the point of this game is seeing these disparate characters interacting with each other in a relaxed way, and having fun with the results. If you want to play poker with your friends, you can always, you know, play some poker with your friends!
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In other words, what thesporkman said.