PokerStars (+FTP) software improvements thread...

[MC]

We will be releasing a client update over the next few days. This update contains some very exciting features!

Easy Seat (Beta)
Easy Seat transforms the experience of starting your multi-tabling session. Once you set up your Easy Seat preferences you will be able to launch your sessions with just a single click from the main lobby! Taking seats has never been this easy.

Once started, Easy Seat will automatically look for free seats at tables that match your criteria. If there aren’t enough free seats Easy Seat will add you to suitable waiting lists. For example, if you specify that you want to play 18 tables of $1/$2 No Limit Hold’em at fast tables, the Easy Seat system will seat you at 18 tables as fast as possible. Here is a screenshot of the lobby control which is located in the bottom right of the list of ring games.

Easy Seat can also help maintain your desired number of tables. If you enable “Session Mode”, when tables close Easy Seat will open new ones to keep you at your desired number.

Easy Seat will initially be in a Beta stage and not shown by default in the main ring game lobby. To test out Easy Seat, please go to ‘Options’ > ‘Lobby Display Options’ and select ‘Show Easy Seat (Beta)’. For best results you should enable Auto-Buyin to make the process as seamless as possible.

If you have any feedback about this new feature, please email us at beta@pokerstars.com.

Timed Tournaments
Timed tournaments are perfect when you want to play a tournament but only have a limited amount of time. Timed tournaments end after a pre-defined period. Once the time limit is reached, surviving players are paid out based wholly or partially on chip counts. Currently we are testing various configuration options at low stakes but we will be rolling out more timed tournaments after WCOOP.

New “PokerStars Nova” Table Themes
The new table themes that some players have already tested will be released to all players with this update. These themes include a new table design, and features that many players asked for, such as North/South seating, bigger fonts, more distinguishable cards of opponents etc. To use one of the new themes simply go to ‘View’ > ‘Table Themes’ and pick one of the Nova themes. These new themes are still in Beta stage, so please email feedback to beta@pokerstars.com. Below is a screenshot with slight modifications from what the testing players experienced:

4-Max Final Table
4-Max tournaments will now go to the final table at 5 players. This means that you will be playing 5-handed in a ‘4-Max’ tournament but this avoids the uneven situation of one table having to play heads-up while the other is 3-handed.

Show Full Hole Cards
If you enable this option (under 'Options' > 'Table Display Options') you will see the whole of both hole cards. Many players suggest that this makes it easier to read your hand.

Show Large Opponent Cards
If you enable this option (under 'Options' > 'Table Display Options') the size of your opponents’ hole cards is increased. Many players suggest that this makes it easier to quickly see who is left in a hand.

Fold and Show/Show One Card
Players will now be given the ability to Fold and Show (rather than just fold) when last to act. Players will also be able to only show some of their cards rather than having to choose between showing all or none. You choose which card(s) you want to show by clicking on them.

Fold and Show does not work in draw games. As before, general preferences for whether to ever show are controlled in the ‘Showing / Mucking Hands’ section of the Options menu.

Ring Game Lobby Improvements
We have made improvements to the ring game lobby. There will be a new ‘Type’ column that will show game speed and buy-in structure, and an icon for table size. The table column will now only have the table name.

Animation Improvements
We have made improvements to some of the table animations in the client so they are smoother. This is part of a large project that will gradually improve animations in the client even more.

As always we have also made a number of other minor fixes / improvements to the client and server. These include changing tournament filters to reflect total buyin including knockouts and rake (rather than just buyin as previously).

A big thanks to all players from the community who were involved in the testing of the new table themes or Easy Seat over the last month. Your feedback has been very valuable!

Note: The above changes would only take effect once your gaming client has been updated, which could happen at different times for different players. Please ensure you are running PokerStarsUpdate.exe to get the update.

[titaniumbean]

Fold and show 1. zomg


STARS 

[millidonk]

showing one card ftmfw

[MC]

We will be releasing a client update over the next few days. Here is the list of the most important features added:

Hotkeys (Beta)

We will be releasing a Beta version of hotkeys in this build (Windows clients only). This feature has been tested by a small group of players on TestPokerStars over the past month and we are opening the feature to a wider audience for testing and more feedback.

In a nutshell, the feature allows you to configure keyboard/mouse shortcuts for various game actions. You can configure your PokerStars hotkeys by going to "Options" > "Hotkey Settings".

Hotkey actions include: Fold, Check, Bet / Raise, Set Bet amount to X% / BB / All in (with the option whether to bet or just set the bet amount), Activate next / previous table and some others.

You can also control which table would receive the hotkey -- the one that is active or the one that is under the mouse pointer. You can even specify a custom color for a table border that highlights the table to receive the hotkey!

We are very much interested in feedback about this new feature, so please email us yours at beta@pokerstars.com.

Easy Seat (Beta)

We have made a number of minor improvements to Easy Seat based on the results of the wider testing. The two most noticeable bugs we fixed were Easy Seat attempting to seat players despite them being at table cap and  adding players to over-long waitlists.

Easy Seat will remain in Beta for this month to be sure that we have worked all the issues out.  If you would like to test out Easy Seat, please go to "Options" > "Lobby Display Options" and select "Show Easy Seat (Beta)". For best results you should enable Auto-Buyin to make the process as seamless as possible.

If you have any feedback about this new feature, please email us at beta@pokerstars.com. You can find more information about Easy Seat here.

Time Tournaments

We are making some final adjustments to the messaging associated with Time Tournaments and are planning to deploy a wider offering this month. Stay tuned for more updates!

Improved Table Animation (Beta)

We continue to work on improvements to the table animation to make the playing experience as nice as possible for our players. This build we are tweaking the “Full (Beta)” animation settings. We have made the animation smoother and have slowed it down a bit. Players on the default "Simplified" animation setting will not experience any changes.

If you want to try out the new animation simply go to “Options” > “Table Display Options” > “Animation” and select “Full (Beta)”. Any feedback on the Beta animation can be sent to beta@pokerstars.com.


As always, we have also made a number of other minor fixes / improvements to the client and server. These include highlighting the Notes tab after assigning a label, fixing a bug with the always apply labels option when detached chat is active, and a bug in the Hand Replayer where the flop was disappearing for Nova Theme Users.

Note: The above changes would only take effect once your gaming client has been updated, which could happen at different times for different players. Please ensure you are running PokerStarsUpdate.exe to get the update.

[MC]

Hi,

Over the last few hours, PokerStars has deployed new functionality to improve the security of your PokerStars account if you have a PokerStars PIN or RSA Security Token active on your account for many players.  

In many countries you can now register a mobile telephone to receive SMS/text messages as follows:

1) Log into PokerStars client

2) Click on 'Account' menu

3) Click on Enter SMS Validation code

4) Provide your telephone numbers as described in the dialog box

5) Input the validation code that is sent to your mobile telephone

After you have validated a mobile telephone to receive SMS/text messages, if you request a reset of your PokerStars PIN, it will be delivered to you via text messaging.  We believe that this will be a valuable upgrade to account security of the PokerStars PIN as a hacker with access to your email account will not be able to reset the PokerStars PIN by having it sent to you via email.

In addition, if you have a validated mobile phone, PokerStars will also send One Time Passwords for the RSA Security Token to you via text messaging.  This will make the paper sheet with the One Time Passwords redundant.

We've only launched this over the last few hours, and recognise that there are a few user interface issues that need adjustment.  As a result, we would welcome any feedback that you have - feel free to send me a PM, post here, or email support@pokerstars.com.

Sincerely,

Michael J
PokerStars Game Security Team

[MC]

We will have a client release over the next few days that will introduce several new client features and some fixes. A lot of effort this past month went in preparing a Danish PokerStars client and we are very pleased that PokerStars is now licensed in Denmark. PokerStars. is live and it has international liquidity, so Danish players will still be playing with the rest of the Isle of Man license players.

Here are the most interesting features released with this update:

Flighted Tournaments (Beta)

We have developed the ability to run Flighted Tournaments. These tournaments allow players to play the first levels of a large tournament at different times and then join together for the later stages. This is like certain larger live events where there is Day 1A and 1B both sending survivors to Day 2. Initially we will be rolling these out quite slowly to ensure everything works as expected and will expand the offering further during the year. Stay tuned for more news about promotions related to Flighted Tournaments!

Alternative Way to Mark Player to Act without Blinking

We will be releasing an alternate way of marking the active player – it will use a highlight effect rather than blinking. You can enable this setting via “Options” > “Table Display Options” > “Highlight Active Player (Beta)”. Any feedback about the feature will be greatly appreciated!

Improving Fonts on Tables

We have been working on improving the readability of the fonts on tables at smaller sizes. This feature is not going to be released with this build, but we will be looking to ask players to test in January the new fonts before we roll out the changes to all players, ideally in early February. Here is a screenshot from our current test environment for a table at min-size:

Other Changes

• The logic when assigning a label to a note has been reverted to not switch to the Notes tab. We have added an option in “Options” > “Player Notes” to switch to the Notes tab for those who prefer current behaviour.
• The “No Limit/Pot Limit” sub-tab under the “Hold’em” client lobby tab will be split into separate “No Limit” and “Pot Limit” tabs. This will make it easier to join the games you actually want and not the wrong kind by mistake.
• We have made the following improvements to chat bubbles based on player feedback:

• Bubbles will be automatically sized based on text length.
• You can disable your own chat bubbles from the menu that drops from your chat bubble.
• Left-clicking a chat bubble instantly hides that particular chat bubble instance.

• The word “Game” will be changed to the word “Hand” in hand histories.

As always, we have made further minor fixes/improvements to the client and server. These include fixing a bug in the Hand Replayer where the flop was disappearing for Nova Theme Users.

Note: The above changes would only take effect once your gaming client has been updated, which could happen at different times for different players. Please ensure you are running PokerStarsUpdate.exe to get the update.

[Longy]

Any UK input on this???

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=30887835&postcount=724

xperu is a brit now living in peru i believe.

[Sack it off]

I can't find any threads on 2p2 or anywhere about this however..

I struggled to get Stars hotkeys to work, it tended to not respond to a new table popping up.

To overcome this you disable the "Don't steal focus from chat and notes" under the Advanced-MultiTable Options

[Ironside]

just seen someone flash a card when they were last to fold i have never been offered this option not that i would use it often but do i need to click on something to enable this?

[MC]

We will have a client release over the next few days. A lot of our recent effort has gone in to work on the clients for our upcoming new licenses. However, there are still several features we think will be interesting to the players here.

Final Table Themes
We have created final table versions for all of our themes. We wanted to give the feel of this being a final table without over-powering or completely changing the look of your chosen theme. The final table background adds spotlight effects to the background and to the table itself.

In addition to giving you the feeling of achieving something special, these will let you know which tables require that little bit of extra attention.



We will be slowly rolling out final table themes over the upcoming weeks. Eventually, all tournaments will have them and all larger Sit & Go’s. If you don’t like the final table themes, they can be turned off under ‘Options’ > ‘Table Display Options’ > ‘Show Final Table Background’.

Dynamically Calculated Pay Tables
The prizes for each position in a scheduled tournament will now be dynamically updated as players register rather than waiting for registration to close. This means players will have a much better idea what the prizes for a tournament will be before they register.

Fast Moving Ring Games Product
Work continues on our fast moving ring games product. Dates and exact details of the public beta are still to be confirmed but it should be very soon. We have conducted successful private play tests, but there are still a few rough edges that need to be smoothed out before the product is ready for launch.

Minor Fixes & Improvements
As always, we have made further minor fixes/improvements to the client and server. This includes work on the bug with users’ coloured rings disappearing, issues with MAC hotkeys and some final tweaks to Flighted Tournaments.

Note: The above changes would only take effect once your gaming client has been updated, which could happen at different times for different players. Please ensure you are running PokerStarsUpdate.exe to get the update.

[Skippy]

I'm glad PokerStars agree with me that Full Tilt's software was better, even if nobody else does, going by the rate they are copying Full Tilt's old features.

[MC]

We will be releasing a client update over the next few days with some very exciting features.

ZOOM Poker

Most importantly, we will release ZOOM poker in beta for Real Money on .COM and other shared liquidity clients (.EU, ., .BE, etc.). ZOOM is our fast-paced ring game product that allows you to play many more hands per hour by constantly assigning players to new tables with new opponents as soon as they fold.

ZOOM is a very customizable product – players can pick among three different animation styles, can “Sit Out Next Big Blind”, and can even decide to fold a hand but still remain on the table and observe it by clicking Ctrl+Fold Button.

Please watch for the client news announcement once ZOOM is deployed!

MTT Lobby Changes (Beta)

We will also release an alternative layout for the main “Tourney” lobby in the client. The aim is to re-group the information and make it more user-friendly to navigate through the tournament listings. This alternative layout is off by default for now, but you can try it out by going to “Options” > “Lobby Display Options” > “Enable Alternative Tournament List Layout (Beta)”.

We will love to hear feedback from players who use the new tourney lobby. We are planning to make this the default once it is properly tested by players. You can post feedback here or email beta@pokerstars.com.

Better Fonts on Smaller Tables (Beta)

This build we are also releasing as Beta the option to use alternative, better fonts for tables at smaller sizes. To try the alternative fonts please enable them from “Options” > “Table Display Options” > “Larger Fonts on Small Tables (Beta)”.

Again, please do post your feedback here or email beta@pokerstars.com.

Pre-action Check Boxes Redesign

This is a small improvement to the design of the pre-action check boxes to make them stand out more. We will release for all themes except Nova, Black, Classic, and Slicks at the Beta stage. After enough testing we will roll out similar change to all other themes.

Omaha Tab Redesign
The main Omaha games tab will get slight redesign to allow players to find the games they want more easily. Play Money games will be split to their own tab, and there will be Real Money sub-tabs for stake levels (All, High, Medium, Low, Micro).

Animation

We will swap everyone who has never changed their animation settings to the new “Full” animation. It has been in Beta for several months and we believe it will provide a better experience for players using animation.

If for some reason you don’t like the new animation we have kept the option to go back to the previous mode by selecting “Simplified” from the main lobby, via “Options” > “Table Display Options” > “Animation”.


Events Tab Changes

We have also re-organized the Events tab slightly to allow some regional tours to be presented better to players.

As usual, there are many other small changes and bug fixes.

Note: The above changes would only take effect once your gaming client has been updated, which could happen at different times for different players. Please ensure you are running PokerStarsUpdate.exe to ensure you get the update delivered.

[Junior Senior]

Where can I uninstall doom switch?

[MC]

We will release a client update over the next few days. Besides some further ZOOM improvements released with this update, we are also introducing some exciting new features. More details below.

Easier and Richer Table Customization (Beta)

We are adding the ability to choose a different background and to change the felt color for each theme.  After the update, you can right-click on the respective area of the table and you will see a drop-down menu with a selection of background or felt choices. For example, you can play with Nova theme with a light-colored background, or play with Black theme and a red felt on a red carpet background.

Initially, all Nova, Black, Classic, and Slick themes will support this functionality, but we will expand it to all themes around mid-May. We also plan to add more functionality then, to make it even easier to get the table look and feel which are perfect for you.

We would love to hear your feedback about this feature once you have had a chance to try it out, especially about what backgrounds and what felt colors you would like to have offered.

Note: The drop-down menus to change felt or background will not show if you have disabled the option in the lobby 'View' > 'Right-click Table to Show Table Themes'. In this case, you can check that option, change your felt/background and disable it again if you want to keep it disabled.

Group Similar Ring Game Tables (Beta for Play Money)

We are working on making it easier to find and join games in the lobby. To this end, we will release a feature that groups all ring game tables of the same type together.

Clicking “Seat Me” will quickly place you at a table with an available seat from this group of tables, or by clicking the “+” icon you can expand each group to see the individual tables.

Initially, this feature will be deployed only for Hold’em and Omaha Play Money games, but the plan is to roll it out to all Ring Games. We will of course offer the option to keep the current view of games by not grouping them. To see the feature, simply go to the Hold’em or Omaha Play Money tabs after the client update.

Zoom

We have made a lot of improvements to Zoom this month based on player feedback. Some of the new changes released with this client are:

• “Fold and Watch” button inside the Fold button, making it easier to Fold and Watch a hand by just a single click of the mouse. This is optional and off by default. To enable this feature go to ‘Options’ > ‘ZOOM Options’ > ‘Display Fold and Watch’ from the lobby.

• “New Hand” button while watching.  After choosing to Fold and Watch there will now be a “New Hand” button so that you can jump straight back into action without having to wait for the hand to actually finish.
• Tweaks to back-end performance to improve the flow of the game, which might be more noticeable to players with a bit slower connections.

Auto-Refresh Info Tab

The “Info” tab on the tables will now automatically refresh after each hand. This has freed up some space so we are adding “X places paid” for tournaments. Please let us know what you will find most useful for both ring games and tournament to be added in this tab.

Hotkeys

We are introducing some further improvements to Hotkeys, including:

• Activate Next/Previous Table. The behaviour here is changing to closer match the feedback that we have received.
• ZOOM Fold and Watch hotkey is being introduced.

Auto-Buy-In and Rathole Restriction

We have added an option in the Auto-Buy-In dialog to allow players to auto-buy-in for the rathole restriction amount when applicable and not be prompted with the buy-in dialog. To activate this setting, simply check “Automatically return to table with same amount if required” in the Auto-Buy-In dialog (‘Options’ > ‘Auto-Buy-In (Ring Games)’).


As always we have a lot of minor tweaks and fixes to the client, among which is improved design to the pre-action check boxes and removing the green “Seat Open” design until we refine it more.

Note: The above changes would only take effect once your gaming client has been updated, which could happen at different times for different players. We plan to update Mac .COM client today and Windows .COM client tomorrow. Regional clients are also planned to be updated today or tomorrow(.EU client update was already released late last night). Please ensure you are running PokerStarsUpdate.exe to get the update.

[gogzee]

will there be any zoom touneys in the near future ?