O-Poker

First the bad:

FTP added ring game filters as a step in the process of adding filters for cash games. This sounded good until I opened the FTP software and went to the cash game lobby. The update moved all deep stack cash game tables to the bottom of the 100BB max buy-in. They were previously mixed in with the 100BB tables and the group of table was sorted by number of available seats/number of people on waiting list. The best thing about the deep tables is the min buy-in is 50BB vs. 20BB for the 100BB tables. You don't have to worry about playing against a table full of short stackers.

I encourage everyone to email FTP and let them know that you don't like this change and to please inter-mix the 100bb and 200bb tables.


Below is a lit of updates from the 2+2 FTP Answers 4/28 thread:

A. Blinds + Antes games - No Limit Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha with antes! Limited to higher stakes only for now, but it should work down to the lower limits in the coming weeks. - This could be awesome. I'll post more about this once they add them to the lower limits.

B. Ring Game Lobby Icons - No, it's not ring game filters. It is, however, a step closer to that goal (some of the plumbing that is needed for filters is now done because of this feature). For now, you can sort by ring game type better than you could before. For example, Deep tables used to be mixed in with normal tables, and now if you sort by "Type" they are separated. - Good idea. Bad implementation. (see above)

C. Synchronized Breaks - Basically, every multi table tournament in the game will now start going on break at :55 past every hour. The tournament clock will stop, the current hand will finish, and then the 5 minute break will start. This means that the actual restart of all tournaments will be slightly staggered (since the tournament with more players take longer to finish that final hand before the break than the tournaments with fewer players) but most people will have a good 5 minute break now no matter how many multi-table tournaments they're playing. - AWESOME!!! AWESOME!!! AWESOME!!!

You can find more details here: http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/synchronized-breaks

As a side note (since I know it will come up), when I asked the developers what it would take to implement this feature after seeing all the requests and threads about it, I was surprised to learn that it was a pretty easy thing for our system. It took one server programmer to fully implement, and he is in no way associated with either ring game filters or security features.

D. Improved Network Communication - Even though this isn't a "feature" that you can see when you log in, this is probably the thing that will make the biggest difference in everyone's day to day playing experience. Basically, the way the game client communicates with the server has been completely re-written. It's easiest to notice the difference when you flip back and forth between, say, the Hold'em and Omaha lobbies or when you open a very large tournament like the Double Deuce. What used to take an annoyingly long time is now much faster. The worse your internet connection is, the more of a difference you'll notice. - Jury out....but anything to reduce the lag is great!!!

This was a very large project and has been a long time coming (I could do the way-back-machine thing again and show you where I was talking about it, but that'd just be embarrassing). I hope anyone who has experienced any kind of "network lag" when it didn't seem like it was their connection gives it another go to see how it behaves now.

E. Anti-Ratholing in Limit Games - The same check we've always had for NL games is now being applied to limit games. If you leave a game with more than the minimum buyin, you can't re-join the game with less than that amount within 30 minutes (or 30 hands, whichever comes sooner). - Very good news