With your permission... (From July 2005. Edit/MH.)

[Al P]

Keep in mind the suggestions everyone have made are nearly worthless if you don't advertise on TV.

[stigmata]

[ QUOTE ]
our team will not allow features/tools that could be abused. Nothing would scare the "fish" out of the area quicker than them realizing that a person was using a fish-finder to play the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't worry much about this. Very few players consider themselves a fish. I know for a fact that I have appeared on the buddy list of several (bad) players after sessions in which I ran bad and looked like a maniac. Good & bad players use the buddy list for good & bad reasons.

But having a "hide me from search" like Party is a good idea.


Finally:
Players are obviously your bottom line. By approaching this website, I think you must have realised that a successful card room survives from the balance of professional and recreational players. You need the multi-tabling TAGs to keep a broad selection of games running 24/7. You need the gamblers to attract the professionals. Some of Masons essays in the "Poker Essays" books are about running a successful card room, and are still relevant to online card rooms. They might be worth a browse if you havent already.

As long as the software is well designed, the major problem is just getting the player population going. For this, I think the only way is to spend $$$ on an advertising campaign, perhaps trying different areas to where the other sites have already tried (masculine job trade publications (fireman, army, etc) for example.)

When you launch the advertising campaign, also launch a bonus offer at places like twoplustwo, so that you can try to similtaneosly capture both market groups.

[Ptolemy]

Besides finding fish I actually use the buddy list to see if any of my family or friends, spread all over the country, are on and playing. Sure, not a necessary thing to know, but it helps follow them and watch their session without having to call at 1am and accidentally wake someone. I could live without it if it keeps the fish from swimming away but I actually do use it for things other than a fish finder.

One possibility is you could set up the buddy list as a two-way requirement. "Player X wants to add you to their buddy list. Is this OK?" Anyway, just a thought.

Brad

[2ndGoat]

<<For example, we're still contimplating the buddy list and how to implement this. One the one hand, we want folks to build bonds (because this is a social game). On the other, we'd hate to see it used for "stalking" easy players. I'm curious to hear about comments on this, pro or con.>>

Bonds are dangerous in poker, given that they may lead to shared AIM names and eventually start charing cards during a hand. There's a reason sites do not implement "whisper to" functionality like online video games often do. So from a site's perspective, I'm not sure there are any true pros for a buddy list. I love them on party for fishing, but that's all. The actual "poker friends" I have, I don't want to have at my table, because they all take the game or or less as seriously as I do.

Attracting fish definitely comes first. In addition to the ideas having a super-awesome-cool "I'm all-in" animation, perhaps make sure there are attractive women everywhere on the site, perhaps the dealer, for instance. How scantily clad is a matter of market positioning. I remember hearing that one online casino that actually had live women on webcams "dealing" table games. I'm not sure of the details, or how successful they were.

Another factor that seems to bring fish is alliance/integration with a sportsbook, or perhaps traditional online casino. Getting someone to play whose primary focus is not poker, but who is already interested in gambling, is a big win.

If you provide fish, we will come... eventually. But we'll come a lot faster if there are more attractions than just fish. The "shark-friendly" ideas people have suggested are also very important... it seems you've the right attitude of catering to both so far.

Good luck to you. I'm sure you're aware of how very difficult it is to bring a new site off the ground these days, compared to buying a skin at an established network. There are some truly brutal network externality/critical mass issues to overcome.

Need a network security analyst? Heh.

2nd

[VJ_]

[ QUOTE ]
MiniView, like UB has. It takes up far less screen real estate (none of that useless chair/avatar crap), I'm always at the same spot at each table, and their implementation provides a good quick-look summary of who is still in the action and what that action has been this betting round.

[/ QUOTE ]

I second this. This is such a great feature and it is strange that no other major sites offer it. Reason #1 why I only play on UB now.

[JunkHead]

Steal Full Tilt's best feature, the ability to choose your position onscreen. Unlike Party and others where the dealer is always at 12 o'clock and seat one to the immediate right (left), give players the ability to change perspective. This would be great for those of us using laptops with shitty video cards that must deal with overlap.


JunkHead

[CountDuckula]

Lots of very good ideas here. Here are my thoughts:

1. Buddy list and player search - yes, but make it possible to opt out of being placed on someone's list or being searched (I'm sort of intermediate between fish and shark, and while I like being able to find fish easily, I don't want the real sharks to find me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]).

2. PokerTracker - yes, and have the option to save the hand histories to a folder on your hard drive, so you don't have to keep requesting your hands periodically. I also think that hand histories should be restricted to tables you're actually playing on; I really dislike the practice that has been dubbed "datamining", which is basically opening up as many tables as the software will support, and harvesting the hand histories so as to compile a huge database of players and their tendencies. Preventing observers from getting hand histories without playing will blunt this practice. PokerTracker is excellent for analyzing one's own play, and that's how I use it; I will look up players I've played against before on occasion, but I primarily want to track my own play and look for leaks.

3. I don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but I think you should offer a wide range of limits. Some people just aren't ready to play $.50/1.00 or higher, and would prefer to drop to $.10/.20 or even $.02/.04. This opens the door to recreational players who aren't trying to earn a living at online poker. Eventually, they may get confident enough to venture a bit higher.

4. Single-table tourneys, also known as Sit-N-Gos. Again, I'd like to see a wide range of buy-ins here, from 50 cents to whatever (Absolute offers these; I find them useful for trying out different styles, and picking up some cash when I've had a bad run (usually due to trying to play over my head... [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]). And try not to over-juice them; I think a reasonable fee is 10%. For example, Party offers $5 tournaments, with a $1 fee ($5 + $1); they also offer $10 tourneys for the same $1 fee. I'd be more likely to play $5 tourneys if they were $5.00 + $.50 instead of $5 + $1. Absolute is a little odd; they have a $2.00 + $.25, and a $6 + $1 tourney. I avoid the $6 +$1 tourneys (16.67% fee), and play either $2.00 + $.25 or $10 + $1. Very rarely will I drop to the $1 + $.15 or the $.50 + $.10 tourneys (I only play these if my account is really low and I won't be redepositing any time soon).

5. Custom images - at Absolute and Poker Stars, my avatar is the same one as I use here. It amuses me, and it frequently draws comments from other players. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] It also makes it easy for me to spot my own seat when I'm switching tables.

6. Bonuses and rakeback - Bonuses are good for micro and low limit players, whereas rakeback is good for the higher limit players. I think that offering a rebate on play over a certain level per month would make your site very attractive to the higher limit types. Most rakeback deals are done through affiliates, who get a percentage of the rake generated by the players they sign up, and then kick a chunk of it back to the players. But the newer players don't know about rakeback, and by the time they find out, they either have to live without or employ subterfuge to get it (things like closing an account and then reopening it under an affiliate, or creating "gnome" accounts under a relative's name or some such). But if it's above-board, and based on level of play, it acts as an incentive for frequent players. I'd suggest a multi-tier approach, such as:

Generate $100 in rake, get 5% back.
Generate $500, get 10% back.
Generate $1000, get 15% back.

...That sort of thing. Exact numbers up to you; I'm just tossing out some random ones.

7. Custom seat positions - YES!!!! Customizable on a per-table basis, please; I'd like to be able to put myself in the upper-left corner on one table, the lower-left on another, etc. That way, when I'm multi-tabling, I can see what's going on even when the tables overlap (I don't change my screen resolution, because that makes it harder on my eyes with my current monitor).

8. Seat change buttons - yes; players should be able to request a button, and be offered a seat that opens up before it's opened up for anyone. The buttons should be tracked, and the seat offered in order; the player who has held the change button the longest should get first crack, and so on down the line.


A few people have remarked that making the site shark-friendly will scare away the fish. I don't agree; Party and its skins are considered to be extremely fishy, and they offer several shark-friendly features, such as PokerTracker compatibility, stored hand histories, etc. I think the fish are mostly unaware of these features, and don't find out until they get serious or someone tells them.

-Mike

[Grummin]

Hi everyone,

July 2005, I did my first post here at 2+2 to ask players what they would like to see from a new site.

In Feb, we opened a little site called Qualify Poker and gave everyone a peek at some of our game, but we purposefully held back some of the cooler features.

One week ago, we quietly launched our main site called CakePoker and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you here for your help through this past year.

I and the entire team at Cake are very proud of what we've accomplished in the past year, but we're far from done. As any of you will see if you visit, we're just running some freerolls and play money currently. Real Money should be live in a few weeks, but we're in no hurry as we continue to hunt down a few gremlins.

One of the features I'm particularly proud of is the web-viewable Hand History.

http://cakepoker.com/HandHistory/?Ha...zYjFxMbBx8c%3d

This link will let you view one of the hands that was played on CakePoker. EVERY hand that's ever created on CakePoker is web-viewable. When you play on a table, click the Last Hand button and then the Open in Browser link in the HH screen itself to be able to share your hands.

More functions will be coming for this tool, but it's one that I can display right now to show you how serious we are to making a site for everyone, both new and experienced players.

There's much more to detail and I'd be happy to detail each of the features here if anyone would like the low-down.

Until then, please feel free to contact me directly at [email protected] if you have any issues or questions.

Again, from myself and the entire team, thank you to all at 2+2 for your assistance over the past year. We look forward to your feedback.

Doug
CakePoker Game Designer

[TheRock69]

Player location displayed from IP address subnet. I know this does not work for AOL, but works with most other ISP.

[Grummin]

You're wanting the playing-from location to be chosen from the IP address subnet? ISP's in our limited test so far have been really unreliable. From my own house, I logged in to the website and it said that I was logging in from New York..which is NOT where I was. =)