Opening new online poker room need your input for development! FREEROLL for help!

I am opening up a new poker room online within the next 6 months to a year ( development has just started). It will be designed from the ground up and I am looking for input from regular online players regarding features and other things you would like in a poker room that you are not currently getting in the ones available or even the features that keep you coming back to a specific poker site that you are faithful to. (Please don't ask for things like donkey free play or sucklike as I can't control those things!) All helpful responses will be added to a mailing list and invited to a big private freeroll upon the room launch. How about that? Topics under discussion include : Rabbit hunting: yay or nay ? Buddy lists with private chat? (obviously not available when players are at same table) Avatars: are they necessary ? What do I want from a lobby? Also very interested to hear from multi table players on how to make their lives easier and also VERY interested in anything that I have not already mentioned so keep it coming ! Thanks for all your help !
Kevin

Availablility to U.S. players, any deposit methods available to U.S. players (epassporte, Western Union, Moneygram, Visa Gift Card ,etc.) IMO avatars are nice but not necessary, lobby should be easy to navigate. Tables MUST be resizeable for multitabling. These are all creature comforts, but, at least speaking for myself, the most important things to an online player, is knowing that the site is secure, i.e. knowing that my money is safe AND that I don't have to worry about anything like a super user account. Customer service is much more important to me than how flashy the software is. I don't mind playing of a site like Bodog eventhough the interface isn't the greatest because they have top notch customer service.

Avatars are generally a pain. Although I have mine off at ftp, I had to select one and I don't want any of them.

Rabbit hunting means the next card is known. I think a continuous shuffle is better.

Deposit that does not require sending your life history for withdrawal.

Resizable screens.
Easy folded card review during the play of a hand.
Speed. I'd go so far here as to never allow dial-up connections.
Detachable chat, with changeable font/size capabilities.
Pleasant game sounds.
2x,3x,4x,5x bet buttons.

No need to get too cute. Balloon chat is not necessary. Nor are smilies in the chat box. Anyone fast enuf to type chat can type 8) as fast as they can drag into the chat box.

You will note 2 suggestions that deal with folks with less than perfect eyes, the sizable screens, and the chat font options.

Spend time figuring out where to put the action buttons. Never have a raise button pop up where a fast fold button was only a moment ago.

The easily reviewable folded cards, currently best handed by PokerStars, is mainly important as a way to stay focused on the game.

I suggest these feature, implemented from the git go, will start you off well. Promises of future features will not help you overcome an already established clientel at all the big sites who have at least most of these features.

There won't be a site, he wants you to give him your email address so he can send you spam.

Cynical old sod aren't I?

One thing which is really useful at Bodog, but I don't see at other places very often, is that when you sign up for a tourney it shows a flag next to that tourney in the lobby, so you are 100% certain that you've signed up. This is infinitely better (for me) than having to go into a separate "my tournaments" screen to see which ones I'm signed up to

At one of the poker sites I use it gives you complete control over exactly what alerts you receive, such as audible and flashing taskbar, that's great for when you are running mutiple tables at various sites at the same time

I prefer stupid avatars such as donkeys or monkeys, or where you can upload your own photo, as you would need thousands of avatars for everybody to find their own likeness

It's really important when I look at the list of tournies that it doesn't show running/completed tournies, and I don't like sit&go mixed up with scheduled. Probably the best set-up I know is Cake Poker, where I click on ALL in the top bar, TEXAS HOLD'EM and NO LIMIT in the bottom bar, then at the bottom check HIDE RUNNING/COMPLETED. That then means I have a list of all currently available NL Hold'em tournaments, including private ones - if those settings could be automatically loaded every time I run the software, without me having to click on those buttons, that would be even better Yes

1. Avatars are always a good thing like the ones on pokerstars.
2. I think rabbit hunting shouldn't be added.
3. Something like pokerstars has now where u can see your folded cards by going over your avatar.
4. For the lobby I suggest a custom setting like FTP's lobby where you can choose what you want to see. Something that might be hard to do would be a section where you can add tournaments from the main tourney section to your "favorites tournaments" and you can add all the tournaments you are thinking about playing thus leaving out the ones you don't want to see. i hope that makes sense.
Email is Heatfan03@gmail.com if you have any questions!!!

If OP is legit

What is your budget (apparently half a million dollars and up is the cost of starting a poker site from scratch)?

What is your marketing strategy? It's a very heavily saturated market with a very high entry level for new competitors now.

What customer protection would you offer?

If you genuinely are setting up a site and have just started, you've got a hell of a long way to go before you've got to start worrying about the nuances of the graphics etc, and even further before you can start offering freerolls.

I smell bull.

i hope yall realize rob has hit the nail right on the head, i think
he gave us less than the beer minimum of info and is trying to suck us in by saying that if we help and he gets our mailing adresses and emails we get entry into a big tourny, just dont seem legit IMO

ill give my email addres cause one spam email and put it in the spam folder. wouldnt give out my mailing address. thats not needed.

I beg of you; please make it so the table sizes can be shrunken.

Because I'm bored to death atm I'll reply, as much because it's an interesting general question as anything else... Gotta agree with Rob though this smells extremely fishy.


- Easily resizable screens for multitabling (pokerstars does a good job of this)

- Several sites do this, but I like being able to color code players also.

- Good note taking abilities.

- Open to US market/good deposit options

- A *GOOD* table filter. I haven't found one I really like yet at any site. I want to be able to filter tables based on any and every criteria I possibly could. PL/NL/Limit, exact blinds/buy in sizes, size of table, number of people currently on table, avg hands per hour, etc etc... If it's a tracked stat for a table I want to be able to filter the tables I'm seeing based on it.

A CC grand opening freeroll!!!!!!!!!!!

also keep us updated so we know what it is and when its happening!

What i really want is a a 5% stake in the company. If you do that with everyone, im sure everyone will be happy.

Rob knows whats up

Another suggestion would be that you can only sign up for freerolls ten or fifteen minutes before they start (to minimise outsitters), and that when the first blind increase happens you automatically boot anybody that hasn't actively played any hands at that point

What's all this negative stuff about it being made up? I'm happy to give free input, I don't expect a freeroll in return, but why the sour grapes?

my grapes are not sour they are just fermenting

Let us know when they're ready - we'll come round and help you drink it

Miniview tables like on Ultimatebet.

Fee free deposit and withdrawals like Stars with eCheck.

Tech support that answers within a reasonable time.

That about covers what I would want to see in a site.

HH with mucked cards, which not all sites give.

And buddy lists with chat would seem to encourage collusion.


Martin asked for feedback a long time ago, and did open a skin. But then, he was an active member; more than just one post.

Mac compatability right from the get go
cheaper to develop both clients at the same time.
as for email address,,,,,,,,,,, nofoolhere@nicetryfreak.net

This is great stuff keep it coming! In order to stop the spam accusations I THINK ITS BEST IF NOBODY LEAVES THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS!!! . This is not my intention for this post. Naive me never even considered that (probably why I get so much spam myself!) I only mentioned the freeroll as a thank you and couldn't think of a way to do that other than that way. Any suggestions? As for the budget half a million is not compulsary for a poker site to be up and running but I won't go into my own finances. My business partner is a very experienced software developer and web designer and we will be doing a lot of the ground work ourselves. Suffice to say the budget will be depending on the return on the investment I have no limit as of yet. As in any business its best to have a plan of action BEFORE you begin and know your objectives for features etc before the site is put into full production. Every feature that is decided to be planned into the site costs time and therefore money so the reason I am doing this is to set priorities on which features I definitely want in V1. Customer service will be of great importance as I hate that myself on poorly managed poker sites and the resizable windows is also a must for myself ( altho I realised I won't be really allowed to play on my own site conflict of interests wise AAARG) I have to say this forum is probably the best I have seen so far in terms of responses and friendliness (also the most cynical lol) Please keep any ideas coming and I am sure I can work out some kind of way to have a Forum freeroll when the opening comes. I am also curious about what people think about a tournament league system as well as individual tournaments. A kind of KING OF TOURNEYS type idea. The chat window I am pretty sure will be separate from each table and much more in the vein of a messenger idea. Unless someone can convince me otherwise as I said very open to suggestions (buddy lists are also a strong option altho I have heard people worried about collusion and cheating. What would make you feel more secure about that option ?)

Again I REALLY appreciate the input. The idea is to make an app that has the best of all the already established apps and none of the problems. With your help anything is possible !

Kevin

1. i have rabbitt hunting!
2. i think a buddy list that lets u know when ur bussies are playing is a good idea
3. no aviators, balloon chatting, smilies
4. got to have resizing tables.
5. how about stats for just the stt, or mtt u r in, instead of all ur stats since ur sign on

- resize screen

- 2 view options - full view (w/ avatars/chat...) and VERY basic view. When I say basic: For each player, name - stack size (number). Table center: current high bet and total bet. If you've used PIP on Bodog, their PIP screen would be AWESOME for people who truley like to MT.

- Points tables - if you offer points, let people gamble their points away if they want :-)

- I like the rabbit hunt idea - For those who don't want it... don't click the button (or whatever). I also prefer a set deal, not cont. shuffle. If your site is secure, no one should ever be able to see the next card anyway.

- MISC. tables - similar to horse, but give the next person to deal a screen where they have 3 - 5 seconds to select a game of their choice. If no game is clicked have a random game chosen. Kind of like you're playing with buddies. Maybe add-in: No-peek (blind baseball/Mexican sweat), 5/7 card stud follow the lady (follow the queen/follow the B), and maybe a couple others that you don't normally get.

- Downloadable HH

I like the idea of stats based on the current game you are in. How about long term stats for
Sitngos
MTTs
Ring Games

and breakable into holdem omaha etc for those who play different types of games on the same site ? My plan also is to have a graphical interface for hand histories and stats etc. So you can review the hands in real time like you were watching it on television.

Mac compatability is a given. My developer is a huge mac fan and the app will primarily be developed on a mac.

I also like the "Dealer's choice" idea for HORSE type games. I doubt this will be implemented immediately as it will take a lot of work to develop but its definitely in the picture.

I also really like the idea of having percentage chances for players that are all in. Should throw a few people on tilt when that 2% hits for the third time that night lol. Thoughts please.

Loving the feedback so far. This has been my favorite forum to deal with. I foresee a great relationship here.

Kevin

Also with the buddy lists and chat outside of the rooms. The programming will include a failsafe so that you cannot chat to anyone who is at the same table as yourself. If it becomes a security worry I may just have it for people not playing poker at the time of chatting. Thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Kevin

Thats the best bit of advice anyone can offer.

I recently had to send unbelievable amounts of information to make a withdrawel at a poker room. Things which included a passport, a scan of a card and a utility bill. Not to mention about 25 emails with customer care.

I say do all the identity verification at the moment of deposit or sign up.

It went through in the end but it was the most annoying process ive ever had to go through.

What ticked me off was that deposit was easy as pie, but the history to withdraw to the same card was "to prevent fraud". Giving it back to the same place can be fraud? Hmmmmmm.

One thing I hate about certain sites is that they add the bet you type in to the current bet/blind already posted. When I type in "400" I want to raise TO four hundred, not BY four hundred.

Also, please make sure you are following the standard rules of poker. Here are two that could easily be confused:

1. The amount of the raise is whatever remains after you add the call, and therefore, any RE-raise must be by THAT amount, NOT double the initial raise. For example, if blinds are 25/50, and player A opens for 175, player B can now RE-raise to 300 (175-50 = a raise of 125; 125 + 175 = 300). They do NOT have to raise to 350 (175 x2).

2. If a player in a NO limit game does not have enough to make a FULL raise, then their bet does NOT reopen the betting (please not that in LIMIT games that HALF the bet DOES re-open the betting). If a player goes all in for less than a full raise [see above for the amount that constitutes a raise] then action back to other players should only allow a call. For example, with blinds at 50/100 player A makes it 700 to go (a raise of 600) and player B calls. If player C then goes all in for 1,000 players A and B can ONLY CALL the remaining 400 (less than the full 600 required to reopen the betting) and can NOT reraise each other for purposes of isolating the short stack.

And I thought it was just me - I hate that too.

If you really get a lot of help from Cardschat, I bet you could work with Nick to get a freeroll for contributors in this thread.

A huge one. Like a million dollars please lol.

Or a sneaky 'have not played required minimum hands etc

Always confuzzled by that one


Also an Ultimate Bet style knock out any no-shows in Tournements instead of having sit-outs hanging around for ages

I like the removal of non-seated players in freerolls after the first level. I can see letting people who paid for their seat stay, but FRWs make serious play a problem when they clog the tables. One level gives people time to get in if they registered but just missed the start by a few minutes.

Another important thing is for it to show all times in my local time (GMT)