Online Home Poker (3 Viewers)

Just a heads up about rebuys in Poker Mavens - the rebuy period ends at the end of the specified level, even it that occurs in the middle of a hand. So a player may be surprised to find that he can't rebuy if he busts in the last hand of the rebuy period.

Also there is no level clock on the table. You have to go to the Menu - Statistics (or the Statistics tab of Extended Chat window) tab. The time remaining there is static - only updates at the start of every hand, so if it shows 1:30 remaining and the hand takes 2:15 to play out, the blind timer will expire in the middle of the hand with no notice, even though the time remaining will still say 1:30 up until the start of the next hand.
 
Just a heads up about rebuys in Poker Mavens - the rebuy period ends at the end of the specified level, even it that occurs in the middle of a hand. So a player may be surprised to find that he can't rebuy if he busts in the last hand of the rebuy period.

Also there is no level clock on the table. You have to go to the Menu - Statistics (or the Statistics tab of Extended Chat window) tab. The time remaining there is static - only updates at the start of every hand, so if it shows 1:30 remaining and the hand takes 2:15 to play out, the blind timer will expire in the middle of the hand with no notice, even though the time remaining will still say 1:30 up until the start of the next hand.
I just had a player get super bitchy with me about this on Thursday. It'd be nice if it paused like poker stars, but it doesnt.
 
even it that occurs in the middle of a hand. So a player may be surprised to find that he can't rebuy if he busts in the last hand of the rebuy period.

You've seen this confirmed? I would have hoped that if the hand started before rebuy ended, anyone who busts at the end of the hand would be given the option. I get that if there's a chip threshold, they wouldn't get the option if rebuys ended and they still have chips left (even if it's below the threshold).

But if you bust out, it's mega lame you can't rebuy.
 
You've seen this confirmed? I would have hoped that if the hand started before rebuy ended, anyone who busts at the end of the hand would be given the option. I get that if there's a chip threshold, they wouldn't get the option if rebuys ended and they still have chips left (even if it's below the threshold).

But if you bust out, it's mega lame you can't rebuy.
One of my players claims its confirmed as I mentioned above. Not sure exactly when they tried to click but it's definitely before the hand ends.
 
That's... Just... Awful! I'm going to have to run a tournament with 1-minute blinds to see it for myself. Kent's gotta fix that!
 
Email Kent - he has been super responsive and changed how the pause feature works for cash games in response to feedback last month.
 
New in Poker Mavens patch 6.17 -
"Added LevelNumber and LevelSeconds (seconds remaining in current level) fields to TournamentsStats API.

Added Level number and Next Blinds fields to Stats tab in player client. "

Does anyone know how to use the API stats to make a timer? Can't imagine a tournament without a timer.
 
That's... Just... Awful! I'm going to have to run a tournament with 1-minute blinds to see it for myself. Kent's gotta fix that!
Email Kent - he has been super responsive and changed how the pause feature works for cash games in response to feedback last month.
I asked the question in the support forum. His response was that the rebuy clock is associated with the game clock, not the hand. So no fix planned at this time.
 
Well, we tried Poker Mavens last night (free version). As far as connectivity, it's great. Everyone who wanted to play, was able to connect immediately and stay connected.

Not being able to see a blind level clock was a complaint. About half of the people (myself included) had no sound. The game loses A LOT when there is no sound. I was playing on an iPad and made sure the sound checkboxes were all checked at volume was at 100%. I even tried plugging in headphones. Nothing. At least one person was on a computer and he had sound. Anyone else experience these problems? Is it just because we were using the free version? They also hated the limit game, but they realize that would go away if we upgrade.

My guess is that (until recently) the typical customer for Poker Mavens is someone who runs multiple cash games. Cash games don't need a clock. And the system tracking everyone's bankrolls would be a nice feature.

I think my players liked it in general, but we're not to eager to put money into it. Especially since we live in areas where the stay-in-place orders could be lifted very soon. I'm glad we tried it - even though it was a helluva lot of work on my end - but I'm not sure it's for us.
 
@Himewad There are many posts in the wishlist for PM for a running clock. The problem seems to be where to place it. You can see the clock if you look at the breakout table statistics (which also shows blind levels, min/max chip leaders, people left, etc). This works better on a PC b/c there's more room.

I've never had a problem with the sound - on either my tablet or my PC.

I purchased PM b/c I live in NJ and we're a hotspot right now and I don't see the lockdown being lifted for a while. I would still be hesitant to play in person anytime soon if you live in other states. Poker is such an intimate game of chip/card touching and sharing. Feels like the perfect recipe for Corona Soup.

PM isn't perfect - by any means. But it works well and lets us control our home game. Zoom brady-bunch style + PM is the best replacement I could have asked for during these times. It keeps me from getting very sad that I haven't played poker with my friends/family in 2 months :(
 
I think my players liked it in general, but we're not to eager to put money into it. Especially since we live in areas where the stay-in-place orders could be lifted very soon. I'm glad we tried it - even though it was a helluva lot of work on my end - but I'm not sure it's for us.
It's too bad that you didn't have a great experience with it. IMO it plays MUCH better on a computer than on a mobile device. Resize the table and use Extended Chat, makes a huge difference. Yes the Limit Hold Em only thing sucks, especially for a tournament format, and doesn't really give you the best experience for testing. And once the initial setup work and learning curve is behind you, the workload drops off a lot.

But if it's not for you, it's not for you

.... I would still be hesitant to play in person anytime soon if you live in other states. Poker is such an intimate game of chip/card touching and sharing. Feels like the perfect recipe for Corona Soup.

PM isn't perfect - by any means. But it works well and lets us control our home game. Zoom brady-bunch style + PM is the best replacement I could have asked for during these times. It keeps me from getting very sad that I haven't played poker with my friends/family in 2 months :(
Agree +++++. Live anything seems risky for the foreseeable future, something as socially close together as poker seems even more so. Just because some politicians say everything is hunky dory doesn't make it so (and vice versa).

Is PM the best online poker experience available? No, but it's not far off. Is it the best online poker experience that you can completely customize and control according to your preferences, doesn't have bots or HUDS, doesn't rake (unless you tell it to), and doesn't make you give your personal info to a faceless offshore organization? Big yes. Is it the best $40 I've spent on poker? Even bigger yes.
 
So I have a non-techie question for those of you that have moved your game online. Are you playing the same stakes / buy-ins that you did for your live games? Just curious, as I've had a few folks comment that they want to play for less online either because (A) not as much trust in online poker / crazy run outs and (B) they're doing this more to just have a break from the monotony of staying home 24/7. Then on the flip side, I have others that want to play 10x more often than usual and the action has been a lot crazier than normal.... :D

I typically run a monthly tourney with buy-ins of $40-$50. In moving online, we switched to $20 tourneys every other week. I also run a micro stakes cash game 25¢/25¢ NHLE $20 buy-in, and we've kept that exactly for online. That game used to play once a month (max), now we're playing once a week. :tup:

Side bar - big thanks to @BearMetal and @DuffCal for helping me through the SSL process for my site!
 
Exact same response as @Sunshine - tournaments are run the exact same. They last a hell of a longer longer than cash games do. A single buy-in usually gets every player at least 1.5 - 2 hours of fun.

The cash games, however, are a total shock when playing online. My normal 25c/50c game for a buy-in of $20 went waaaaay too fast. The money didn't last as long. Some can complain that reducing it to 5c/10c is "dumb" because it's a NL cash game, but after reducing it, it went much slower. I would say an extra step is just cut everything in half - even the buy-ins. That way a 5c/10c with $10 lasts longer than 25c/50c with $20.

I don't think any of my players didn't trust the software; but we all know each other. I think the biggest factor in this was simply the speed of online poker (no shuffles, no chip collection, etc) make a cash game go way too fast. You just see so many more hands.
 
The cash games, however, are a total shock when playing online. My normal 25c/50c game for a buy-in of $20 went waaaaay too fast. The money didn't last as long. Some can complain that reducing it to 5c/10c is "dumb" because it's a NL cash game, but after reducing it, it went much slower. I would say an extra step is just cut everything in half - even the buy-ins. That way a 5c/10c with $10 lasts longer than 25c/50c with $20.

Yeah I'm seeing similar on our end with cash. This cash game is typically lots of banter and BS and less cards, we get very few hands an hour on a regular night; maybe we'll have 1 or 2 folks rebuy (slightly more when the scotch is flowing:LOL: :laugh:). We've maintained a similar type of game online (centered around the video chat), but this has sped up immensely online (even with an adjusted player turn time of 60 seconds), and I think we had like 8 rebuys in a similar time frame.

I don't think any of my players didn't trust the software; but we all know each other.

We all know each as well, it was more of a distrust in the cards coming out. The first tourney we played, we did as fun money, just to get folks familiar with the software. We saw a slew of massive hands - 4 or 5 quads, a straight flush - and numerous sick run outs. That got folks a bit skeptical, and we dialed down the buy-in accordingly. Since that first game though, it hasn't been nearly as bad (cash or tourney), and I'm hoping as we continue to play folks will get more confident that every hand won't be runner runner suckout.
 
Right, @Irish and @BearMetal bring up something I neglected to mention: online is much, much faster. We regularly get up over 200 hands after playing for about 3 hours. Noticeably over a hand a minute. Even though face-to-face sessions are longer, it's not even at half that speed.

I think it's actually helping my results smooth out, 'cause playing the numbers works more reliably when the number of hands is big.
 
We went from .25/.50NL with a $50 buy-in, to .10/.20...$20 buy-in. It helps lessen the shock of playing 3 times as many hands in the same span. That coupled with some financial uncertainty made it a logical choice to lower the stakes and keep the social aspect up front.
 
Our normal live game is .25/.25 with buyins ranging from $20 to $40. Due to distance and several in the group having young kids the game only happens maybe 3-4 times in a year. Now we started playing on Pokerrrr2 with Venmo and Zoom and have moved to .10-.20 blinds with $10-$30 buy-ins. We have played 3 weekends in a row with plans to play again this weekend. Several of us feel we can keep this going on a biweekly or monthly basis even after the quarantine is over. What has worked great for us is the game starts at 9 pm which is after several of us put our children to bed.

We did run a $20 buy in 18 man tourney last week and had a great time with that. For now the thought is to alternate between our one table cash game and 18 man tourney each week.
 
Quick question for those who run Poker Mavens in multi-table mode. If 10 people are signed up and table-1 is full, what does the software do when the 11th person late registers. Does it break out into something uneven like 8-and-3. Or does it try to split evenly? What about when there are 12 signed up and the tournament starts? Does it do 8-and-4, or is it smarter and tries to do 6-and-6?
 
Quick question for those who run Poker Mavens in multi-table mode. If 10 people are signed up and table-1 is full, what does the software do when the 11th person late registers. Does it break out into something uneven like 8-and-3. Or does it try to split evenly? What about when there are 12 signed up and the tournament starts? Does it do 8-and-4, or is it smarter and tries to do 6-and-6?

The multi-table games I've run where everyone was registered at the start was pretty evenly split. Not sure about the first question with a late registration creating the need for another table.
 
Quick question for those who run Poker Mavens in multi-table mode. If 10 people are signed up and table-1 is full, what does the software do when the 11th person late registers. Does it break out into something uneven like 8-and-3. Or does it try to split evenly? What about when there are 12 signed up and the tournament starts? Does it do 8-and-4, or is it smarter and tries to do 6-and-6?
When moving during a regular rebalance, the algorithm will automatically adjust tables so that there is never more than 1 player difference between tables. Player next facing the Big Blind at the larger table is moved to the smaller table.

When adding a new table because of late registration the program used to move only one player per hand until balance was achieved (yikes), but was supposedly fixed several years ago to "speed up" the rebalance. Not sure if this now occurs in one hand or two (waiting for an answer from Kent on the support forum), but it should quickly balance the tables so that there is a maximum difference of 1 player.
 
Quick question for those who run Poker Mavens in multi-table mode. If 10 people are signed up and table-1 is full, what does the software do when the 11th person late registers. Does it break out into something uneven like 8-and-3. Or does it try to split evenly? What about when there are 12 signed up and the tournament starts? Does it do 8-and-4, or is it smarter and tries to do 6-and-6?
This just happened to my tourney last night. After the hand, it immediately fully balances the table. So I went from 9, to 9+1, to 5+5.
 
A couple of my buddies occasionally having issues of not seeing their cards or even not seeing the table on the Poker Maven pro. They constantly have to refresh table or relogin. Multiple connection issues. Thru tried different wifi and cellular to play. Anyone else has these issues or know where to start diagnostic. I set upp PM on AWS and everything's seem fine. Most other guys are fine. Only a couple of the players having issues. Any help appreciated. Thanks
 
A couple of my buddies occasionally having issues of not seeing their cards or even not seeing the table on the Poker Maven pro. They constantly have to refresh table or relogin. Multiple connection issues. Thru tried different wifi and cellular to play. Anyone else has these issues or know where to start diagnostic. I set upp PM on AWS and everything's seem fine. Most other guys are fine. Only a couple of the players having issues. Any help appreciated. Thanks
Haven't had anyone with problems. They playing on odd devices, odd browsers, or with bad connections?
 
Occasionally, a player on a bad connection will not see the action change to them. Doing a table refresh fixes it. Only happens on really bad connections (like their zoom video looks like 8-bit Mario).

Have you customized any of the server connection settings?
 

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