I enjoy playing Sit & Go Tournaments and I do it on a few different poker sites, Full Tilt and PokerStars are among the ones I visit the most.
One thing that annoys me big time is when the tournament gets full just when I try to register for it. In this redesign I’ll make a change to the registration flow to make it faster and easier which hopefully makes a player start playing faster. Which in the end means more rake for the operator.
In this redesign I am using Full …

Who will be the first poker operator with an iPad poker client?
I’ve used my iPad for a few weeks now. I’ve noticed a few specific areas where it is used more than others. The main things I use my iPad for are:

Playing games: the iPad is the perfect companion when you want to play games. Especially multiplayer games work so well!
Surfing the web:
Watching movies: It is the ultimate device to watch movies in bed :)
Work related matters: doing presentations, writing documents, doing mindmaps and even making simple design mockups.

I’ve almost …

Markus Lind at Inside iGaming wrote an interesting blog post, Fight for fifth, in which he discusses the poker networks and who will take the fifth place after PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, PartyPoker and the iPoker network.
It is true that PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have an advantage accepting american players, but I believe they would still be in the top even if the didn’t. The main reasons:

They are not a network, insted they run their own operation and focus on their poker product
They make massive advertising on tv and in …

Is instant poker as good as the download versions? Not at the moment!
If you compare Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars mac client with an instant version from any of the competitors then you’ll see that Full Tilt and PokerStars is way ahead. It is faster to load, faster to start tables and have more features.
An instant version works well when you are using a computer on which you aren’t allowed to install software.
Many poker rooms today have both a download version and an instant version of their poker client.
You can …

It is important to help your players complete their goals. In the image above you see how 4 different poker sites, Partypoker, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Unibet (Microgaming), and their implementation of the Buy-in dialogue.
When a poker player sits down he needs to bring money to the table. How much he can bring in depends on his bankroll and the table limits.
In all the examples above you see that they have done a couple of different implementations to the same functionality.
You should base your design on stats!
You could …

Last night when I played poker on PokerStars I incidentaly hit the “Fold” button when I was going going to “Check”. When I did I got an alert window saying “Checking is free. Are you sure you want to fold?” and then there was two buttons “Check” and “Fold”.
I think there are two things that could be improved here, first the main “Fold” and “Check” buttons at the bottom are “Fold” to the left and “Check” to the right but in the alert window they are the opposite “Check” and …

I wrote a blog post giving PokerStars a design advice back in September (read the post here). And today when I played at PokerStars I noticed that they had implemented the solution I wrote about.

PokerStars chat window back in September

PokerStars chat window today
My design advice back in September was “A much better solution would be to let the player just click on the text in the chat window or the “banner” to open up the tournament’s lobby where I can register.” and that is how it works today! Good job PokerStars!
/Staffan

Image 1. iPhone multiplayer poker app
I’m starting a new personal project designing a iPhone poker app.
There are a few reasons for this:

I love my iPhone
I love playing poker
The big poker sites/networks don’t have any iPhone apps at the moment
An iPhone app for the big poker sites/networks could be a great addition to their for fun sites

So if any of the major poker sites/networks like PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker,PartyPoker, Everest Poker, IPN, Ongame and Microgaming would like to work together with me then please contact me!
You’ll be able to read about the project and progress here.
/Staffan

Image 1. When will we see iPhone poker apps?
When will we see iPhone Apps from the big poker sites?
I know that you can’t play for money on iPhone Apps, but all major poker sites also have a “for fun” site (usually the same url as the normal site but “.net” insted). So why not make an iPhone App for your “for fun” site?
This would be good move for a number of reasons:

You will get knowledge on building iPhone Apps.
You will be able to attract players to play on your site …

Image 1. Folded cards shown on mouse over.
Being able to see what cards you’ve folded is a great feature in many poker clients today and it is interesting to see how the function has been implemented differently.
In the image above you see how PokerStars (left) and Full Tilt Poker’s (right) versions.
PokerStars implementation works better because the player see the cards right away and doesn’t have to think about what “3s” and “Th” means.
User experience needs to play a key role when adding new features (no matter how small they are) to your …

Image 1. PokerStars tournament lobby.
I’ve enjoyed playing a tournament at PokerStars tonight. But since I pay a lot of attention to details when it comes to the user experience when I play I noticed something I think PokerStars can do better.
There is a little banner area in the top right of the tournament lobby view, which is good real estate.
I was surprised to see that PokerStars didn’t use this area to promote relevant information. In the middle of the tournament I saw an ad for “Extended Registration Available” but if …

Image 1. PokerStars poker table and chat.
PokerStars can make it easier for players to join tournaments advertised at the poker tables!
When I play at PokerStars I see information regarding tournaments soon to start in the chat window but also as a “banner” on the table (see image above).
It is a real hazzle having to go to the tournament lobby and find the tournament so I don’t do it very often. A much better solution would be to let the player just click on the text in the chat window or the …

In my first Redesign in 20 minutes I redesigned OnGame’s poker lobby and today I’m doing a quick redesign of PokerStars poker lobby. PokerStars have a number of different themes you as a player can choose from. I’ve looked at the default theme, PokerStars Black Theme.
I’m using the same business goals and player goals as in my OnGame poker lobby redesign,
For a poker lobby I believe the business goals may be something like this:

Increase the number of money players in the network.
Convert players into real money players.
Decrease the time it …

In this week’s 20 minute redesign I’ll look at PokerStars poker lobby.
So make sure you check back on sunday for redesign suggestions.
/Staffan

When I signed up for PokerStars.com I noticed something funny. It happened when I got to step two in the registration process.
In this step I was supposed to enter my personal information but I got very confused when I thought I had to fill out my date of birth, street address and zip code but not my name or e-mail address.
The confusion was all about the asterisk. An asterisk in a form means required, but at PokerStars.com it means optional. The text “* – Optional field” is placed at the …

Today many of the largest poker networks give mac users the possibility to play poker in their network.
According to Pokerscout.com the largest poker networks are;

PokerStars
Full Tilt Poker
iPoker Network
PartyPoker
Cereus Network
Everest Poker
Microgaming
Ongame Network
IPN
CakePoker Network

In all but 3 ( iPoker, Everest Poker and CakePoker Networks) a mac user can play poker, either with an instant or a download version of the poker client.
It is great to see that mac users can play poker as well. The number of mac users increase so it is a good business decision to offer a version for …