Comments on the beta implementation

[ErikLevin]

I agree with almost all other comments in this thread though. Many (most?) also have bugs/suggestions in the bug tracker already. It makes me a bit worried that some bugs are several years old, even predating the release to Beta by years, and I don't see a ton of developer activity in the discussions there (EDIT: I want to make extra sure I don't come off as ungrateful. I know the volunteer devs put a lot of their free time on making games for all of us and that is awesome). I would love to see Texas Hold'em get polished more and get a release with Arena and all that, I wonder what the outlook is for that.

I was thinking about looking into how one could help with the implementation, but I have to be realistic that I probably won't have time... Can we help by being allowed to triage bugs or something? E.g. close some that are obviously duplicates or not-a-bug or something. Won't help much if there isn't someone with the time to really fix the actual bugs and improvements though...

[frydo]

Not sure if it has already been said, but there is a surprising behavior of the game with tooltips (speech bubbles).
When it is some other player's turn, it repeats the previous action of that player ; it would be better with no speech bubble before that player plays again (or a speech bubble with "..." to show it's it's turn).

Not sure I am clear in my explanation, as I don't master English language enough to write it nicely.

[Anime Pops]

Sorry if I missed it above already being said, but it would be nice to have options available while waiting for others to decide. Such as Call Any, Check/Fold, etc. This would greatly speed up turn based with larger player counts for sure.

[admiralspunky]

Out-of-turn options would certainly help speed up the game.

May we have an option to switch to a 4-color deck? I added the same option to Hearts and Oh Hell. Four color decks are nice in those games, but they're especially helpful in poker.

Have you played Pineapple? It's just THE, except you start with three hole cards instead of two, and you have to discard one of your hole cards after the flop. So you get to see many more flops because there's a larger chance that the flop will hit you. Granted, there's also a larger chance that the flop will hit your opponents. Still, I find THE so boring. You just fold pre-flop most of the time.

[GoddessJen]

The last text bubble needs to disappear before the hand results, so they aren't partially hidden behind it, it not have the results under the text bubble.
Need an option to choose the orientation of the table, portrait or landscape, or just switch to landscape for two player.

[Ninu2000]

There’re 2 issues I want to talk about this.
1. I think for the choices to ‘Ask to reveal hand if all other players are folded’, I think it should be sth more like a drop down of “yes, no, always ask” on a question of ‘Reveal hand if all others are folded?’.
2. I’d seen some players are out of time stucking in the phase o[uf choosing to reveal card or not. I think there should be a limit of time to automatically skip this phase like.. 6 hours I guess, then automatically ‘not to reveal’ by default.

[BigBreadEd]

Out-of-turn options would certainly help speed up the game.

May we have an option to switch to a 4-color deck? I added the same option to Hearts and Oh Hell. Four color decks are nice in those games, but they're especially helpful in poker.

Have you played Pineapple? It's just THE, except you start with three hole cards instead of two, and you have to discard one of your hole cards after the flop. So you get to see many more flops because there's a larger chance that the flop will hit you. Granted, there's also a larger chance that the flop will hit your opponents. Still, I find THE so boring. You just fold pre-flop most of the time.

You shouldn't be folding pre-flop that often if you are playing short-handed, which most of these games are for the time being.

[rayrobertson]

My two cents: Once you're out of chips you should be able to leave the game and not be forced to track it as a viewer and get notifications that theres a pending game waiting for you to play. Also leaving a game you have lost (no money left to keep playing) you should be able to leave the table with no hit to your account "karma/reputation"

[jgorsegner23]

The verbiage needs to be streamlined. Very important if turnbased and jumping in for your turn. Need to see what happened before you in a concise and easy manner.

The X is moved from “player” stock to betting are is redundant. Should just be something like the following:
- “player” posts small/big blind.
- “player” checks
- “player” calls/bets X
- “player” raises to X
- “player” goes all-in for X

Also, at end of hand when all players check or call, or if all players are all-in, MUST see the players hole cards. This is the single most important information to get from hand to hand as it plays into your decisions on future hands. Not having this information is severely limiting to be able to play strategically in this implementation.

At end of round, instead of saying X added to pot. Would be simpler to just state current pot size.

A nice-to-have: would be to use the following terms for players when showing actions.
SB - Small Blind
BB - Big Blind
UTG - Under the Gun
UTG+1 - Under the Gun + 1
MP - Middle Position
HJ - High Jack
LJ - Low Jack
CO - Cut Off
BTN - Dealer button

Another nice-to-have, change the verbiage of
“Player” is now the active player
To be
“Player” turn to act

Another nice-to-have, ability to bet in terms of pot size. E.G. Pot, 3/4 pot, 1/2 pot, 1/4 pot.

With online play, chips, colors of chips, and chip values are irrelevant. They only add visual appeal but don’t mean anything. Only $ amount has any meaning.