In the past week since we proposed some rule changes for July, there has been a lot of discussion in the forum and on the blog.  There have been some interesting suggestions, so I wanted to highlight them here.

First of all, here are the criteria we want to meet with any changes we make:

1. Create a monthly contest that allows us to crown monthly champions and give away prizes
2. Keep the game challenging both for new players and the current leaders
3. Stop the chip counts from climbing higher and higher to ridiculous totals
4. Reward players with high lifetime totals
5. Add something unique and interesting to Poker Underworld

While the original idea was simple - reset balances every month and move money to a “lifetime” total - it doesn’t necessarily satisfy #4.  Great new suggestions have been made but are more complicated and can’t be ready for June 1st.  Here is a summary of what has been suggested:

1. Create an SnG ranking system
2. Have a monthly SnG for the top 8 players each month (based on games played that month)
3. Create ranking “classes” such as Bronze, Silver and Gold and rank players within those classes
4. Limit access to different tables by balance

We like all of these suggestions, and actually they are more in-line with our original idea for Poker Underworld which was to allow you to challenge other players and make the rankings based on “head to head” matches - almost like the rankings in Tennis or Golf.  We’re still developing the “head to head” tables though so hopefully that will be ready for July 1st.

To us, the most interesting idea is the “classes” idea, with some additions.  Here are some rules we would want to see, please send us your feedback.

1. Every class has it’s own set of tables
2. To move to the next class, you must achieve a minimum balance and have played a minimum number of hands
3. Every time you reload, your number of hands played is reset as well (there will still be a lifetime count though)
4. Each class has it’s own chip value, so when you move to the next class there is a new starting balance
5. If you want to move back to a previous class, you must start at the starting balance of that class
6. A lifetime balance will still be kept for the lifetime top 100

This new set of rules can’t really be ready and tested for June 1st, so we would continue the games the way they are played now, but with a special set of tournaments played weekly to crown a June champion.

Ryan
Poker Underworld

A few weeks ago I started playing with Google Desktop and trying to build some gadgets for Poker Underworld so that you can keep track of your balance and rank. I’ve also been playing with building the same thing for Yahoo! Widgets.For those who don’t know what gadgets are or what Google Desktop or Yahoo! Widgets are for - basically a gadget/widget is a small object that sits on your desktop. Gadgets do all sorts of things from showing you the weather outside, stock quotes, a calendar, the time, etc. You can see a little screenshot of the Google gadget I made - it’s pretty basic, it lets you know how you’re doing at Poker Underworld.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get the gadget to work perfectly.. for some technical reason after about 2 hours it just stops working. If anybody reading this has written Google Desktop gadgets before, let me know if you’re interested in finishing this with me so we can release it to all of the players!

Ryan
Poker Underworld

Hey everyone,

As the balances get higher and higher, I think it’s time to consider adding in a monthly reset. This means at the end of the month, your balance would be banked to your “grand total” and everyone would start off even at 2000 again.

There are a few reasons for this - making the game more competitive, giving new members a chance to compete, and even just that it gets hard to fit those huge balances on the screen after a while. Best of all, it lets us crown a Top 3 every month.

What does everyone think about this? We’d like to start out fresh in June. Your current balances will still go into your Grand Total and there will still be a lifetime Top 100 - but we think this would make the game more challenging and force the leaders to defend their titles every month.

Ryan & Jason
Poker Underworld

There has been some discussion in the forums about the SnG tourneys and the prizes.  Since the tourneys generally don’t get very full, the winner only wins about 50% of their buyin.  In order to make these tourneys more fun and profitable, we’ve raised the winner prize to 100% (and raised the 2nd and 3rd place prizes as well).

This means that the best way to win money and raise your bank roll at Poker Underworld is through they SnGs, so go in chat and grab some people from the tables and have some fun in the SnG tourneys.

We are keeping track of the winners of the tournaments, and soon we’ll be posting stats on who wins the most tournaments.  We are planning to have our first real tournament for prizes this month, so get into the SnG rooms now to improve your ranking!

Ryan
Poker Underworld