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