Dear Lee Jones

[Luv2DriveTT]

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Yes, it would be nice to see more games, especially those that you cannot find at Party.

Suggestions:

1. Triple-draw lowball
2. Razz
3. Crazy Pineapple
4. Five card draw (high)

I would also greatly appreciate Dealer's Choice games. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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All of these would be nice, and also Badougi.

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PokerStars would own nearly 100% of the TD business instantly, if they took the small risk involved to develop the application. It may not net much for Poker Stars, but it would be another way to associate themselves with the best players and separate the room from the Party mentality.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[berya]

"S.H.O.E, H.O.R.S.E"

I would play these games if they were spread. Also maybe a couple of tournaments in the 100/200 buy-in range with a small guarantee 25K prize just to kick them off initially.

[GrahamW]

I'd love to see 2-7 Triple Draw added, and I'd love to see NL single draw 2-7 as well.

[CCx]

echoing:

the draw games would be a fantastic idea, realizing it's not as easy to do as plugging in new tourneys, but maybe something to play around with on the testpokerstars site even...

[jj_frap]

They're very profitable and they treat their customers far better than Potty Poker does, so why not add Razz, TDLB, and 5CD?

I don't play those games, but they're big enough that they'd attract a stable crowd of players.

[Lee Jones]

Hi folks -
I'm back with answers. Again, I apologize for the delay - all these people keep showing up at our poker site [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I'll answer these in Q/A form, covering the ones that were in the list when I collected it.

Q1: Tournament information in the hand histories (HH) to improve information from Poker{Office,Tracker}

A1: We're in touch with the developers of both those products. Depending on how those negotiations go, we may be able to provide more information in the HHs.

Q2: Have every individual tourney history sent to me automagically.

A2: Actually, we don't get much demand for that.

Q3: Ability to get more than five tournament histories in an email before you start truncating.

A3: We'll increase this to a larger number at some point.

Q4: I wish the HHs would mention that the play was on a six-max table.

A4: [See A1]


Q5: When you are on the wait list for a table, there is no real reason that the Main Lobby needs to pop-up in addtion to the "seat available" pop-up.

A5: We agree. We'll fix that at some point.

Q6: Ability to hide "announced" and "running" games.

A6: We're working on a significant redesign of the lobby. I've just been reviewing the spec and it makes me very happy. I don't want to go into too many details because something may fall off (or get added) before we release it. Many of us within PokerStars have wanted a lobby redesign for a long while now. But the programming-meister has (understandably) concentrated on things like scaling up the software to handle the ever-growing load on the system. After all, a cool lobby does you no good if the system crashes frequently. He now feels that he's got some breathing room on that front and has sent around a spec for a new lobby. You're going to love it. Told you all that to tell you this: the ability to show only "registering" tournaments is on that spec.

Q7: It's insanely hard to find specific S&Gs that I want.

A7: [See A6.] This is one of the main thrusts of the lobby redesign.

Q8: I want to sign up for a S&G with fewer clicks.

A8: ibid.

Q9: Hard to find the ring games that I want.

A9: ibid.

Q10: Sequence of display of full ring games mixed up with six-max games, making it hard to find full ring games with seats in them.

A10: Again, this is in the new lobby spec, and nobody wants it out.

Q11: Alternate table images

A11: We're on that. We have developed the software to support this, and are working on graphics. Go have a look at

Our test site

Note that the graphics there are just to test the function, and won't be exactly what comes out in the final edition.

Q12: Partial FPPs (e.g. you get 0.5 FPPs if there's $.50 rake).

A12: We may do that in the future, but it's a significant impact to our software, the FPP program, etc. We have no immediate plans to do it.

Q13: Option to cash in FPPs for cash.

A13: We offer FPPs to enter many types of tournaments including satellites to our big Sunday events. We will add more options for FPP (especially for VIP players - it's going to be huge), but we don’t currently plan to offer the option to cash in FPPs directly. That looks too much like r*keb*ck.

Q14: It bugs me when the client grabs keyboard focus when it's my turn.

A14: We did that on purpose so people wouldn't miss their turn. However, (1), we are considering adding "Advanced Options" where 2+2 dweebs and their ilk (who like nothing more than tweaking their poker site interface) will be able to customize the playing experience. I would expect that item to be high on such a feature. (2) Check out

Microsoft's Power Toys "TweakUI" feature

It lets you prevent apps from grabbing keyboard focus if you don't want 'em to.

Q15: And finally, for the number one favorite question everybody wants answered: "What about r*keb*ck?"

A15: Short answer first: We don’t plan to offer rakeback. However, we do plan to introduce a VIP program (soon) which will give substantial awards to high volume players. For instance, how'd you like to trade your FPPs for a WSOP, PokerStars Caribbean Adventure or European Poker Tour package?

Note also that our rake is substantially lower than our main competitor’s, especially for low and mid-limit fixed-limit games (as was pointed out elsewhere on these pages). For example, our rake is lower by:

39% for $.50/$1
20% for $1/$2
16% for $2/$4
14% for $3/$6
10% for $5$10

Also note that the FPPs return 5-8% to tournament players (depending on how you want to calculate the value of the tournament entries and such).

Frankly, I've never really understood the fascination with rakeback. It's like people who pay too much tax, giving the U.S. Government an interest-free loan. Then they get a rebate in April from the IRS, and go "Whoo-hoo! Free money!"

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So that's it. I hope this has been enlightening for you all, and keep the cards and letters coming in to:

ideas@pokerstars.com

We'll keep working to make you happier customers.

Best regards,
Lee Jones

PokerStars Poker Room Manager

[splashpot]

Good stuff. Glad to hear you value the opinion of posters here.

[augie00]

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For instance, how'd you like to trade your FPPs for a WSOP, PokerStars Caribbean Adventure or European Poker Tour package?

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Dear Lee Jones,

Have you ever considered bearing my children?

Love,

Brad

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Lee Jones]

Re: draw games (e.g. triple-draw 2-7). I don't think we're going to do them any time soon. We don't have an interface that allows you to interact with your hand (which is necessary to do any kind of draw game). That would be a big architecture and programming job. And frankly, I personally just don't see the demand for it. Sure, it'd be nice to have, but so would tail fins and fuzzy dice on the rearview mirror. If you look at the likely increase in business (or, perhaps more importantly, "average increase in satisfaction per customer"), it doesn't justify the time and resource investment, compared to other things we could be doing.

Of course, nothing in this business is "forever" or "never", but I thought I should let you folks know where we stand on this now.

Best regards,
Lee Jones

PokerStars Poker Room Manager

[IndieMatty]

Again, hands down the best site. I also have to commend "Scott" from support, he has emailed me personally out of nowehere, about the VIP program and what I would like to see. He was concered because he didn't see me playing many tourny's. Thanks, Lee.