****SERVER DOWN TIME- CLIENT PLAYER FEEDBACK UPGRADE****
16th of June from 01:00am to 02:00am server time (1 hour).

The Merge Gaming software will be down for maintenance on the 16th of June from 01:00am to 02:00am server time (1 hour). The network will be cancelling any tournaments that are scheduled to run during this downtime.


Below is the complete list of changes players will see upon their first login after this update:

- Added a "Whats New" popup on login
- Auto-timebank is now on by default at the tables
- Added an option under display settings to change default auto-timebank state
- Added the ability to launch player notes screen by double-clicking a player box
- Changed the "Sit Out Next Blind" checkbox to "Sit Out Next Big Blind"
- Performance improvements relating to loading and changing avatars
- The "I am playing" icon now clears correctly when leaving cash games or tournaments
- Times showing incorrectly for some timezones during daylight savings is now fixed
- Late Registration now renders correctly in inline tournament details panel
- Tournament hand history now correctly defaults to last hand
- Hand history viewer now correctly shows both hole cards and drawn cards for draw games
- Font size increased for chat text shown in the hand history viewer
- Added a confirmation popup when choosing to "Delete All" in Hand History settings
- "Invert Mouse Wheel" betting slider setting now persists correctly across sessions
- "Player wins" sound setting in Poker Sounds now persists correctly across sessions
- NL and PL tables no longer have focus set to the raise button on first load
- Incorrect total player counts shown in tournament lists is now fixed
- Right Click => Sticky now works correctly in tournament & sitngo game lists
- "Player Remaining" in tournament lobby incorrectly showing players remaining is fixed
- Issue with sounds muted and all-in settings being inverted after 5.0 -> 6.0 update is fixed
- Issue with some tournaments (eg 45 man sitngos) not showing in the game lists is fixed
- Funstep tournaments now list correctly when using the advanced filters (under play money SNG)
- Table banners removed (temporarily) to improve client stability
- Guaranteed tournament panel on left side of lobby replaced to improve client stability
- Antes now update correctly in tournament lobbies
- Wait for BB checkbox removed from stud games
- Tournament running time fixed for completed tournaments
- Reinstated tournament completion popups, but with the option to never show them again
- Activating player notes field no longer selects existing text to prevent accidental deletion
- Moved the "Show Friend Notifications" setting from Lobby Settings to Friend Settings
- Reinstated the "Hide my games from all players" option to Lobby Settings screen
- Arrowing up/down game list no longer expands each row
- Page Up, Page Down, Home & End buttons now work as expected in game lists
- Fixed issue with client failing to run on Mac OSX with a version 1.6 32-bit JVM
- Multibyte characters no longer allowed in custom game names
- Fixed incorrect window title for tournament buyin window


As an aside, I may have to put the CHOSEN ONES on hold for tomorrow because of this, because if the update doesn't happen in time, the tournament won't run.

Best,
David

I KINDA wish it woiulda went down tnite before i coiuld play dave(( this has never h appendd to me on hero bef ore.tho!!.. I was in middle of hi lo cash game hand justnow,,, and i turned the nuts in the hand,, then i bet out. THEN client freezes on me UGHHH,, i had to come back, it was only 8 secs,, but hand was done and i LOSt the pot, casue guy saw i was frozen and rebet,, so it folded me( is only a big de al, caue i,m trytin TO BUILD MORE on hero now,, so was bad for me to lose finly a wininng hand, casue of FREEZIN tho(( ok just wanted u to know,, tho. discouraging,, was first wining hand i had in 30 minutes tho(((TY ricki

please stop.

First generation voice recognition software?

are u guys talkin to me?? i,m on brand new laptop,, windows 7.. and i just posted what happened ONE time tnite,, just so dave woild see tho,, easier than emailing at all now and i was told to post any probs here tho,, OK ty thoooo

TY to her o)) for responding to this from tnite ty againnn))) yes hopefully the sched maintanenace wil help too... ok ty ricki

the chosen ones lottery was fun. i liked watching my 10-2 off suit up against J10 and K6 suited i think its a good incentive for earning 60 points a day

Guy, From what I can see, it worked fine, and was random;
1. It was over in 1min and 20 secs.
2. The payout was 50/30/20 out of 15 players.

Ok, questions:
1. It is now on a standard pay out schedule;
should it pay deeper? If so then from what to what in your opinions.
2. I've gone through it, it seems random to me and was totally just based on the cards. I'm I right here?
3. Was the time fine, you guys know my reasoning for why I put it at that time.
4. Tomorrow, it will be cancelled because of the upgrade, but we'll have it set up after that, and the weekly one as well, and start the monthly one as well (but it will be for the mid-month, i.e. the 17th of each month or so).

Let me know any feedback please.

Best,
Dave

If you had three people at each table on five tables, what happened after that first hand? Three people at one table and two at the other?

It had 3 on the table after I won the first hand then the guy caught a river to have a split pot and it ran another hand where he won, I guess there was 2 people on the other table after the first hand.

Standard payout seems OK, I'm sure more people will join it going forward so more than 3 will be making some money, Thanks for having it Dave.

i think it should pay deeper. but also adopt a straight payout similar to the $99 full ring freeroll. since its random i think it would be fair to pay out a flat rate. $20 to 5 spots in my opinion.

If so, then I'd hope to be the one with the most chips when it got into the third game. Random seating is even more important then. As long as it doesn't seat you by when you registered there should be no problem. But the winner of the second game at the two player table is going into the third game having to win the next two games instead of one. Am I right?

I would like to see it pay more players. I think the winners of the first table should get something, so a five player payoff would have been my first choice for this first tournament. I'd use a pretty flat payout also.

Glad it got off the ground and worked so well the very first time. I like it!

If it was a three person payout, how was third place decided? Wouldn't there be a tie?

The only potential problem I could foresee would be a scenario of say 100 players registering for the tourney, 20k chips in play, and a player would be able to take advantage of the 5k ante. If you could make the blind level shorter, say 1 minute or less, that might be enough to take care of this potential problem. Another thing, I have seen private tournaments where the blinds go up after a certain number of hands instead of time. If it is possible, you could have the blinds go up after every 1 hand. Great tourney btw, I got lucky in the first round getting the 87s and lost at the heads up table when it got down to 5. If it is truly random seating, this is not an issue. Thanks again.

since there is some complications about the seating and moving to new tables, i think the games should be in shoot out format. keep the 3 handed tables and the winner of their table wins. Only no advancing which leaves no worries about complications going to new tables. Just divide the pay based on the number of tables. tonight there was 15 players for a total of 5 tables, so it wouldve worked out easy tonight where winning your table would award you with $20.

Perhaps it was a "last longer" thing since the guy that got 1st and I had to run another hand because there was a split pot and the other table was already decided. Or if the split hand didnt happen maybe the person that has a few more chips at the start of the hand would get 2nd over 3rd.

Tournament rules probably wouldn't allow for 100% of the money to be paid to the winners of the first tables equally. That would be the best way though if possible. A little something for more players makes more players happier and more likely to keep qualifying for the tournament in the future.

I registered for the chosen one again and i'm not sure i've earned 60 points yet. I remember you could do that with 100seats100k FR. I would qualify then register for the next weeks tournament before the day was over while my 250 points progress bar was still full. I think it might be the same problem with this tournament if you understand what i'm saying. You might need to start tournament at 23:59 to avoid this.

Guys ok, points taken,
will put up some new thoughts tomorrow, because of the new update, we have to cancel this tournament anyway for tomorrow and I'll incorporate everything for the 17 starting for everything.

Cheers, I'll post more, as soon as sort the final bit out.

Best,
Dave

Dave,

Back when you first started you had said you would work with Merge to try to fix the attrocious rake structure for limit games. After much back and forth it became pretty cleaer that their primary focus was the new software and the rake wouldn't be looked into until that was behind us. Well now that the software is released, and with there finally being some competition for Merge, can you please bring this issue back to the table.

Does Merge want us limit players or not? Please help!

My hand history is very annoying. Doesn't matter what game i am in, i have to pull up the history and actually go in and select the right game and hand to see it. Am i doing something wrong? On the old software i used to be able to just click on hand history and my current hand will show.

Yea I guess a flatter payout would be better for the chosen tourney, if a few more get a chance at winning something all the better, I wish there was a flatter payout in the regular stud sit n gos I know they are 8 seats but i wish the top 3 got paid instead of a top heavy top 2 only making the money, more people would play them for sure if Merge added some HORSE 8 seaters as well along with a flatter top 3 payout in the stud SNG's. Maybe you could pass this idea along to Merge Dave, absolutely they would get more action thanks.

I think the upgrade tonight addresses this.

Is it possible to get rakeback on Hero if one has rakeback on another Merge site?

Maybe it is just me but I like the payouts how they are. I like the prizes to actually be noticeable when I check my balance the next day. Paying out a bunch of small $2 and $3 prizes wouldn't really help. If you do flatten the payout structure, I would not pay more than 10% for the daily chosen one.