I don't have big monitors and only play on my laptop. I always feel that I am limited in the number of tables I can play at once, as I struggle when tables overlap, on screen.

I've always found this to be a bit annoying. I can understand that the online sites want their tables to look like those in a casino, to attract recreational players.

Do you think that there would be value for sites to offer a 'minimal mode', that allowed players to play on tables that looked something like this?...



Sorry it's a little crude and I think a better designer could actually use the space better and create an even smaller table that was far more playable. To be honest, my table design hasn't really changed anything, apart from reducing some wasted space. Perhaps, a more creative mind than mine could come up with something that did not even look like a poker table at all, yet all the options and information were still there?

I know that this would cause massive problems for HUD developers. I don't use HUDs, personally (just one of many reasons why I am a losing player!), but I guess that a lot of the HUD users will have at least one 30" monitor anyway and have no problem playing 12-16 tables?

It seems dumb though that nearly every table available in online poker takes up at least 20% of the screen space on a 15" laptop, running on max resolution.

There are custom PokerStars table mods which are made according to your concept.
Also, any standard PokerStars table mod can be transformed that way.

UB used to offer this a few years back
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...iniview-98315/

Yeah was just gonna suggest about the UB mini-tables.

Party even has something more minimal that they call the "stacking console" or something that displays very basic info about all your open tables: never used it so can't comment on how effective it is but it's prolly worth a look.

Juk

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. I have friends that are 100nl grinders and I have sweated them a few times but they never seem to take advantage of that. They mainly play ongame. I guess they weren't aware of it either.

I still feel that a much more fundamental redesign could be possible. Maybe some of the guys who are involved in day-trading would be the ones to come up with it? They must be using a huge amount of windows to interpret data and I would guess that the applications they use are superbly minimised?

Hell, if they brought back the firework display, every time I won a big pot, f*** minimalism!

of course it could be done, but whos gonna put in the work to build it?

this!

Went looking in the PS Theme thread for an example to show OP and found the most recent one in your posts

The PokerStars table mod from G3K0

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=...type=3&theater

i hate to think how much work it would have been trying to keep this mod working with all of the pokerstars software updates

The 32 Red (Microgaming) miniview tables are pretty uncluttered. You are right there is no reason why the design should depict a real life game. I think it would be a great advantage to have the info presented clearly. If someone developed software for this which worked with a hud then I think it would be a great success and would become standard for serious multitablers.

Ultimate Bet's mini-view was the nuts, everything was in one horizontal line, including hero. Every else about that theiving site was junk.

Look at Burzum1's pic here in post #8 then imagine the board and hero were on same line as other players. If I had a clue how to find UB's mini-view pre-AP merger, I'd post a pic of it. :-(



found it !!!!

man i would flip if I had to play on those tables.. looks so messed up.

That pic is just something I found searching 2+2, it would obviously look cleaner without the HUD and the gold and green muted to grey like the other examples in this thread. But it was awesome playing UB mini-view on a laptop. On my laptop, I could have 6 tables vertically one on top of the other without overlap or shrinkage. And your cards were to the far left on each table. Trust me, it was the nuts.

From what I've gathered over the years, most that actually tried this mini-view ended up loving it. But besides UB's mini-view, I have nothing else nice to say about that super-using scum bag site.

I have an idea for a minimal mode. I don't know if it is any good, but it is an idea.

Your cards/stack are always in the same place, bottom-middle of the table. The buttons are across the bottom too, as are your HUD stats for your own play. The middle of the table is where the community cards are dealt. At the very top sit your opponents, in a line, along with other relevant information (Btn, blinds etc) . You will not be able to see their HUD stats unless you hover or click your mouse over/on them. Folded players will be greyed out. Not being able to see stats is not a problem though because in the top-middle of the table is where your current opponent(s) will pop up, allowing you to see their stats in full. This way you streamline the info for your current needs, allowing you to cut down on table space. (When UTG preflop each player will have to popup top-centre screen so it may get a little cluttered then though)



There will also be a button you can press/hover your mouse over to see everything in a traditional layout temporarily in case that would help with your decision making.

I drew a very crude representation of it in paint:

http://gyazo.com/83094fadf72e77bafb731d91078f9c0e

Though if I were to draw it again I would make it more compact, since there is a fair amount of dead space on there atm.

If anyone would like to develop/use my minimalist layout idea for a pokersite they are free to providing they first pay me $5,596,423.