Online Poker

Sitting here sweltering through another stinking hot Australian day, I've been looking back at the year that we've had at Poker.com and am looking forward to the challenge that 2006 presents.

Since launching the site in February, we've come a long way. I took a look through some old screenshots and version release notes and the software is now virtually unrecoginsable when compared to the orignal version.

We've slowed the release schedule recently to focus working on on some back end features, but there are still some good upgrades coming in early 2006. The first one should be new custom backgrounds for heads up tables (pictured), private tournaments and satellite tournaments. The heads up tables look great! The comp points store is also under construction and our newest team member, Shane, is busy designing and purchasing new merchandise to stock the store.

We struggled with a few things when we first launched - server stability, game speed, player payment fraud, disconnections, but have worked through it all over the past 11 months and we now have fast, stable, and what I think is most important, FUN, software.

We're still very much a fledging poker room when compared to the industry's current heavyweights, but we have a good starting point now and there's still unlimted potential for improvement and growth. Nearly all of the comments we receive about our software and website are now positive, whereas in the past there was always a couple of things always mentioned that needed to be tweaked. The only thing that players seem to mention often negatively now is the number of opponents available online and hopefully now that will continue to grow quickly also.

There's still a lot to improve and add to, but I think we have turned the corner.

Poker.com has a great base of loyal members that have stuck with us through our initial growth stage and occasional teething problems and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all and wish you a happy holiday season. Without you it would have been all the more difficult to reach this point and be able to look back on what was a mostly successful year.

By no means was it all roses though, for the most part it was a really tough year. For the majority of the Poker.com team it meant long hours, working through nights, weekends & holidays, dealing with frustrating bugs, and the even more frustrating rude & fraudulent players. Then there's the never ending conspiracy theories about rigged cards from the players too ignorant to see the bigger picture and appreciate our honest and open approach to business. But we have our gaming license now, so hopefully I'll have to answer less of those sorts of emails next year!

We also had a lot of transient members that would come for a look, tell us we sucked, and then be on their way back to the larger, robotic and bland poker room of their choice. We had our doubts for a while, but we're now pretty confident that most of those players will be back to play at Poker.com some day in the not too distant future. We play online ourselves at other poker sites, and although I am a fan of a few other rooms I have to say that I never have as much fun elsewhere as I do when we have a staff tournament at Poker.com or spend an afternoon testing a new feature. The Poker.com software is just hands down more fun! Exposing one card, rabbit hunting, tagging fish, getting a new background when you reach the final table - nowhere else offers that sort of thing and we'll continue to offer new features more often than any other poker site.

We're also going to continue to return great value to our members with big daily & weekly freerolls and other free tournaments like the recently held $100K Holiday Tournament(Congrats again XaqNautilis!) And we are really looking forward to meeting as many of our players as possible at events like the Aussie Millions and the World Series of Poker. The WSOP satellites have started and after a few days there's already 30+ players that have earnt their $275 grand final seat. I had scheduled the first grand final for January 22 but may have to bring that forward as we only need 50 starters to give away a WSOP package. We're looking good to reach our target of sending at least 25 players to the WSOP this year.

The Blogger Poker Tour will also be launched in early 2006, giving all of our fellow bloggers a chance to host their own poker tour event at Poker.com and maybe even win a seat to the WSOP to represent the poker blogger community.

But anyway, that's enough from me. There's still a lot of work to be done so I'd better get back to it.

Happy holidays everyone and I hope your 2006 is looking as promising as Poker.com's.

Kris @ Poker.com