Hi there :)

I just learned today, that we now have teh pokahs at BrainKing. Lovely ;)

I just skimmed through this board, and I wanted to drop some random thoughts on discussed issues.

1.) Free chips

On different sites, Playmoney is handled differently. At DoylesRoom for example, if you have less than 1000 chips, your chips will be reloaded once a day. On other sites, like Titan, you can reload whenever you have less than 1000 chips. Chips in play of course do count for that, so if you sit at a table with 500 chips and have 600 in your account, you can't reload. On Full Tilt there is an additional rule, that you have to wait 5 minutes between reloads. I think, for the enjoyability of the game, and especially for playing no limit, the latter version would be the best. 5 minutes might be to short of a time for BrainKing, but if you have to wait an hour to reload, that should be enough I think. And I think, everybody should be able to reload to 1k, you could just make pawns wait one hour and paid members 30 minutes or something. Time spans are just random suggestions and might be altered, but I think a day is to long, and 5 minutes maybe too short considering the generally slow pace of the games. People will lose interest in the Poker games rapidly, if they have to wait a day after losing their stack in one hand imo.

Also I absolutely hate the idea of resetting the chips after a certain time. In Poker, you play to accumulate chips. If I'd lose them without playing, that would ruin it for me...

edit: I also think it is better to reload to 1000 instead of adding 1000 on top

2.) Showing hands & Minimum raise

There is a quasi official selection of rules, I just can't find the link atm... :( Be assured though, that the two points discussed are handled identically at every site and brick & mortar casino:

Hands are only revealed when there is a showdown, i.e. there are still at least two players in the hand after the river betting round. If everybody but one folds, the cards remain unknown to the other players.

The only time you can raise for less than the previous raise on the same street in no limit/pot limit is when you go all in. So if I bet 20 on the flop, you'd have to raise to at least 40. If you decide to raise to 50 instead, the minimum amount I could raise to would be 80, making it 30 more. On the turn though, you could bet the minimum again.

3.) Posting blinds

It is indeed common practice that you won't get dealt a hand unless you post at least one big blind. So when sitting down you have the option to wait for the big blind to come to you, or you can post it in your current seat, if you are not sitting in one of the blinds, and not on the button. So you can post between "Under the gun" (first seat after big blind) and "Cutoff" (first seat before button). Also, when you sit out when the big blind comes to you, you can only be dealt back in by posting the big blind and small blind when you are in of those seats, or by waiting for the big blind again. If you sit out in the small blind, you can get back in by posting the small blind in one of those positions or waiting for the big blind again. If you post "out of position", there will of course be more blind bets than usual in the pot. Again, this is not necessarily "official", as there is no universely accepted Poker authority, but absolutely common place and generally accepted as de facto standard. Those rules assure, that no sit out wizards can play without paying blinds or with paying less than their opponents. If you post the big blind in the cutoff at a full 10 handed table, you pay 1 big blind for 7 hands, while you pay 1.5 big blinds for 10 hands by posting big blind and small blind in position. So, the cost per hand is nearly equal. That's part of the reason why you can't post on the button, too.

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Anyway, nice to see Hold'em here :) Is there currently a problem with the refresh or something? The table doesn't refresh for me atm, is this a general problem, or something with my settings? Doesn't work in Firefox, Opera and Chrome though. It says connected, but actually nothing changes.