Here we go with Java again, in this case in a web interface. One effect of using Java applet-based software is that start-up times when playing over a modem connection are slow; another one is that you can play on any platform as long as you use a web browser capable of running applets. For a web based Java application, the client does look good and feel ok although there is definitely something about web clients that is weird. The programmers don’t have the set of tools that they have when developing a Windows (download) client and the functionality does suffer from this, and quite a bit actually.
The lobby looks nice and is very functional as soon as you figure out how it works. It has some non standard ways of handling table lists but this is not a draw-back since it allows you to easily find the games that you are interested in and to browse around. If you select a table in the list, you will get a schematic view of the table and its seats along with the list of players. Under this view is a key that informs you which colour codes are used to indicate if a seat is available, taken or reserved. However, the view does not make use of this: all seats are shown as available.
You can play several tables although the focus shift and the overall visibility of what takes place on the tables are not overly good. Maybe this is something that one gets used to but I do think the whole thing is a bit hard to follow. I find it hard to put my finger on exactly why it feels like this interface is not overly good: it does have clearly visible indicators for game actions and player information and so on. Maybe others will like it better than I do.
The slider in no limit and pot limit works well and the options are not hard to find or use: it is easy to auto-post, join waiting lists, bring in more chips etc. A nice feature that I haven’t seen in other clients is that you can rotate the table. With this function you can position yourself around the table such that your seat is always visible if your screen size forces you to have overlapping tables. This is innovative and good!
You can upload little images (avatars) that are displayed beside your name on the tables. This is useful not so much because it’s fun to have a picture there as it is because it makes it easier to recognize other players from time to time. This doesn’t make this software unique however as many clients have this option. There aren’t a whole lot of extra functions available such as buddy lists and such. For my own part, I don’t use such functions much anyway but if you for any reason look for a client with a lot of functionality this is not your client.
This software, overall, is great if you weigh in the fact that it is a web client. It is however only ok if you compare it also with downloaded Windows clients. In my opinion, unless you can not run Windows clients, it is always worth taking the time to download a client. What is ten minutes of download time (on a modem, much quicker with broadband) compared with the hours, days and months that you will spend playing? Actually, the slower your Internet connection, the more willing you should be to download a client because there is a lot of information that has to be sent over and over again in a web interface. Maybe not so much in the game in itself but every time you need to access your account to make deposits, withdrawals, change settings and so on. Also, you don’t get all those weird errors in a Window clients such as “Error 404: The page can not be displayed.” – if you don’t know that you should right-click in the frame and select refresh then such errors can be very frustrating. |
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