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Double the poker, double the fun!
“Hours of boredom broken up by moments of sheer terror”. To some people this is how online poker feels, but TableBrain has a solution, as Matt Broughton discovers
Someone once said that if you’re having fun playing poker you’re probably not doing it right. It’s very rare that ‘action’ players (i.e. those involved in the majority of pots) are the ones that walk away with the most cash, simply because profitable poker more often comes about by patiently sitting tight, not getting overly creative with weak hands, and waiting for that golden moment to get as many chips as possible from a strong hand and/or situation. Basically, be a spider, not a monkey (and NEVER be a fish!).
After five years development, TableBrain Corp has produced a new variant (currently available on Party Poker) called Double Hold’em that aims to make playing poker more fun without having to throw discipline out the window. “Hold’em is great when you’re getting hands like pocket Aces, Queens and interesting suited connectors,” says TableBrain CEO E. Mark Gross, “but often you can spend hours picking up nothing but weak hands like rag aces, J-3, 9-4, etc. Poker’s supposed to be a game not a business-like experience, but sitting out for a long time is no fun, and playing poor starting hands is usually the road to big losses.”
WHAT’S THE DEALIO?
Double Hold’em deals each player three hole cards rather than the standard two. Once the flop comes down, players choose one of their three hole cards to be the ‘Point Card’. This now creates two playable hands: one hand is a combination of the Point Card and the second card in the player’s hand, and the other hand is the Point Card and the third card in the player’s hand. It’s easily grasped in play (see tutorial screen shots elsewhere). This mechanic leads to far more playable hands being dealt more often, removing the long dry periods players so often suffered in Texas Hold’em.
Being all round smart cookies, TableBrain even offers freee online software called Double Tools (www.tablebrain.com/doubletools) that allows you to learn the game away from the pressure of the table. When you tap “Surprise me” it throws various starting hands at you and challenges you to make the most profitable Point Card selection; it’s a smart way to get to know the game. The guys will also be releasing a Double Hold’em app for iPhone and iPad very soon.
“While we were developing the game, we also created a version where you set your cards before seeing the flop,” explains Gross. “That version – more of a boutique game – plays quite differently than our current version where you set your cards after seeing the flop. Setting after the flop has greater appeal to the mainstream poker market.”
The game recently completed a successful promotional run at 20 major casinos and gambling forums worldwide, drawing many converts from traditional Texas Hold’em. “Player feedback has been very encouraging, as it’s elicited significantly better player loyalty and established longer playing time by casino website players,” says Gross.
The other half of the dynamic TableBrain duo, company President, Zvi (Brian) Lando, believes that it’s not just diversity that today’s players demand… “When you add diversity with easy-to-learn, fun games which lean toward excitement, you’re answering the market. In today’s multi-tasking/video-game world, the new younger player base is hungry for new formats and variations that provide those kinds of challenges. Our mission is all about taking poker to the next level”. Lando also acknowledges the importance of social gaming when looking for poker’s ‘next big thing’: “Social gaming has dominated other markets; the same should hold true for poker as well. Some new games will feed off of collaborative play, such as our Voyeur Poker does.”
The aforementioned product is just one of a number of new products TableBrain has waiting in the wings, including: Voyeur Poker (“Play from the sidelines as a spectator!”), Mirror Hold’em (“a player vs. player game that uses new technology to create ‘parallel universe’ tabling during game play”) and TableWinner (“Put on your heads-up display and play poker in a whole new way.”)
Back to DoubleHold’em, Gross explains why he thinks the format will succeed: “It plays tight, without issues such as space concerns. When you play standard Hold’em on basically any software, you always understand the way the hand is playing; this is far from the case in every game. High/low 7-card stud, for example, is a challenge to present well on a small monitor or to a player who is multi-tabling. If a game gets confusing to the point where players are wondering “why did she just win that hand?” then you’ve got a problem! Double Hold’em, as we’ve designed it, is easy to present so that players always know what’s happening.”
Playing Double Hold’em in preparation for this article (purely for research obviously…) I couldn’t help but notice a relatively small number of people actually playing the game, with the majority of those only testing the waters with play chips. Lando is unconcerned by this: “So far, it’s only been released in beta form without strong marketing as we have been preparing a final version optimized and fine-tuned based on user feedback (we are constantly including user feedback and “iterative crowd sourcing” techniques to refine and improve our games). Party Poker will shortly be putting out the enhanced and final product and will add more betting formats and both single and multi-table tourneys with free-rolls. After that release, there will be substantial marketing creating a critical mass of players at Double Hold’em tables. When game selection is easier, there will be many more players.”
The brains behind TableBrain
TableBrain is the dynamic duo of President Zvi (Brian) Lando, and CEO E. Mark Gross, who was a law partner in a practice, focused on technology, telecommunications, leasing and retails matters. Before that Gross was a senior associate of a national law firm, having obtained his law degree from the Boston University School of Law in 1987. Lando holds a Masters degree in Finance and Corporate Strategy from the MIT Sloan School, and has led a wide range of profitable ventures across 20-plus years in finance. He’s launched a computer consultancy company as well as a small hedge fund, and managed multi-billion dollar investment portfolios for JP Morgan Chase. Needless to say, both are massive fans of poker!
