Product Features
Friday, August 21, 2009 - ProductMan
We’ve just made stepping your way to the Caribbean even easier. Log on and test-drive our new “Play Next Step” window. If you win a STEP tournament, a pop up window will display all your upcoming STEP tournament options. Playing in the next STEP is as easy as clicking on the available tournament of your choice.
Don’t forget! Our popular STEP Tournaments feature ten easy steps. Enter Step 1 of our tournament for only $0.10. If you finish in first or second place, you’ll move up to Step 2. Win Step 2 and you’ll proceed to Step 3, and so forth all the way to Step 10! Some steps even let you try again if you finish in 3rd, 4th, or 5th place without having to shell out any additional cash. Even if you lose, you can always start back at Step 1 for another dime.
Right now, STEPs can take you all the way to Aruba for the 2009 Aruba Poker Classic or to The Bahamas for the Sports Legends Challenge for as little a as dime. With our latest feature, you can play your next STEP without missing a beat.
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Friday, August 14, 2009 - ProductMan
During the political correctness craze of the 90s, many doctors abandoned the term “patient”, preferring to call a person seeking treatment a “client”. The word patient sort of implies that people are passive in the state of their health. As if they can only wait patiently for their doctor to conjure up some sort of medicinal magic before they can get better. Of course there are no patients in poker, only players. It wouldn’t really be a stretch to call UB players clients, but that would only cause confusion since we regularly refer to our software as our client.
Still, we are constantly assessing the health of our software and we’re taking an active approach by listening to poker pros and our customers to build the best possible poker experience. Lately we’ve been scouring the forums, soliciting feedback, and taking the pulse of these blogs to gauge our progress.
Over the coming weeks we’ll be rolling out some additional security features. We’re also going to clean up some of the animations to improve the game play. It’s going to be even easier to get to the table of your choice.
Now is your chance to be the doctor. Assist the poker community at large by figuring out what ails you at the tables. Give us your diagnosis. You can help us, and help yourself in the process, by giving us your feedback. Let us know what you love and hate. Tell us what features you’d like to see. Do you find something annoying? Are there things you can’t live without? You can always email us directly or blog away. Good or bad, we love hearing from you.
Tags: Product Features, Product Team, software updates, ub
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Friday, August 7, 2009 - ProductMan
We ushered in a rewarding revolution last week when we released our new 7 Deuce Tables. The poker planet is abuzz with our crazy Texas Hold’em twist that turns those nasty 7-2 hole cards into pure gold. Have you taken your seat yet?
Cash and glory are ready to be seized when you bluff your way to victory with what is widely known as poker’s worst hand. The fun begins with the addition of our side pot. Before any cards are dealt, everyone places a prop bet into the side pot. You can score the side pot when you win a hand while holding 7-2. That’s really only the beginning because the main pot has been known to balloon as everyone at the table tries to outwit each other.
You can really rock the show with our new Seven Deuce Leaderboards. We’re keeping track of who wins the most 7-2 hands. The players with the most daily low stakes ($0.10/$0.25 to $1/$2) and high stakes ($2/$4 and above) hands will earn a piece of our $27,500 pie. Hit up the lobby and look for the tables with the 7-2 designation.
While you have our game open, you might as well try winning your way to paradise. The Aruba Poker Classic is less than two months away and you can get on board for as little as 10 cents. Try your hand at one of our STEP tourneys and you could win your $8,500 Aruba package for next to nothing. There’s also a $10,000,000 bonus on the line.
Grab your seat and let us know how you fare. The whole blogosphere wants to hear your 7-2 success stories. Tell us how things unfold (or even unravel) by posting into the comment box below.
Tags: 7 deuce, 7-2, Aruba, Hold’em, leaderboards, Seven Deuce, STEP
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Tuesday, August 4, 2009 - ProductMan
This is probably the biggest development since the launch of our Bad Beat Jackpot tables a couple years back. We’ve added a revolutionary and rewarding twist to some of our Texas Hold’em tables. Take your seat at any of our new Seven Deuce Tables and you’ll be awarded a side pot if you win the main pot while holding 7-2. That’s right! Those otherwise nasty 7-2 hole cards are suddenly worth lusting over. Cash in when you bluff your way to victory with the worst hand in poker.
The tables work just like standard Texas Hold’em tables, but before any cards are dealt, players have to place a prop bet into the side pot. The amount of the prop bet depends on the table’s stakes and will be between 1 and 2 Big Blinds from each player. After a player wins the side pot, all players must re-contribute to the side pot before the next round of cards is dealt. If you leave the table, you’ll get your prop bet back, assuming it hasn’t already been won.
Visit the lobby and you’ll find our Seven Deuce Tables marked with a 7-2. There are games at stakes for all budgets. Watch out! The pot can balloon pretty quickly as players try to rope each other in. Check out the promo page for all the details and see some unwittingly hilarious video clips of Phil. You can’t find this kind of intensity anywhere else.
Let us know how you fare and what you think. You can post your comments into the blog.
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Friday, July 24, 2009 - ProductMan
It’s been a busy month and with the 2009 WSOP pretty much completed, we’re ready to congratulate the remaining 9 players left in the Main Event. There’s probably going to be a lot of sleepless nights between now and November, but I’m kind of digging the hype of having the whole thing on pause. Don’t worry; we’ve got lots of stuff in store to tide everyone over until the autumn.
We added 2 new features to our client earlier this week. When you launch our software, you’ll now see your ‘Username’ displayed prominently. You’ll find it throughout the main client, at the tables, on the cashier, Tournament Leaderboards, and other locations. We’ve also discontinued the use of the word ‘nickname’ so that everyone is on the same page. This will make it easier if you ever need to contact Customer Support.
We’ve also enhanced our player to player transfers. You can now customize your transfer options for added layer of security. It’s easy to enable or disable transfers from only trusted players. Add the players to your ‘trusted’ list and only those players can transfer money to you. Players can also set this feature to allow or prevent all players on the Cereus Network from transferring funds to their account. In order for you to be able to transfer funds to another player, the player receiving the funds must have you on their ‘trusted’ list or have this feature set to ‘all’.
We have lots in store over the coming weeks. As always, please post your feedback or concerns directly into the blog. This might be premature, but we’re excited about meeting lots of you in Aruba, so don’t forget to win your way to paradise.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009 - Aciator
1-Click Reload is a fast and convenient method that allows you to fund your Ultimate Bet account instantly using your preferred credit card.
Enable 1-Click Reload by selecting Options in the Cashier.
Select your preferred credit card you would like to be associated with 1-Click Reload and input your desired default amount you would like to deposit when you use this feature.
1-Click Reload will now be accessible via the table or via the Buy Chips screen. (Please note it is currently only available to customers whose preferred deposit method is Credit Card and can only be accessed via Ring Game tables).
Deposit funds quickly be clicking the 1-Click Reload button. Simply input your 3-digit CCV number and you’re good to go. No need to revisit the Cashier each time you want to reload on the table!
Tags: Add new tag, Payments, product
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
We’re down to 28 players, and play will cease for the night when we hit 27. Tomorrow, we’ll play down to the November Nine, and already there’s speculation flying about how long it’ll take to reduce the field by two-thirds. A friend who covered the 22-hour WSOP-E final table and the 19-hour H.O.R.S.E. final table this year says she thinks we’ll be playing tomorrow until 7AM Thursday morning. Most of my media mates are favoring the under on that, but I don’t know, she’s an expert on super-marathon poker sessions.
Billy Kopp is still the chip leader but the field has caught up to him. Darvin Moon is just a few thousand behind, and lurking just under two million away is the fearsome figure of Phil Ivey. Stephen Begleiter has around 11.8 million, and the other player in eight figures is CardPlayer publisher Jeff Shulman, who seems to have cornered the market on the orange 5,000 chips:
After losing players every few minutes before the break and one immediatelyafter, play has slowed. We’ve had I think two all-ins but the short-stacks doubled through and now the players are hunkering down, not wanting to be the last player to see his tournament end before Day 8. And we’ll probably see the same sort of behavior tomorrow, so maybe 7AM isn’t that that outlandish a target.
But we’ll see. And here’s a bit of what I saw today. Billy Kopp, late in the day:
Jesse Haabak, stylin’
George Caragiorgas has been sitting right along the rail all day in a spot where I can’t get a good shot of him (those of us wearing red media badges aren’t allowed on the floor, limiting my angles of attack). But I did get this one:
The Amazon Room might be 3/4 empty, but the part still in use is still packed with fans straining to see the action, especially at the Feature Table:
Gotta lose one more before we shut down for the night. Could happen in five minutes…could happen just after dawn. Gotta wait and see.
UPDATE: It took closer to five minutes than five hours to get down to 27. Joe Ward was eliminated in about the worst possible way–his AK had Jamie Robbins’ AQ dominated through the flop and the turn, but the Qh spiked on the turn to give Robbins the pot and bring a crushing end to Ward’s Main Event. Here’s a shot of Ward yesterday, in better circumstances.
That’s it for tonight, play will resume at noon and not end until the we know the latest incarnation of the November Nine. Will that happen on Wednesday, or at lunchtime Thursday? Nothing to do but wait and see.
Tags: 2009 main event, 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, 2009 wsop main event, Main Event, world series of poker, WSOP
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Sunday, July 12, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
Phil Hellmuth and Scott Ian were the last members of Team UltimateBet to be eliminated from the Main Event, but there are still (at least) two players sporting the black-and-gold of UB as play resumed today. And one of those players, Scott Buller, is gonna be on TV in a couple of months. After taking 2nd in the Seniors Event this year, Scott found himself at the ESPN Feature Table and all-in with pocket Kings against Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier’s pocket Aces. It seems almost unfair that a player like ElkY should EVER be allowed Aces, but that’s the dilemma Scott found himself in. After a Qd-10d-3h flop Scott was looking for some runner-runner flush/straight possibility, or a King…and that’s what spiked on the turn, the Kc, and when ElkY couldn’t catch an Ace or a Jack on the river Scott doubled up to over 500K. Here’s a shot of Scott at the Feature Table just before that hand:
One player who didn’t have immediate worries about busting is Tom Lutz, who came into play today 3rd in chips with 1.6 million. Which is a ton of chips…until you realize that to win the Main Event you need to collect almost 195 million chips. Eh, heck, 1.6 million is still a lotta chips:
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, Main Event, scott buller, tom lutz, world series of poker, WSOP, wsop main event
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Friday, July 10, 2009 - ProductMan
The WSOP is heating up to the point where I think it might be officially on fire. Congrats to all the winners so far! I’m sure that I’m not the only one who is glued to the blogosphere for the latest news and often off-color commentary. I think all these twitter tweets are starting to do a number on my cell phone battery, but I like pretending I’m a critical factor in the main event.
Of course, there’s been a lot of behind the scenes action too. With the WSOP being poker’s personal Mecca, it really is an opportune time to talk face to face with players worldwide. We’ve been gathering feedback about our client and site, sifting through comments, and charting our course for the future.
What’s even better is that we’re on the verge of rolling out an exclusive new feature. I hate standing up and not delivering, but let’s just say that it adds a brand new dimension to our poker client. As we approach the release date, we’ll post more details right here. Don’t forget to check the blog regularly to stay up to speed.
Remember that we always love hearing from you. You can always post your feedback and comments into the blog. It only takes a second to have your voice heard.
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Friday, July 10, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
For the first time since May 27 the Rio was quiet yesterday, with no tournament action scheduled. After the opening six days of the Main Event the World Series of Poker paused to take a breath before the six-day march to the final table. But not everyone pulled their noses from the grindstone as play concluded Wednesday night.
Like Phil Hellmuth, for example. Let’s see, Phil’s won eleven bracelets, millions of dollars, and he hobnobs with celebrities and seems to spend half his time with TV camera pointed at him. Yet as he walked out of the Amazon Room Monday night he passed the press box and said, “Hey, are you guys media?” There’s a sign that says “MEDIA PRESS BOX” right by the stairs but we didn’t snippy and acknowledged the fact. “I’m gonna give you guys some books!” he said, and rushed out the door, returning twenty seconds later with a box filled to the brim with copies of Deal Me In, the book Phil’s new publishing imprint just released. And so we were favored with the sight of one of the most famous and successful poker players in the world hustling down the row and handing out books like a glad-handing salesman. Here’s a shot of Phil giving copies to the PokerStars blogging team (gotta stick it to the competition):
Phil handed out the lot, signed a few autographs, and chatted with we ink-stained scribes for a few minutes before finally making his departure from the Amazon Room:
Scott Ian is also back to play today, this after he flew from Vegas to Tulsa yesterday to play at Rocklahoma yesterday with Anthrax. While others among the 2,044 players remaining the in Main Event field were lounging by the pool or catching up on sleep Scott and Anthrax were headlining one of the biggest music festivals of the year. Then Scott hopped on a flight at 7AM to get back to Vegas in time to take his seat today. Makes your typical day off seem pretty (deleted) weak, yes?
What did I do on my day off? Well, it turns out that the Rio wasn’t totally quiet yesterday, as the World Series of Poker Media Event was held in the Brasilia Room. After attending the press conference Jeffrey Pollack held at Martorano’s restaurant in the Rio (and enjoying the buffet laid out for us) the WSOP media took to the felt in a tournament using the new Dream Team format. We played in teams of three and your overall score is determined by the order you and your mates are knocked out. I’m proud to say that my team finished third (whoo-hoo!), as my buddy Pauly carried me and Kristin to near the top of the leaderboard by finishing third overall. It was fun playing poker as opposed to merely covering it, though I got knocked out about 90 minutes in and spent the rest of the time sweating Pauly. But I represented UB with poise and class, if not skill or cunning.
And now everybody’s back to work, 2,044 players fighting tooth-and-nail for every chip on the table. No more days off, not until we know the names of the players who take a break until the November Nine reconvenes.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, november nine, Phil Hellmuth, Scott Ian, world series of poker, WSOP, wsop media event
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