1 - Is Poker Now open source?
I love the idea of open source and I have a lot of OSS projects (https://github.com/samuelsimoes), but hardly Poker Now will be open source because of the value of it. Companies/People with money could easily get the code, rebrand it, and gather all the results of hours and hours coding at this.
2 - When Poker Now started?
The first version of Poker Now was deployed at 17/9/2017.
3 - How many people are in the Poker Now development team?
At this moment just me, @samuelsimoes. But I receive a lot of help of people at our Discord and the moderators of Discord and Gitlab.
4 - Poker Now will always be free?
My main goal is offer Poker Now as a free product, without ads, directly on the browser and always without sign up process (except where I need sign up, like tournaments). You may ask about how I will cover the costs, I'm always focused to keep the app the more performant as possible to use cheap infrastructures, of course I think in monetize Poker Now, but I will try to do this most cleanly. Donations and this kind of things could help too and I will do more details about this in a second moment.
5 - How well Poker Now shuffle the cards?
We use the Mersenne Twister algorithm with a sequence of random seeds. Each game deck is a result of a shuffle of the last shuffled deck in Poker Now. When a card is placed on the table, the remaining deck is shuffled again. You can check the current shuffle logic in this example snippet https://repl.it/@samuelsimoes22/Shuffling-Statistics
You can check the real current implementation used in the app here: https://gist.github.com/samuelsimoes/3234f552d732888c6b0e2f483de084f9
You MUST READ the common pitfalls when analyzing shuffling: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oNtmJaADQ-3zeZlcQLwvU0n7xpyPF5BLPG6LLWlsBPw
You can read more about poker probabilities at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_probability#Frequency_of_5-card_poker_hands
and you can read about the perception of the RNG algorithms and analysis sample: https://www.cardschat.com/f13/how-random-a-rng-96709/
1 - Bring some quality data that bases what you are claiming, and please, 100 hands isn't a good window to analyze anything. If you don't have any data and just "feel", please don't waste the time that I don't have.
2 - I am a solo developer here that does the code, the design, the support, keep the servers running and keep this comunity. It is a lot of work and I struggle to delivers all the features that a lot of people want. Do you really think that I will develop a sophisticated mechanism to help certain players without totally screw my reputation and the game?
3 - If you really want to point something wrong at the logic YOU NEED TO INFORM THE ROOM LINK where you noticed something wrong, and you agree that your game log can BE EXPOSED TO ANYONE if you started the discussion in open channels.
6 - There is any way to do a donation to Poker Now?
Absolutely. Just become a patron at https://www.patreon.com/poker_now (you can become a patron by just one month if you want). This money will be 100% reverted in infrastructure payments and in the case of we raise more money than costs, it will become money prizes in tournaments.
You also can "buy me a coffee" at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/pokernow
7 - Can I still use Stellar Lumens (XLM) to play?
Stellar Lumens (XLM) is a cryptocurrency like bitcoin, but much more simple and with very low transaction fees. The Stellar network site is https://www.stellar.org/ You can buy Stellar Lumens like buying bitcoins. You can buy it in exchanges like https://www.coinbase.com, https://www.binance.com, and other exchanges. Poker Now previously gave you the ability to play betting stellar lumens, like betting with real money. Given that we are not a "casino", the legalities of keeping this feature is not something that we can afford. Due to this, we no longer support this functionality. Poker Now is currently just a poker client. Check next FAQ question (#8) for those wishing to play for currency.
8 - How can I play for money?
Poker Now is only a game client. We do NOT offer any gambling services. We provide a place for people across the world to play for FREE, and without log-in. That being said, many people still wish to use our platform to play games for cash. Although we do not provide these services, there are many people and servers that allow players to do so. Poker Now does NOT endorse any one of these servers and we are NOT liable for any losses, and or scams. Although we will do our best to keep the discord server clean of any reported scammers with proof. We value our players and we will keep you safe.
SAFETY WARNING: For those wanting to play against people and or join games for cash, just be sure to make the proper safety checks to do so. We don't want anyone falling victim to scammers while using our client. So if you are going to play, please be very careful. This means having contact methods as well as fail-safes with who you are playing with. Checking logs etc. We want you playing on Poker Now, but we ultimately want you safe! Thanks for choosing to play with Poker Now!
9 - There's some place to follow the Poker Now roadmap/development?
You can check our development board: https://gitlab.com/poker-now/poker-now-hub/-/boards
10 - When Poker Now will have the option to play with real money with other players in open lobbies?
No time soon because host real cash games involving a lot of bureaucracy, and I don't have resources to endorse this right now (lawyers, open a company, etc)
11 - Can I share my Discord Server/App/Site here in Poker Now Discord server?
Please, ask me before through PM. Posting without talking with me, would lead to link deletion.
12 - Can I change my https://network.pokernow.club/ (a.k.a tournaments) username?
At this moment we don't allow change the username because players can exploit this, unless it has some typo. In this case you must send me a message asking fo the change.
13 - Has Poker Now a mobile app?
Currently we don't have, the only way to access is through the web browser and it is part of the DNA of Poker Now that is to make super easy to play, without need registering or downloads. I tried my best to make Poker Now looks a "regular" app at the browser window.
Some people ask me if I will create an app, and I generally answer: why?
14 - How does the Sit & Go tournament point system works?
At this document you can check how the current point system works https://gist.github.com/samuelsimoes/e77e9e377d95850d76c08c7c504086fd
15 - How a table expires?
When a table is inactive for 40 minutes, it expires. This is needed because I need to control the app load, because without it, the load is totally unpredictable.
16 - I WANT TO PAY YOU A LOT OF MONEY FOR A TABLE, CAN YOU GET ME ONE?
I am developing Poker Now and it can break, I don't want buyers at my ears trying to sue me when things go wrong. So I am not selling any kind of private access at this moment.
17 - What is the Poker Now stack?
Front-end just uses React.js. And in the back-end I use Node.js with Express and Socket.io.
18 - How many players can sit at a table?
10 players can sit at a table at a time! Although, you can have as many guests watching in the room at any time
19 - How can I transfer ownership of my table?
Tap the three lines at the top left of your screen (The Settings). Select players. Click edit on the desired player. Then select "Transfer Game Ownership".
20 - I want to help with code, how can I do it?
I am happy that you are willing to help with code but at this moment I am just opening the code access for people close to me. I am not saying that you want to steal the app or something, but for now, I can only fully trust in people that I know personally. But you can help the project here in the Gitlab pointing duplications, pre analyzing bugs and trying to find the causes or if it is a false alarm, telling me what issue is related to other, and answering people at our Discord. These acts already help a lot.
21 - How works the player disconnections at Poker Now?
If you close the game tab, you will be considered disconnected and you will be removed from the seat in 2 minutes if you don't reconnect again.
If you put the game tab in the background (opening another app or other tab) if you don't focus at the game tab again, in 5 minutes you will enter in the "heartbeat mode" which you will appear off-line at the table, but the app will wait 10 minutes before consider you full disconnected and removes you from the seat. This is mainly to save server resources within idle connections.
22 - Why I am apparearing off-line if I am with the game open?
Probably you are with more than one browser tab open for your game, and this other tab was disconnected for being unfocused, sending a signal that you disconnected from the game. We recommend that you keep only one tab open for your game for a smoother experience, although I am working to solve this issue.