Game Changes - 27 September 2004

Life lines
The feature of waiting for additional time for an invested player to make a selection if he is disconnected is termed as a “Life Line”.

On certain types of tables (All tournaments and some specifically marked ring game tables) normal “Disconnection Protection” feature will not be available.

On these tables, when a player who is invested in the current pot and gets disconnected, the system will wait for additional time for the player to reconnect and make a selection. The amount of time for the additional wait depends on current pot size.

Life Lines in our Multi-Table Tournaments will be calculated as below based on the pot size.

No time added if Pot size is up to 5*X

• 20 seconds if the pot is more than 5*X and upto 20*X
• 30 seconds if the pot is more than 20*X and upto 40*X
• 45 seconds if the pot is more than 40*X and upto 80*X
• 60 seconds if the pot is more than 80*X

‘X’ is the big blind Amount if it’s a Flop game or lower limit of the stakes for 7 Card Stud games.

For tournaments, this big blind amount or lower limit of the stakes would be based on the level of the tournament at the time of the disconnection.

System will wait for additional time only if the current player who gets disconnected is

a) Invested in the pot and

b) His current options does not contain “Check” option.

If the current player who gets disconnected does have the “Check” option available in the option set, then system will automatically invoke the “Check” option for him without waiting for the “additional” time.

Click here for more details

Checking Hand History logs just got a lot simpler.
You do not need to request for Hand History requests via email any more. That’s right!! You can now get your Hand History Logs by going to the Hand History folder available on your computer and open them with any Text Editor like Note Pad, MS Word etc.

The Hand History Folder is available in the Empire Poker Client Installation Folder. The Empire Poker Installation Folder is the folder in which you have installed the Empire Poker software. In all probability your Empire Poker Client Installation Folder would be at: C:\Program Files\EmpirePoker. Hence the Hand History Folder would be at C:\Program Files\EmpirePoker\HandHistory

You also have an option to change the number of days or the size of the Hand History folder after which the oldest Hand History logs would be deleted. By default we have set this as 10 MB or 30 days whichever is earlier. You can do this using the menu option Hand History Logs Configuration.

Check your logs and improve your play.

Time Bank
Time Bank feature is available at all tournament tables on EmpirePoker.com to allow players more time for important decisions.

A 30 second Time bank is allotted to each player when joining the tournament and 10 more seconds are added to a player's Time Bank after every 3 levels.

If a player needs more than normal time to decide on a action, the player can use the time available in his Time Bank, which depletes with every use. To use the time bank, the players need to click on the button which appears just 5 sec before time to act elapses.

If a player fails to act in time or even click on the “TIME” button, the Time Bank gets activated automatically if both of the following conditions are met:

• The player is connected to the system and his/her time to act expires
• The player has money invested in the pot

Sit & Go Multi-Table Tournaments
We are adding more to our Single –Table tournaments, but firstly ‘Single Table Tournaments’ are being renamed as ‘Sit & Go Tournaments’ as we have also added 2-table and 3-table Sit & Go Tournaments.

Sit & Go Multi-Table tournaments are available under the Sit & Go Tab in the lobby.

Late Registration
The Late registration feature allows a player to join in a Tournament even after it has started. Late registration will be offered in all our regular tournaments. Late registration in a tournament will close when one of the following events occur:

• One (1) Player gets eliminated from the tournament.
• 1st level in the tournament is completed.
• All tables are filled up and no empty seats left.

A Registered player can un-register from the tournament only 15 minutes before the tournament start time.

Click here for more details

System Health Page
We have introduced the feature of informing you the reason behind a disconnection from our game servers to help you solve the problem faster. There are many reasons why you can get disconnected from our servers. They are as follows:

• You can get disconnected from the Internet.
• There is some connection problem between your ISP and our game servers.
• There is some technical problem with our game servers.

Whenever you get disconnected from the Internet, you would get a dialogue box informing you that you are presently not connected to the Internet.

In case there is a connection problem between your ISP and our game servers or there is some technical problem with our game servers, we would pop up a webpage which would show the status of our game servers in 30 seconds in case of initial connection and 45 seconds in case of reconnection.

We hope this helps you understand the reason for the disconnection so that you can resolve it if the problem exists at your end.

Login using the Screen Name:
You can now login to the client using the account name as well as the screen name. It is also possible to login to the My Account section on the website using the account name as well as the screen name. This is to avoid any confusion you would have between the account name and the screen name.

The Account Name is used for all the transactions carried out in your account. This is the name that you select at the time of registration.

The Screen Name is the name that appears to other players while you are playing and it can be different from the account name. The option to change the Screen name is presently available only for our real money players. All real money players have the option to get their screen name changed once every Six months

If you have any questions, please contact our 24/7 Customer Care Team.