- Two new lobby views – table grouping and combo view – will be pushed out to clients this week.
- Seen as a stepping-stone to Pokerstars 7, their all-new lobby still in private testing.
- Table previews also added in this update.
- New progressive knockout tournaments, and new Zoom tournament options, will also be possible in the future.
Online poker giant PokerStars has announced a significant update to its client software, with several major improvements arriving for players in the coming days.
The most notable enhancement, to be rolled out this week, is two new ways of listing tables: “Groups” and “Combo.”
The Groups view is similar to the “table groupings” feature that PokerStars started to trial back in May 2012, which groups together the similar tables by buy-in and game type to simplify the lobby list. A single “find me a seat” button takes you to the most-full table of that type with a free seat.
The “Combo” view combines the Groups format with the traditional column lists.
The new lobby display can been seen as a stepping stone towards PokerStars 7, PokerStars’ all new lobby design which also features the three-view selection. First revealed by pokerfuse back in October 2012, the new client is still in private beta testing and is slated for a 2013 release.
Another addition in this week’s client roll-out is table previews in the main lobby. This allows viewers to see what players are present at a given table, including the seating order and chips in play, empty seats, and notes the user may have already accumulated on players. Users may select a seat directly from the lobby if no waiting list exists.
There are also game improvements, including the introduction of a new type of progressive-bounty tournament, in which the prize for knocking out players increases as the tournament progresses, and new Zoom tournament types.
Updates to the various PokerStars clients are scheduled to be made available in a rolling schedule spanning this week, with changes to the main “.com” client currently scheduled for Thursday. The new Groups and Combo views and the progressive-bounty tournament format are officially in a beta-test stage, pending their acceptance and use by Stars players.
