Carbon Poker, flagship skin on the Merge Gaming Network, is showing off screenshots of their upcoming major client upgrade slated for a June release.
All the new changes are to aid in lobby filtering and table selecting. New quick filters allow for a speedy drill-down of game and table types, and an advanced filter option includes a slider to set min/max buyins.
One innovation is a global quick-search field, allowing players to do free-text searches to find table names, tournaments by ID, player screen names and even player notes.
Both cash and tournament lobbies also have “expanders,” which show table previews for seat selection or tournament information inline in the lists.
The new update certainly seems to bring some new ideas to the rather stagnant development in client lobbys among online poker rooms: Other than PokerStars new “tabling grouping” concept which is still in play-money testing, there has been minimum advancement in the standard lobby list concept.
The new client update will come after the departure of Lock Poker, one of the most prominent brands on Merge that has purchased the Cake Poker Network and plans to rebrand it Revolution Gaming on June 1.
In an interesting twist, Lock Poker claims that most of the v6 update was designed by them.
“We actually designed most of the Merge software update which should finally go live soon,” a Lock rep wrote a sponsored support thread on 2+2, stating that they plan to integrate similar features in the new Cake software.
So it seems v6 is a final parting gift from Lock, who will be going head-to-head with Merge to compete as the largest US-facing network next month.
