World of Card Games

With this morning's update, the list of tables has been modified so that it is disabled for about half a second while updating. This should help players avoid clicking on the wrong table by accident.

Pause and Continue buttons have been added to public tables. These buttons will be familiar to those who play at private tables. The difference is that at public tables, all players must vote to pause by clicking the Pause button. Also, the pause lasts for 2 minutes only before the game restarts. And if any single player hits the Continue button, the game will restart. This is to avoid inconveniencing someone who does not want to wait.

Pause and Continue buttons

The Pause button will be useful primarily to players who know each other well. It is polite to hit the Pause button if someone requests it, but you should not expect that everyone will agree to do so. Please be polite when requesting it.

There's something new for the Euchre players: I was recently made aware of the "Next" strategy in Euchre. Apparently it's pretty well known to more advanced players. I did a few experiments, and found that the bots did pretty well when using it. So I've added it to their strategy. If you are not familiar with this strategy, please read my post about it. When your partner uses this strategy, you need to play your cards accordingly. So watch for it, and I hope you will enjoy winning more Euchre hands with this technique.

This morning, the server was updated to repair a bug in the "list of tables". It's supposed to update every few seconds, but had stopped. This is now fixed.

list of tables updates every few seconds

I've spent a little bit of time updating the bots in Pinochle, based on feedback. They'll still need more work, but overall should be a little bit better in playing their cards now.

A few weeks ago, I modified the Spades layout so that cards would be fanned more widely. I'd already done this for Hearts, at the request of a player who was having trouble playing cards using a stylus on a tablet.

After the change, several players wrote to tell me that they liked it better the previous way! Now you have a choice (in Hearts and Spades only): you can "Fan Cards Wider" or more compactly; it is up to you. The screenshots below demonstrate how to do this: Just uncheck "Fan Cards Wider" in the Settings panel. This panel appears when you click your user name in the upper right corner:

default card fanning

compact card fanning

In the screenshot, you see another new setting. You can now select which card games you want to see in the "list of tables". If you never play Go Fish, and don't want to see it in the list, just uncheck that box in the "List of tables" user setting.

I hope you enjoy these new features!

Sorry for the brief downtime this morning! World of Card Games was updated so that you can now see who is sitting at each table by using the table listings. All you need to do is hover your mouse over any seat that is occupied. This can help to make a choice between tables.

player names in table listings

Have you ever wondered how long a game has been going on? You can now view the total elapsed time for your game by clicking on the table info link in the lower left corner (it shows you the total game time, which may be longer than the time you've been playing, if you entered mid-game):

elapsed game time

[Edit: I just played a game and noticed the time does not always function correctly. If you reload the page it seems to be correct, however. Next time I make changes, I'll fix this. Update: fixed this issue May 19 2015]

Tournament players will be interested to know that I've increased the time to take your turn in tourneys to 1 minute. This will help people who are sometimes affected by a spotty internet connection.

Finally, I've added a quick-setting panel that allows people who are new to the site to choose between playing with robots and/or playing with people:

quick options settings

This panel will appear if the site does not detect that you've visited there before. I did this because I'm concerned that people are coming to the site and getting confused by popping into the middle of a game, not knowing how to set their options. This way, they can make the choice to play against the computer or play against people immediately.

You may see this "quick options" panel just after you've logged out. This happens because the site doesn't realize you've visited before. You can use the "Remember this choice" checkbox to quickly set your options this way, in that case.

If you're wondering how to set options - use the Options button! Here it is for Hearts:

Options button for Hearts card game

This morning, the server was updated with a couple of new features.

Hopefully everyone knows about the "dislike player" icon that can help you avoid players you don't like... (if you don't, go take a look at the blog post which describes it). Now, you have a way to keep track of players that you like as well! There's a yellow star next to each player:

like this player

Click the yellow star to "like" the player. This adds them to your "liked player list." You can edit this list by clicking on your player name at the upper right, and scrolling down to the "Manage Likes" section.

Another new feature is the table listings area. Use the "list of tables" link at the lower left corner to open a panel that displays card games with available seats:

table listings

Notice the emphasis on "available" - only tables where you are allowed and that have open seats are shown. For example, if you are not a registered user, and there's a table that allows "Registered Users Only" with openings, it will not be displayed in the list. Full tables with games in progress are not shown either.

The list displays registered users with a green "R" while Guests are indicated by the letter "G" and robots are a pink "B". A yellow star (★) indicates a player that you have liked. Empty seats are indicated with an open square (☐). Relevant information is displayed about the table as well.

You may click on an empty seat, indicated by an open square, to take that seat. Be aware that if the seat is taken before the panel updates, you won't be able to take that seat! So grab it quick if you are interested.