We played a lot ourselves, went through every inconvenience and rebuilt the table. What changed and why:
Raise — only after looking at your cards
- Cards are dealt face down. To look at a card, tap it — there is no separate button.
- Without looking you can call, check or play in the dark. You can raise only after opening at least one card.
- While only some cards are open, the score of the open ones is shown under them: "2 of 3 open · 21 points".
Why: that's how it's played at a real table. You raise when you know what you're raising on, not blindly — for blind play there's the dark.
No folding by accident
- If your cards are still closed, the first tap on "Fold" opens them and the button asks "sure?". You fold with the second tap. If you've already looked at your cards, it folds right away.
Why: "Fold" is the outermost button, it's easy to hit by mistake, and a folded hand can't be taken back. Now you always see what you're throwing away.
The money lies on the table, as in a live game
- The ante goes to the pot in the centre of the table right away.
- The bets of the circle lie in front of each player. After a raise everyone sees how much they need to call: as much as they're short of the biggest bet on the table.
- The circle closes on the player who opened the betting. What everyone matched goes to the pot, the excess stays in front of the player. Fold — and your bet goes to the pot right away.
- In the centre: how much is already in the pot, how much is on the table in total and the bet of the circle. All together, in one block.
Why: a single pot number and a bet "for the whole hand" didn't tell you how much to call. Now you see it without counting in your head.
Every player has everything in order and in its place
- Top to bottom: the player's last decision, the avatar with the name, the money, the cards.
- The money sits under the name and doesn't jump when the player folds or shows at the showdown.
- The opponents' cards are bigger.
- The dealer chip lies on the table next to the dealer's seat.
Why: seats used to twitch when their state changed, and small cards were hard to read.
Our own backyard words
- "Fold", "Call", "Check", "Raise", "All in". At the showdown — "Show / Fold". Over the players: "folded", "called 300 ₽", "raised to 600 ₽".
- In the Russian version these are the words svara players use at the table, not the poker ones.
Why: svara has its own table language, and poker terms feel foreign here.
You can see who's thinking
- The "thinking…" line of the player whose turn it is fills and drains like an hourglass. No flickering numbers.
Why: a running timer at every player was distracting and made the line twitch.
The win is visible at once
- The win lights up in a gold line at the winner: "You won +3 492 ₽" for you or "+3 492 ₽" over an opponent. The rake is shown next to it in small print.
- The pot flies to the winner. The "New hand" button turns on after a couple of seconds — you won't skip your win with an accidental tap.
- A loss is quiet: your cards just turn paler, no red.
Why: you used to search for the winner in the caption in the centre.
More time to decide at the showdown
- "Show / Fold" now gives you 8 seconds instead of 3. You have time to look at every shown hand.
Why: 3 seconds wasn't enough to decide.
Easier on a phone
- The buttons, the raise amount and the slider are placed so that a miss won't open the chat or fold your cards. The raise amount is shown right on the "Raise" button.
- On short screens the top bar hides and the table gets bigger. The balance and the table details are in the "Table" tab. To go back to the lobby — "Stand up".
Why: on small phones the buttons went off the screen, and the slider above the tabs made you hit the chat by mistake.
The table chat stays put
- However much you type, the chat stays in place: new messages scroll inside it, the table and the buttons don't move.
Why: the chat used to grow with every message and push everything under it.