If you liked Battleship in Ajax, you’ll love this. Toronto, Canada based gpokr is a multiplayer no limit Texas Holdem game developed with Ajax technologies. The site, which was created by Ryan Dewsbury, also has real time chat among all players in a game. The site does not use real money, and Ryan says he has no plans to change that.
gpokr was written with Java, and uses the Google Web Toolkit for its client-side Ajax (the toolkit lessens the burden of building client-side javascript by interpreting server-side java into javascript)
Also check out Mark Roth’s Ajax hangman game, which was also created using the Google Web Toolkit. Both are discussed on the Web Toolkit blog, here.
These are very interesting examples of what can be accomplished with Ajax – just a while ago, Flash (or something else) would have to be used. Soon, we’ll begin to see more and more apps (more useful than just games) come out, some of which hopefully will be very mainstream.
My only concern is that some of these apps (being very JavaScript intensive) can put a burden on the client’s resources, and there’s the problem of scripting and the dynamically-changing pages confusing users. Perhaps later versions of browsers might help alleviate these problems.
what is the point of this program? What’s wrong with current poker software like Party Poker, Full Tilt & Poker Stars? It works fine, and also has play money games, and tens of thousands of players. They also spend millions a year marketing their product.
I don’t think there’s a definite “point” to a lot of Ajax apps – many of them fall into the category of “proof-of-concept”. Like most any technology, it’ll take its time to find a good place for its use. Some would argue that it’s already been put to good use in apps like Google Maps, Gmail, Flickr, etc.
cg – this doesn’t require a download to your computer.
what’s the drawback to having to DL software? It’s not full of adware or spyware (at least Party and FullTilt aren’t). With 80Gig hard drives, I think we’ve all got room to spare……
Thanks for writing about this Michael and thanks to everyone who are checking it out right now. It’s great what you can do with the GWT. It’s been fun to develop and fun to see people enjoying it.
cg – Although it is a poker site I’m not matching features or trying to compete with regular casino/poker sites. That would be crazy!
This is a pretty cool site. I have one concern though however. Given that much of the coding is done with javascript is this site very secure? If someone were to create a for money game using the same technology would it be feasible that users could manipulate the system on the backendu (php or whatever they are using) by taking the javascript, changing it, and running it in there browsers?
Really cool site. I noticed it had a few bugs in Opera though.
I have a poker program on my computer, but I really prefer this site.
cg – What’s the point of web based email. We have perfectly good email clients that can be downloaded… (It’s a rhetorical question it case you don’t understand me). Fwiw, I like this much better than PartyPoker.
The site would be a bit better with a correctly functioning sign-up box. Apparently dashes aren’t allowed in emails according to this site. Not to mention the only way to close the sign-up box (if you dont login on sign-up) is to exit the site.
Chris: You got it! Email with dashs and closing the sign-up box fixes are now live.
Interesting site, although there is another AJAX based poker game that is also free to play that came out quite a while before this one at http://pokerrpg.com. Both are great examples of the power of AJAX in web based apps.
James, that Poker RPG site blows. Three cheers for Ryan developing the best AJAX poker so far!
I agree with cg what is the point of making an ajax based poker software when other big pokerrooms already have nodownload clients. Yes Michael there are other nodownload poker softwares which are much faster than gpokr. I don’t know if it’s just me but I have played on both of them and gpokr quite slow for me when compared to others.
http://www.pokkercards.com
Loving the site. I think the whole point is that it’s straight to the point – you can visit the site, signup quickly and play straight on the homepage. Some of the actual poker rooms no-download versions are well hidden and also aren’t as fast and streamlined as this. Good work Ryan!
Nick – http://www.cardschat.com
Nice work. Good functionality. Would gladly recommend to others.
Nice work. Good functionality. Would gladly recommend to others.