On Wednesday, November 29, you soulless poker addicts will be given a new messiah - an update to that abysmal yet somehow popular Xbox live arcade version of Texas Hold ‘em. These changes may alleviate the vast depression that’s been devouring us since we had to score it five out of 10. You can witness our divine judgment here.

When your savior arrives, the current leaderboards, which currently showcase the inflated high scores of cheating varmints, will be buried alive in a North Dakota corn field. And in 2007, all that time you spent practicing your poker face in front of your dingy cocaine-stained mirror will finally be recognized with the introduction of Xbox Live Vision Camera support.

Here’s a full description of Wednesday’s update. We smashed into the houses of high-level Microsoft execs, sprung upon them as they lounged naked in their Jacuzzis filled with gold doubloons, sliced out their tongues and squeezed their words out onto this web page:

Post the blind and play right away! - Players can now, if they wish, start playing immediately when joining a table by posting the big blind, rather than having to wait for the blind to come to them.

New ‘Away’ mode - Players can now set their status to ‘Away’. Hands will be auto-folded and blinds auto-posted until the player returns.

New ‘Auto-boot’ mode - Players who continuously let the timer expire (more than three times in a game) will be booted from the table

Overall pacing - Timers and messaging durations have been adjusted to speed up game-play among experienced players, but still allow novice players plenty of time to play.

Improved blind structure - Initial blinds, as well as blind increases, are now more proportional to table stakes, ensuring more meaningful increases during game-play.

Matchmaking improvements - Players are no longer matched into games they cannot afford

Improved interface controls - Improvements to controls, such as increasing/decreasing stake amounts

Leaderboard display - A player’s full winnings and rank are now properly displayed

Art and text improvements - Game art and spelling issues have been addressed   

Online exploits addressed - Certain known exploits that enabled cheating have been addressed. As a result, the online multi-player leaderboards will be reset to eliminate inflated scores as a result of these exploits.

November 28, 2006