Over the weekend, Ultimate Poker, the first regulated online poker room in Nevada, rolled out a major software update that has had players in the desert state buzzing. New features and a new rewards program were part of it, including “resizable tables, resized avatars, player pedestals, a new timer, larger cards, preset bet buttons, and new lobby graphics. The new upgrade also offers players more tournament functionality with late registration options and additional entry options for online tournaments.”

Ultimate Gaming Chief Marketing OfficerJoe Versacicommented in a press release, “This is just the first step. We are dedicated to listening to our customers and are working hard to continually enhance and enrich the product by introducing new features and upgrades.”

The rewards program on Ultimate Poker is called Color Up and has ten tiers. You move up by earning Experience Points, or XPs, which are tracked on a meter within the software. Everyone starts off as a White Chip within Color Up. Twenty XPs will move you to Red Chip status and another 80 will get you Green Chip status. The top echelon is Platinum Plaque, which requires one million XPs and comes with a U-Point multiplier of 30. U-Points are earned while playing.

Rewards within Ultimate Poker’s VIP program include weekly freerolls, monthly freerolls, and milestone bonuses. One of the latter includes the option to receive $10,000 in cash or $7,500 in cash plus a $5,000 bet at Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas. The same group that owns Station Casinos and UFC owns Ultimate Poker.

On PocketFives, posters were discussing Ultimate Poker’s latest software upgrade in our Nevada poker community. One member said he was a fan of the update, but pointed out a few drawbacks: “When making the tables smaller, the numbers are hard to read. It’s also hard to see the cards when they blend into the avatars. Things like hand histories and player notes are still unavailable and there is still no waiting list for cash games.” An Ultimate Poker rep said those issues were being addressed.

According to Pokerfuse, many of the recent updates were aimed at tournament players specifically: “Tournaments players will notice the addition of tournament tickets, which provide entry into specific tournaments, and tournament dollars called U-dollars, which can be used to register for multi-table tournaments and sit and gos. In addition, icons have been added to the tournament lobby that will allow players to easily distinguish different types of tournaments”

Ultimate Poker accepts real money play from anyone 21 years old and up who is physically in Nevada. You don’t have to be a Nevada resident in order to play; you just have to actually be in the state. You can sign up for an Ultimate Poker account and make a deposit from anywhere. When you arrive in Nevada, you can start playing right away.

Visit Ultimate Poker’s website for more details.

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Image courtesy Pokerfuse