This week, ChiliPoker became the first online poker room to integrate social media into its poker client. The platform, called ChiliConnect, will allow players to interact with one another by linking their poker accounts with Facebook and Twitter to share their results and set up challenges with friends.
Using the new ChiliConnect toolbar located within the client, ChiliPoker members can challenge opponents to games, make last-longer bets, and sell percentages of their action. In the past, players looking for side action would have had to set it up on their own. Using ChiliConnect, it can all be accomplished within the client, making the process easy and clean.
“ChiliPoker always has been close to its players through a very strong customer care team and more lately through our successful live event tour in Europe, the Deep Stack Open,” said Alexandre Dreyfus, founder of the company. “By listening to them, we understood that online poker players wanted to enjoy the same experience that they could in land-based events. We decided to add this social experience online along with a ‘challenge’ system. More than ever, our motto ‘Spice up your game’ is true.”
The ChiliConnect system is based on four main widgets: Share, Connect, Challenge, and Swap. The Share widget allows players to post their results on social media outlets within the poker client. Cash game, tournament, and sit and go results will be updated every 15 minutes and members can share statistics and hand histories by updating their Facebook or Twitter account.
The Connect widget allows users to track their friends’ results easily by using the Buddy List within the site. Players can add any ChiliPoker member to their list and keep an eye on which games they’re currently playing as well as the tournaments they’re registered for. There’s also an Others tab within the widget that allows users to check the progress of random players on the site and add them as a friend.
The most exciting feature of ChiliConnect is the Challenge option. Users can set up last-longer bets with one another, up to six players, and the site will hold funds and track the progress of the bet until its completion. Players can select which tournament the last-longer will take place in and how much they want to wager. They can then follow the bet in real-time in the History section of the software. The feature is free to use for all members.
The final widget available is the Swap feature, which is extremely popular among the game’s high-stakes players in live tournaments. Players can swap a percentage of their potential winnings with friends playing in the same tournament and collect money without even cashing. Members can sell up to 40% of their buy-in and, like the Challenge feature, there is no extra fee involved.
ChiliPoker makes its home on the iPoker Network, which is ranked fourth in the world in cash game traffic by the tracking site PokerScout.com. The network is not available to U.S. players, but has still maintained an average of nearly 4,000 real money players at a time. Other sites residing on the iPoker Network include Titan Poker, Sun Poker, and Paddy Power Poker.
Added Dreyfus, “We are not the biggest poker company, but we want to be the most innovative and become the favorite alternative online room for every poker player.”
