Home Poker System (http://www.homepokersystem.com)

Squirrelinabox Poker is no more, for Home Poker System has taken it’s place as the web’s best home poker game manager.

Completely redesigned and rebranded, Home Poker System (HPS) gives poker players full control of their leagues with a powerful scheduling system (complete with invitations and RSVPs), full player stats, and much more. Leagues are easier to setup and run than ever before with a much cleaner layout that’s much more intuitive. Everything is still 100% free too, so there’s no reason to not head on over and check it out!

I have plenty more features planned for the site so stay tuned for those. Also, I plan on launching a related site within the next month or two that will be another valuable resource for home poker enthusiasts.

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted any news here, but that’s mostly because I’ve been steady working on the rewrite of Squirrelinabox Poker. It’s a complete rewrite from the ground up (code, design, everything) - so it’s taking a bit of time. Most of the site will function fairly similarly to the existing, though it’ll be much cleaner (visually and functionally).

As I think I’ve mentioned before, the new version will also come with a brand new name. It will no longer be called Squirrelinabox Poker as that’s a fairly vague name that doesn’t really describe what the site is all about. I’ve also made the decision to not migrate any leagues over to the new system. Too many things have changed in the underlying code for it to be worth my while as there’s really no leagues currently being used.

So when will the site unveiled? Hopefully within a month (let’s just say by September 1st to make it easier). Once launched, I plan on continually updating the site with new features so be sure to send me an email if there’s something in particular you’d like to see.

WatermarkTool.com is back up and running (on the new server too!). I’m currently moving Squirrelinabox Poker - which will be a much more intensive process since I’m going to be upgrading the ASP.Net framework and DB backend along with the move. Hopefully it won’t take much more than a day or two to get it back up and running so you can all get back to managing your poker leagues.

Okay, so the first Squirrelinabox Network site, Squirrelinabox Poker, really hasn’t had any news or updates in awhile. The reasons for this are many and so I’ll just dive right in.

First off, the site was initially created as a way for me and some of my ex-coworkers to schedule and track some home poker games that we were going to start up. I decided to do an entire public website around it since I was already going to be coding most of the functionality needed to handle our own games. The thing is, these are all ex coworkers and many of us have gone our separate ways. We, unfortunately, were only able to get in one or two games before this split happened, so my personal motivation for the site has obviously taken a bit of a hit.

Next is the fact that Google banned the site from it’s Adsense advertising program - claiming it was a gambling site. The thing is, the site has absolutely no gambling at all on it. You don’t pay any money or win any money with the site. You just use the site to track and schedule your own home games. If you choose to use money in your own home games that’s up to you and doesn’t have anything to do with the site. Another funny thing is that Squirrelinabox Poker was, initially, personally reviewed by Google to make sure it was an ok site to have ads on (this was because it was the first site I submitted to them to enter the program). A few months later they decided it was a gambling site and removed it, thus removing a big chunk of revenue possibilities.

Recently, the United States government passed a law, or bill, or whatever, that has basically driven just about all online poker sites out of the United States and forces them to not allow any U.S. based users to access their sites. Now, since my site isn’t an online gambling site, this doesn’t directly impact my site. All those online gambling sites that were impacted, however, did make up a giant pool of advertising revenue that I was planning on capitalizing on in the future.

With all that said and done, the real reason the site hasn’t had too many updates is because when I do eventually get around to updating it, I’ll likely be doing a fairly major overhaul, including a rebranding and a full set of additional features and improvments. This would obviously take me a considerable amount of time, and as such, has been placed lower on my giant list of “to dos” since it’s not a time critical project.

The existing site does continue to function and still gets a couple new leagues each month. I get requests all the time for advertising and link partnerships from gambling sites and other poker related sites. I’ve even had a person ask to buy the site. This all tells me that there is definitely interest in the site. Hopefully it won’t be too long until I can get back to it.