Virtual Poker Table Eliminates Need for Cards & Chips

Poker is a sport that needs to evolve for fans to remain interested. Most sports understand this and make changes to their sports through rule changes and innovation. Poker is a sport that is hard to enhance unless you incorporate technology into the equation. This is why a group of students have joined together to create the world's first Virtual Poker Table.

Gone will be the need to have cards, chips, or even an actual poker table. What we have here is the next generation of poker playing in the form of a multi-touch screen and your mobile phone. How it works is that bettors will touch the touchscreen and drag their chips across the surface. They will then be able to flip their cards over by tapping on the table. But perhaps the coolest aspect is how the touchscreen poker table syncs with each player's cellphone.

Each player will have their cellphone linked directly to the Virtual Poker Table. This is so that the player's hand will show up on their phone screen. A player will be able to see his cards whenever he tilts the phone towards him. However, when the player tilts the phone away from him it will flip the cards back over. This is to ensure that no other player can sneak a peek at your cards and see what you might have for a hand.

The Virtual Poker Table was created by students at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. They understand how important poker has become and intended to create an interactive system that uses tabletop surfaces and mobile phone technology together. The end result was a brilliant creation that has caught the eye of poker tournament organizers throughout the world. There is a feeling that this technology could be incorporated into an actual tournament over the next two years.

There is a large negative reaction towards this creation as well. A lot of players feel that this could take away from the fun of the game. However, proponents argue that this is the next logical step to take in order to keep poker relevant in the public eye. It will be interesting to see how things play out over the next couple of months. For what it is worth, I think this is a great invention that could dramatically increase interest in an already popular sport.

Sources:

(1) Switched, http://www.switched.com/2010/03/29/poker-surface-puts-online-gambling-on-the-multi-touch-table/, 2010