This week on Xbox Live Arcade we offer a full-featured update to one of the most popular titles on the service. Texas Hold em. We’ve listened to our community and as a result, a host of features and improvements have been added to Texas Hold em to speed up game-play, eliminate cheating and ensure proper competition. As a result, the online multi-player leaderboards will be reset to eliminate the inflated scores that currently appear. In a future update in early 2007, we’ll be adding Xbox Live Vision Camera support as well.

Below is a full list of the new features and changes in the Texas Hold ‘em update: 

• 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
• Faster 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.

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