Poker Mavens Custom Cards (1 Viewer)

[BearMetal]

One of the things that's always bothered me about Poker Mavens is that the graphics are low-res and kind of crappy. Luckily, some companies/people have stepped up to offer custom tables, avatars, chips, etc. However, the one thing that I think was lacking in general were custom cards. So, here's my take on that. 90% of my players prefer these cards to the standard ones offered by PM. They scale better, are easier to read, and are a bit more modern.

Since PCF scales down images, I'll provide a link to a repository where they can be copied from. Also, yes, all of these have purple backs b/c I love purple. However, if people like the cards, I'm happy to generate some with different colored backs (or custom backs) as requested.

Note: I'm not a graphic designer. I can't draw. I can barely use GIMP/Inkscape. I don't pay for Adobe products because I'm cheap and poor and have no artistic ability anyway. If you see any decent artwork coming from me, it's most likely my brother-in-law (who is artistic and does have Adobe products). But I still think these are an improvement

Note: These are now updated for PM7 which uses larger files for better scaling! If you need the older, smaller PM6 versions they have been moved here.

Ornamental 2-Color Deck






Ornamental 4-Color Deck






Ornamental 2-Color Deck (Letters Only)






Ornamental 4-Color Deck (Letters Only)


Ornamental White (with Blue Background)
Some people don't like the weathered/rustic/wild-west look of the above cards. So, here are some white ones.

 

[BearMetal]

Tagging some people here who I think might like to take a look at them since you've got some PM experience:
@Venturalvn @DuffCal @Irish @StevieG

 

[Irish]

Thanks @BearMetal, these look really nice. I have a cash game scheduled for tonight, going to use the ornamental deck, I'll see if anyone notices the difference

 

[BearMetal]

Thanks @BearMetal, these look really nice. I have a cash game scheduled for tonight, going to use the ornamental deck, I'll see if anyone notices the difference

Cool! I'd love to hear feedback. Let me know if you need me to generate any with the card back changed for you.

 

[StevieG]

Those are nice. I especially like the faces used for the court cards. Well done.

 

[kk405]

Thanks Jonathan. This is great. I will test them tonight as well ...

 

[BearMetal]

Those are nice. I especially like the faces used for the court cards. Well done.

Thanks! For the court cards, I took some wiki commons vectors (which I believe are the same ones that PM uses on their cards since they are royalty free). However, I'm always looking for new/better ones to use. This was mostly an experiment since I hated the ones that shipped with PM.

 

[BearMetal]

Thanks Jonathan. This is great. I will test them tonight as well ...

Can't believe I forgot to tag you! Yeah, let me know what people think. I've got some die-hard-hate-change people that swear they "prefer" the originals. However, every time I look back at them, I cringe.

 

[DoubleEagle]

I loaded one of the new decks for our tourney tonight. How do I test to see if it is working correctly?

 

[Irish]

I loaded one of the new decks for our tourney tonight. How do I test to see if it is working correctly?

I have a freeroll head's up tourney that I use to test these kinds of things along with a couple of dummy user accounts (no balance). That way you can "play" without it affecting the bank.

 

[Venturalvn]

Yup. I have 2 test accounts that I log into with a locked test table only accessible with the token given to the 2 test accounts. Then I log in to both and pass a few hands back and forth.

If you have a gold account you can run it using secondary currency if you don't want to deal with "fake money" in the primary currency count.

 

[DoubleEagle]

I have a freeroll head's up tourney that I use to test these kinds of things along with a couple of dummy user accounts (no balance). That way you can "play" without it affecting the bank.

I take you have "Duplicate IP's" set to yes?

 

[BearMetal]

I loaded one of the new decks for our tourney tonight. How do I test to see if it is working correctly?

You need to restart the PM server after changing the cards. Here's how you can tell it's working:

2 Color:
https://<your-poker-site>/Image?Name=Cards2

4 Color:
https://<your-poker-site>/Image?Name=Cards4

That will show you which asset file is in use. If you want to see the cards live on a table, then you gotta play with some dummy accounts (as mentioned above)

 

[Irish]

I take you have "Duplicate IP's" set to yes?

Yep, duplicate IPs & PCs, but I run a really small game, just folks I personally know.

 

[DoubleEagle]

I tried the cards last night and had several complaints that the purple backs hurt they eyes and the cards ran together when playing 5-card games. I didn't play so I didn't see it. Went back to the default deck this morning.

If you change the color of the backs please post and I will give them a try.

 

[BearMetal]

I tried the cards last night and had several complaints that the purple backs hurt they eyes and the cards ran together when playing 5-card games. I didn't play so I didn't see it. Went back to the default deck this morning.

If you change the color of the backs please post and I will give them a try.

Oh sure, I'm happy to change the back color. What do you use for the backs?

 

[DoubleEagle]

Oh sure, I'm happy to change the back color. What do you use for the backs?

How about blue?

 

[Irish]

We used the "Ornamental 2-Color Deck (Purple Back)" set last night and the feedback was generally pretty good. Players noticed the difference almost immediately (especially the purple backs lol). The lone critique was that because the suit graphic on the number cards were so big and colorful (especially with 4 color deck turned on), they didn't notice the suits on the face cards as much (ie someone missed seeing a flush lol). All of the other players agreed that having this one person not noticing flushes was a good thing

I told them there's a version of the cards that carries the large suit throughout the deck, we'll probably try that one next week and see how it goes.

I'm very much a traditionalist with regards to cards, so I'm not a huge fan of the overall modern style. But I always play on a big monitor; the large suits definitely helps with those playing on laptops, tablets or smartphones - and after 2 or 3 scotches.

One thing I personally noticed (no one else mentioned this) was I found it a little tougher to read the pips. I couldn't put my finger on why during the game, but in comparing them side by side this morning, the weight of the font on these new ones is definitely thinner. I think bolding those up a bit would help with that.

My 2¢ worth, very much appreciate you making these available @BearMetal !

 

[StevieG]

Thanks! For the court cards, I took some wiki commons vectors (which I believe are the same ones that PM uses on their cards since they are royalty free). However, I'm always looking for new/better ones to use. This was mostly an experiment since I hated the ones that shipped with PM.

Nice. I also used open source vector court cards to make the deck I had done with MakePlayingCards.com, and I based our Mavens deck off those images.

 

[BearMetal]

We used the "Ornamental 2-Color Deck (Purple Back)" set last night and the feedback was generally pretty good. Players noticed the difference almost immediately (especially the purple backs lol). The lone critique was that because the suit graphic on the number cards were so big and colorful (especially with 4 color deck turned on), they didn't notice the suits on the face cards as much (ie someone missed seeing a flush lol). All of the other players agreed that having this one person not noticing flushes was a good thing

I told them there's a version of the cards that carries the large suit throughout the deck, we'll probably try that one next week and see how it goes.

I'm very much a traditionalist with regards to cards, so I'm not a huge fan of the overall modern style. But I always play on a big monitor; the large suits definitely helps with those playing on laptops, tablets or smartphones - and after 2 or 3 scotches.

One thing I personally noticed (no one else mentioned this) was I found it a little tougher to read the pips. I couldn't put my finger on why during the game, but in comparing them side by side this morning, the weight of the font on these new ones is definitely thinner. I think bolding those up a bit would help with that.

My 2¢ worth, very much appreciate you making these available @BearMetal !

Thanks for the great feedback! I agree that it can be a little weird to go from the large suit into the court cards with the smaller suit and the picture. The style of these cards is to have the large suit, so I haven't figured out a way to be consistent (aside from using the letters-only versions). I actually switch it up on my site; I use the standard 2 color deck for 2-colors, and for the 4-color deck I use all letters. My thinking is that someone on a 4 color deck needs as much clarify as possible and the letters-only version gives them that.

The two pieces of feedback on my site have been:

• These are so much clearer and easier to see b/c I have bad sight or I play on a smaller screen
• I don't care; the originals were fine; I'm a traditionalist; go back to what I know.

So, it's certainly a balancing act.

The pips; I completely agree. I went through about 1000 fonts and finally settled on this one because it had enough of what I liked (but not everything). However, I think that bolding it is the way to go and I'm going to give that a shot.

 

[BearMetal]

@Irish - added some bold variants to try:

 

[BearMetal]

How about blue?

Sure thing; I'll post some blue ones today.

 

[BearMetal]

@DoubleEagle Here you go; slightly bolder text with the PM stock blue card background:

 

[Irish]

@Irish - added some bold variants to try:

View attachment 624942
View attachment 624943
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View attachment 624945

These are *much* easier to read, thanks! Love the blue backs as well!

 

[BearMetal]

These are *much* easier to read, thanks! Love the blue backs as well!

Cool!!! Yeah, I went a little light on the bolding (could have gone more) but this was definitely an improvement. Hope people enjoy them more.

I think one of the original files I put up was scaled wrong and was too large so some cards might have been cut off; these are all fixed.

 

[madforpancakes]

Thanks for posting these, giving them a try tonight!

 

[BearMetal]

Thanks for posting these, giving them a try tonight!

Thanks! Hope you like them. Last night my players felt that the bold cards were easier to read but the text was too fuzzy when enlarged. So I've backed off of the bold pips just a little bit...

 

[AceFour]

One of the things that's always bothered me about Poker Mavens is that the graphics are low-res and kind of crappy. Luckily, some companies/people have stepped up to offer custom tables, avatars, chips, etc. However, the one thing that I think was lacking in general were custom cards. So, here's my take on that. 90% of my players prefer these cards to the standard ones offered by PM. They scale better, are easier to read, and are a bit more modern.

Since PCF scales down images, I'll provide a link to a repository where they can be copied from. Also, yes, all of these have purple backs b/c I love purple. However, if people like the cards, I'm happy to generate some with different colored backs (or custom backs) as requested.

Note: I'm not a graphic designer. I can't draw. I can barely use GIMP/Inkscape. I don't pay for Adobe products because I'm cheap and poor and have no artistic ability anyway. If you see any decent artwork coming from me, it's most likely my brother-in-law (who is artistic and does have Adobe products). But I still think these are an improvement

Ornamental 2-Color Deck (Purple Back)

View attachment 624082

Ornamental 4-Color Deck (Purple Back)

View attachment 624083

Ornamental 2-Color Deck (Letters Only) (Purple Back)

View attachment 624104

Ornamental 4-Color Deck (Letters Only) (Purple Back)

View attachment 624087

Ornamental 2-Color Deck (Faces Only) (Purple Back)

View attachment 624088

Ornamental 4-Color Deck (Faces Only) (Purple Back)

View attachment 624169

This is fantastic! Thank you!

 

[BearMetal]

This is fantastic! Thank you!

No problem! Always looking for feedback if people like them or not. Happy to make changes if it's within my realm of capabilities.

 

[shahnuli]

One of the things that's always bothered me about Poker Mavens is that the graphics are low-res and kind of crappy. Luckily, some companies/people have stepped up to offer custom tables, avatars, chips, etc. However, the one thing that I think was lacking in general were custom cards. So, here's my take on that. 90% of my players prefer these cards to the standard ones offered by PM. They scale better, are easier to read, and are a bit more modern.

Since PCF scales down images, I'll provide a link to a repository where they can be copied from. Also, yes, all of these have purple backs b/c I love purple. However, if people like the cards, I'm happy to generate some with different colored backs (or custom backs) as requested.

Note: I'm not a graphic designer. I can't draw. I can barely use GIMP/Inkscape. I don't pay for Adobe products because I'm cheap and poor and have no artistic ability anyway. If you see any decent artwork coming from me, it's most likely my brother-in-law (who is artistic and does have Adobe products). But I still think these are an improvement

Ornamental 2-Color Deck (Purple Back)

View attachment 624082

Ornamental 4-Color Deck (Purple Back)

View attachment 624083

Ornamental 2-Color Deck (Letters Only) (Purple Back)

View attachment 624104

Ornamental 4-Color Deck (Letters Only) (Purple Back)

View attachment 624087

Ornamental 2-Color Deck (Faces Only) (Purple Back)

View attachment 624088

Ornamental 4-Color Deck (Faces Only) (Purple Back)

View attachment 624169

BOLD text versions can be found here. There's also some blue-back decks in there too. The bold text is preferred by some as it improves readability. I originally had it bolder, but that caused it to become fuzzy when scaled up.

Just used these over the weekend. Great feedback from everyone. Thank you again!