Games now show their star ratings in Google. Each game page reports its live average rating and vote count as structured data, so a game people have rated can appear in search results with its star score right there — the kind of result that gets clicked. A game with no votes yet simply shows nothing extra until it earns some.
Every game page now ends with a "More games like this" row — a handful of hand-picked links to similar variants (same style of game first). It's an easy next click for readers, and it helps search engines discover and connect every game on the site.
Sharper link previews everywhere. Sharing any game now shows a game-specific preview card (its name on the felt) instead of a generic one, and search engines are told they may use the large image and full descriptions. There's also a proper site logo and a site-wide identity for search engines to latch onto.
Faster discovery of new content. The site now supports IndexNow, which can notify search engines the moment pages are added or changed, and the sitemap now carries a last-updated date so crawlers know when to look again. Slots are also in place to verify the site with Google and Bing.
v1.1.14August 18, 2026
New & improved
HomePoker.games is now built to be found. Every page — the home grid, all the game write-ups, and the reference pages — carries a proper search-engine description, a canonical web address, and social-preview tags, so a link shared in a text or on social media now unfurls into a real preview card (a new HomePoker.games card) instead of a bare URL. Each game page also publishes structured data (a schema.org Game plus a breadcrumb) so search engines understand it's a poker game and know its player count, and the home page advertises its game search so Google can offer a search box right in the results.
Search engines now get a map of the whole site. A robots.txt and an automatically generated sitemap — kept in step with the game catalog, so new games appear the moment they ship — list every public page. The full-screen play tables and the admin area are deliberately kept out of search, so only the real rules-and-ratings pages show up.
Bug fixes
Audited every link across the site — header, footer, game cards, and in-page links — and confirmed they all point to real pages, with no dead ends.
v1.1.13August 13, 2026
New & improved
Lucky Sevens now lives up to its name. Roll a SEVEN and two things happen at once: you immediately scoop HALF the side pot (rounded down) into your stack, and you stake the claim on the rest of that jackpot. Rolling a 7 is otherwise an ordinary paid roll — you still pay $1 × the dice into the side pot like every roll — and the side pot is only ever the money accumulated from rolling the dice. Whatever is left in it is won by the last player to roll a seven: after the final card and the last betting round, if that player is still in the hand (never folded), they take the remaining side pot at showdown, even if they lose the main pot. If they folded, or no seven was rolled at all, the jackpot carries to the next deal and keeps growing. Rolling the last seven is the only way to win it — doubles no longer claim it.
New doubles twist in Lucky Sevens: roll a matching pair on the dice and you may roll AGAIN, paying $1 × the new roll into the side pot for another shot at a seven. You can keep rolling as long as you keep hitting doubles and can afford it — each roll another chance to grab (or steal) the jackpot. The rules page, the in-game how-to, and the step-through "Watch a Full Hand" replay all teach the new seven-wins / doubles-roll-again rules.
Bug fixes
Lucky Sevens re-roll order is now standard: the dealer on the button makes the opening roll, and the re-roll offer always opens with the player to the button's left and passes clockwise from there — rotating around the table hand to hand as the button moves. Previously the offer's starting seat crept one place further from the button on each betting round within a hand.
Swept every game for rules-vs-play consistency and tidied the step-through walkthroughs. ThreeFour War's replay now subtracts the $2 dummy-peek from the buyer (its chips add up to the table total again) and opens each street with the correct seat — the dealer's left on the early cards, the high hand showing on the third and fourth. The DumFicky and Bullseye walkthroughs put the dealer button on the right seat so action starts to its left, and DumFicky no longer mislabels a drawn hand. Wording was made precise where the text out-ran the game: Bullseye can only bust you once you're showing five up-cards, ThreeFour War's peek is "$2 for the first each hand" (not once a whole game), and Pyramid's winner is stated as the last player left with more than a single ante.
v1.1.12August 8, 2026
New & improved
New game: DumFicky, playable at /play/dumficky — a four-card lowball draw with a twist. You're dealt four cards and want the LOWEST hand, but it can't repeat a suit or a value, so the perfect hand is 2-3-4-5 of four different suits — and unlike most low games the ace is HIGH, making it the worst card. Two draws let you throw cards and draw replacements for $1 each (or stand pat), with a $1-limit betting round after the deal and after each draw. A duplicate never kills your hand: the repeated card simply doesn't play, so you show your best three (then two) — but more cards always beats fewer, so any four-suit hand beats a three-card one, and among equal sizes the lowest wins. Includes computer opponents, an in-game hand-ranks reference, and a step-through "Watch a Full Hand" tutorial.
v1.1.11August 8, 2026
New & improved
New game: Lucky Sevens, playable at /play/lucky-sevens — Hold'em where the dice decide what's wild. Everyone antes $1 and gets two hole cards, then the dealer rolls two dice and the sum names the wild rank for the hand (roll a 7 and sevens go wild; Kings and Aces can never be wild). The board grows over five $1-limit betting rounds — flop, turn, river, and then a third hole card dealt face down — and your best five from three hole cards plus four community cards wins the main pot. The twist is the side pot: every roll pays its number into a running jackpot, a paid re-roll at the start of rounds 2–5 can change the wild mid-hand, and only the last player to roll doubles takes that jackpot at showdown (if they never folded) — otherwise it carries and grows into the next deal. Includes computer opponents and a step-through "Watch a Full Hand" tutorial.
Every link in the site footer now goes somewhere. The Browse column's category links (wild card, community, and stud games, and top rated) drop you straight onto the matching filtered view, and five write-ups that used to be dead links are now real pages: a full poker Hand Rankings chart (five-card high and low, plus three- and four-card hands ranked by true odds), a plain-language Glossary, Dealer's Choice Tips for running a home game night, the Comment Guidelines, and a straightforward Privacy page.
Every playable game that's decided by a poker hand now has a "Hand ranks" button in its top bar that pops up a rankings reference right on the table, so you never have to leave the game to check what beats what. Each game shows the chart that fits it — the five-card order for Lucky Sevens, Bullseye and Lowe-Mac, the low-hand order for Lowe-Mac Raz, and the three-card order for Pyramid.
Bug fixes
The star ratings and vote counts on the Browse Games cards are now the real, live numbers from the database — the same votes you see and cast on each game's own page. Previously the home grid showed fixed placeholder numbers that never changed no matter how anyone voted. A game with no votes yet honestly shows 0.0 and no votes, and the "Top rated" and "Most reviewed" sorts now order by those live results.
v1.1.10July 21, 2026
New & improved
New game: Lowe-Mac Raz, playable at /play/lowe-mac-raz — the low sibling of Lowe-Mac. It's the same seven-card stud, two down and five up, but the LOWEST five-card hand wins: the ace plays low and straights and flushes don't count, so the best possible hand is 5-4-3-2-A (the "wheel"), and a pair counts against you. The pot-match twist carries over, retriggered on low cards instead of pairs — the first player whose board shows two DIFFERENT cards seven-or-lower must match the pot (or fold), and the next low-card milestone doubles it: another player's second low card, or that same first matcher's genuinely third, whichever comes first. (A pair of low cards doesn't count — it takes two different low cards.) Includes computer opponents and a step-through "Watch a Full Hand" tutorial.
At every showdown, the exact cards each player played are now nudged toward the middle of the table and outlined in bright blue, so you can see at a glance which cards made each hand — the best five in the stud games, the whole committed hand in ThreeFour War, and the winning rows in Pyramid.
Bug fixes
Bullseye now takes a fresh $1 ante on every deal, including the redeal when everyone goes over the Target — the pot carries and everyone antes again, so it grows each time (previously the redeal skipped the ante).
The pot no longer reads $0 at the end of a hand. Once a pot is won it moves into the winner's stack, so the readout used to drop to $0 the instant the hand ended; it now shows the amount that was contested and won, in every playable game.
v1.1.9July 20, 2026
New & improved
New moderation area at /admin, reachable from the Admin link in the footer. Sign in with a single password to review and remove comments and to work through submitted games. It's reachable only from inside the United States — anywhere else never even sees the login page.
Bug fixes
Game pages no longer look ready before they actually are. A game is drawn straight away but can't respond to a click until it has finished loading in your browser, so previously the table looked complete while choosing a player count or hitting Deal did nothing at all. Now the controls stay clearly greyed out behind a "Dealing you in…" indicator, and only become clickable the moment the game is genuinely playable.
v1.1.8July 19, 2026
New & improved
Ratings, comments, and game submissions are now live and saved — previously the numbers were just for show. Rate any game (one vote a day), leave a comment that appears right away (lightly moderated), or submit a game of your own, all without an account.
Browse Games is now fully searchable and filterable. The search box in the header actually works — it matches a game's name, nickname, and description — and the Players, Type, and Difficulty filters and the sort (top rated, most reviewed, newest, or A–Z) all apply as you change them.
New "How It Works" page — a quick walkthrough of finding a game, learning it, playing it against the computer, and rating it — linked from the header and footer (it used to be a dead link that just repeated Browse Games).
New "Bring your own game" card at the end of the grid that links straight to the submission form.
Submitting a game or posting a comment now asks you to slide a chip onto a target to prove you're human, and a profanity filter quietly masks unacceptable words in anything you submit.
Bug fixes
Posting a comment or a rating no longer reloads the whole page and throws you back to the top — your new comment or updated rating now appears in place. A comment posted with a name shows that name (leave it blank and it shows as "Anonymous").
The example-hand tutorials no longer clip off the right edge, and the cards in the middle of the table (like the ThreeFour War dummy piles and the Iron Cross cross) no longer overlap the players' cards. The wild-card marker is no longer hidden behind a card.
v1.1.7July 18, 2026
New & improved
New game: Bullseye, playable at /play/bullseye. A closest-to-the-Target poker game — like blackjack with poker hands: make the five-card hand that comes closest to the six-card "Target" in the middle without going over it. The Target is dealt from a second deck (one down, one up, four more down) and turns its cards up one per street until five show — the very first card it was dealt stays hidden until the end. Each player builds two down and five up, and the moment your up-cards climb two poker tiers over the Target's showing you bust out. Once the Target shows five you may buy extra up-cards for $1 to climb closer (still bust-able); when no one buys, the Target reveals its last card and there's one final bet. The best five at or below the Target wins — closest without going over — and if everyone is over, the hand is redealt with the pot carried. Includes computer opponents, a step-through "Watch a Full Hand" tutorial, and a showdown that outlines and nudges forward the exact five cards each player — and the Target — played (busted players' overshooting five are ringed in red).
v1.1.6July 17, 2026
New & improved
Lowe-Mac stakes now jump after the first pot-match. Once the first board to pair has matched the pot, that match amount becomes the table's max bet for every following round — for everyone, who may bet or raise any amount up to it (opening bet plus three raises), for the rest of the hand. Before the first match it's the usual $1 limit, and if the first pair folds instead of matching, it stays $1 no matter what a second pair does.
Lowe-Mac computer opponents play the pot-match far better: a player who matches now fires most of what they put in to run others off (rather than checking it back), and once the stakes have jumped everyone bets by strength up to the table max instead of dribbling out $1 at a time.
Bug fixes
Lowe-Mac: a player who can't fully cover a bet or a pot-match now folds, instead of being able to keep 'betting' with a zero or short stack. There are no partial, all-in-for-less calls — you either cover the call in full or fold.
v1.1.5July 17, 2026
New & improved
New game: Lowe-Mac, playable at /play/lowe-mac. A seven-card, high-only stud game — two down and five up, best five-card hand takes the whole pot — with a pot-match twist: the moment your board pairs you must match the pot (or fold), and a second board to pair must double the pot as it then stands. Matches are paid in first with no bet; only once the street is fully dealt does a deferred betting round open — the doubler acts first, then clockwise, and a player who matched may bet up to what they put in to run others off, while everyone else is held to $1 on that round. Includes computer opponents and a step-through "Watch a Full Hand" tutorial.
v1.1.4June 18, 2026
Bug fixes
ThreeFour War: the game now ends as soon as one player holds the money instead of dealing a pointless final hand (the same fix already in Pyramid). A player down to a single ante is treated as eliminated, and — importantly — the end is now decided after the match-the-pot penalty has busted the losers, not before.
v1.1.3June 18, 2026
Bug fixes
Disabled buttons now clearly look grayed-out and unclickable. In particular, a ThreeFour War dummy-peek button is plainly disabled once that pile is fully revealed (or you can't afford it), instead of looking active but doing nothing.
v1.1.2June 18, 2026
Bug fixes
ThreeFour War: the computer no longer stands pat on a strong low when an opponent on three cards is clearly going high. Because one high call sends the whole 3-card group high, that low would be dead — so the AI now takes a fourth card or folds instead of going down with it.
v1.1.1June 18, 2026
New & improved
ThreeFour War: the computer players now buy a peek at the dummy far more often — whenever the hand's outcome hinges on it — instead of almost never, so they play the dummy reads more like a real opponent.
v1.1.0June 18, 2026
New & improved
Pyramid now has a dealer button that rotates each hand. The player to the dealer's left turns up the first card in round 1, and that lead advances one seat each round.
After a hand, both playable games let you minimize the result panel to "study the board" — a floating button brings the result back — so the final table stays visible.
Your own not-yet-revealed cards in Pyramid now show a clear blue "face-down" wash, so it's obvious the table can't see them yet while you can still read them to plan.
Bug fixes
Pyramid: no betting round after the final card is turned up — with every row showing, the hand goes straight to showdown.
Pyramid: the game now ends as soon as one player holds all the money, instead of dealing a pointless last hand; busted players are no longer dealt in and their seat shows "Out of chips".
Pyramid: the computer no longer folds a hand that holds a guaranteed winning row (such as a pair of aces).
Pyramid: dragging a card to arrange your pyramid no longer leaves stray suit symbols — the card now follows the cursor cleanly.
ThreeFour War: the peek button is disabled when a pile is fully revealed or you can't afford the cost, so it no longer silently passes your turn; the fourth-card phase only has a betting round after someone actually takes a fourth.
Removed the stray focus outline that appeared around the page header on every page.
Reviewed and corrected the rules and step-through example hands for both games.
v1.0.0June 17, 2026
New & improved
Pyramid is now fully playable against the computer at /play/pyramid — arrange your face-down pyramid, reveal a card each round with $1-limit betting (opening bet plus up to three raises), and settle the three-way split-pot showdown.
New game: ThreeFour War, playable at /play/threefour-war. A split-pot war game with two winners — the best 3-card hand and the best 4-card hand each take half, going high or low, and each must beat a hidden dummy hand in the middle. Includes optional dummy peeks, the commit-to-four fourth card, and group declarations.
Cards now deal from a face-down deck in the lower-left corner of the table: each dealt card flies out of the deck and shrinks to its seat size, the same way in every playable game.
Every betting round shows a live raise counter by the pot ("Raises X / 3") that marks when the three-raise cap is reached, each raise is logged in the recap, and the controls say so when raising is capped.