The Jivaro HUD Part 2: Rolling With The Changes

Last month I took a quick look at the birth of the Jivaro HUD, a tool for poker players which instantly caught the eye and received rave reviews for its simplicity, practicality and aesthetically-pleasing features – but there was a dark cloud hanging over such tools in general, so how did Jivaro weather the storm that was about to hit..?

Surprisingly, the Icelandic team behind Jivaro told me:

“It did not hurt us that much,” adding that: “We had to make small adjustments to our functionality so we were in compliance with the new rules set out by PokerStars”.

Other HUD developers were caught out by this new ‘rules focus’ to aid recreational players, but the Jivaro product was ahead of the curve.

PokerStars was one of the sites which didn’t ban HUDs completely, but did install new rules that included no longer allowing them ‘to display non-numerical data, categorize players or dynamically display statistics specific to a certain situation.’

Working with the sites rather than against was a big factor in Jivaro’s success, in addition to their ethos from the outset:

“Our software has always been aimed at the recreational player from the beginning and we are focused on bringing new players to the game of poker and we feel that PokerStars shares our goal”.

Now also working with ACR (America’s Cardroom), the uncertainty the team from Iceland plunged into when the idea of their innovative HUD took hold, has paid off.

“There is always a certain risk when you start a software company but our team is dedicated and has a real passion for poker,” they explain. “Almost everyone that was involved in creating Jivaro had some poker experience and some of the developers are even semi-pros that really wanted to create something special for players to use at the tables.”

Next month we are going to finish our look at the Jivaro history by… taking a peek into the future – to see where HUDs are heading in general, and how the Jivaro team plan to rise to the new challenges that lie ahead.