PokerStars Launches Online Home Games

Home games have long been an important and popular form of poker, allowing friends to get together and play for small stakes in a fun, social atmosphere. PokerStars is now looking to bring that atmosphere to the online poker world with their PokerStars Home Games program.

The new service will allow PokerStars players to set up “Poker Clubs.” These clubs are private, with founders allowed to set an invitation code which friends can use to join in. The administrator of each club can then set up cash games and tournaments, as well as creating custom lobbies and tables for their players.

The clubs will allow players to play small scale events and keep internal standings, giving them a feel not unlike a typical home game or local poker league. In addition, there are several restrictions on the poker clubs that will prevent them from spiraling into large-scale operations. Each poker club can only have a maximum of 50 players. Individual players face restrictions, too; no player can create more than one club, and each player can only join up to three clubs in total.

However, club players will also be able to avoid some of the restrictions that face the PokerStars community at large. Players from the same IP addresses will be allowed to participate in the same clubs, and can even play at the same cash game tables. Owing to the small, private nature of these games, there will also be no chat moderation, and the games will not be monitored for collusion. According to a report by Bluff Magazine, users will be able to set up cash games with stakes ranging as high as $1/$2. Restrictions on tournament buy-ins are not known at this time.

At the moment, PokerStars home games are only available on the play money version of the PokerStars site. However, the .com version of the room is expected to have home game support by the end of the week.