How to create a club at Home Games on PokerStars?

Playing poker with friends in a comfortable environment is a great way to spend your leisure time. The problem is that organizing joint gatherings is becoming more and more difficult every year. Work, home, children, responsibilities - all this often does not leave a chance to enjoy your favorite hobby. PokerStars Home Games does not completely replace live poker, but brings us as close to it as possible. In the conditions of pandemic this option looks even safer. Therefore, let us take a closer look at the social function of PokerStars.

What is Home Games?

Home Games is a tab in the PokerStars client, allowing you to create private tables and play with your friends. It takes the form of a private, invitation-only club. You can play both for real money and for free with play money. As of 2022, Home Games is by far the best place to play with your friends. Analogues of other rooms are strongly inferior in types of poker, the number of disciplines and quality of implementation of the club.
A year ago Home Games improved and added support for iOS and Android smartphones. Previously, poker with friends was only available on computers or laptops.
One user can create two clubs in HG. But to be a member - up to 10 clubs at a time. If yoy play for real money, the loyalty program points are awarded exactly the same way as when playing in a regular lobby. Home Games is not limited to playing from one IP or location. The idea is that you play with people close to you and cheating is eliminated. Chat is not moderated either.

How do to create a club in HG on PokerStars?

Only a user with a PokerStars account can create a club in Home Games. This means that newcomers to PS need to go through the registration process. It comes down to entering personal information in the form and clicking the link from the e-mail to confirm it. And here is how to create a club:
1. On the right side of the PS client lobby, click on "Home Games".

2. In a new tab, click on "Create a Poker Club".

3. In the window that pops up, type in the name of the club and the password to enter the private party. The name has to be appropriate, i.e. it should not contain anything racist, sexist, offensive to faith, etc. You can not advertise the name of the other rooms too. As well as to indicate in the name of the links to sites. The list of restrictions is long, and the name is checked by the PS security service. Check the box that you agree with the rules of PokerStars and click "Create Club".

4. If everything went well, you will see a notification with a decent amount of text.

In short, you will be congratulated on the creation of the club, will be notified about the name check for 5 days and recommend to check your mail. There will come instructions on how to set up the club and invite people.

How to set up the types of games in it?

In the summer of 2020, all types of poker were added to the home games. While previously you had to settle for variations of Hold'em and Omaha, now you can create tables for Badugi, Seven Card Stud, Draw Poker, and Mixed Games as well. Only the club manager can create tables and select disciplines. He has the opportunity to appoint administrators to help him with the management. Simple participants do not have such options. And here is what the process of setting tables looks like:
1. From the lobby, go to Home Games.

2. Select your club. You can open it in two ways: 1) two clicks on the line with the club number; 2) the green "Open Club Lobby" button. The actions are equivalent and lead to the same location.

3. In the new window click on "Manage Games" tab. Here you will be offered to create a cash table or tournament. As an example, let's look at both options.

Cash. Click on the "Create a Table" button. You will open a tab with table parameters.

Think of a name, choose a game, table size, currency and level of bets. We created a NL10 table for 9 people in No Limit Texas Hold'em and named it after the greatest poker player of all time. Click "Create a Table" again to save the table.

The table will open automatically.

Tournaments. Click on the "Create a Tournament" button.

This will open a tab with MTT settings. Here we have much more options, than in case of cash. You have to name your MTT, make a description, set time and date of the start, choose game and tables' size. Then you have to specify buy-in, currency, format, re-entry possibility, number of chips in starting stack, speed, breaks and percentage of players in prizes. We will hold an NL Omaha tournament in honor of Phil Helmuth. The format of the tournament will be a fancy progressive knockout, we'll play for play money, and only the top 10% will receive payouts. Save the tournament with the green "Create Tournament" button.

Here's how the lobby preview of the upcoming tournament looks like:

How to invite friends to Home Games?

We've solved the problem of creating cash tables and tournaments, so now you can invite your friends. Here everything is as simple as possible:
1. Open the tab "Manage Club" on the right side.

2. Click on the green button "Invite New Members".

3. A message will pop up with instructions on how to join the club. You do not need to copy anything - PokerStars has a one-click button for copying information. Click on "Copy to Clipboard" and send an invitation to e-mail, social networks or messengers.

There is a separate button to invite players via Twitter. However, at the time of writing this article it was not working: when you click it, it opens the PS site with the following page:

It is possible that this is caused by some problems at PokerStars, or the absence of an account on Twitter for the author of the material.
On the same tab, the manager appoints administrators of the club Home Games from among the members. You can also block and delete users. The maximum number of members in one club - 501 people. If you contact the support service Pokerstars, this figure can be increased.

Can you play from smartphones or tablets?

As of June 2020, the home game is also available from smartphones. Chronologically the first to please players with mobile devices on Android, and soon added iOS support as well. You can't create a club from a smartphone or tablet, only join an existing one. Here's what to do:

• Log into your account through the PokerStars app.
• In the lobby, go to the "Home Games" tab. It's at the bottom of the list.
• Open the list of available clubs.
• Join one of them. All details should be in the invitation from the club manager.

Is there something similar in other rooms?

Several other rooms have similar solutions for playing with friends. Partypoker has "Club Games" and 888Poker has "Play With Friends".

Social function added in spring 2020

Against the background of Pokerstars approach, the competitors' options look poor:

• Eights offer only the creation of cash tables and Sit&Go tournaments for real money. You can play only no-limit Texas Hold'em.
• Compared with 888poker on partypoker is better with the types of poker - not only Hold'em, but also Omaha, but worse in terms of disciplines - only cash tables are available. It has been 1.5 years since the appearance of a separate tab with home games, but no work was done here - everything remains at the same entry level.

At 888poker decided not even to make the game with friends in a separate tab

Neither room offers a free play option. This is also surprising because the very possibility of poker with play money is on both partypoker and 888poker.

How to make playing at PokerStars more comfortable and profitable?

It's great to play with your friends at PokerStars, but it's even better to outplay them! Poker software can help you do just that. PS allows the use of auxiliary software, including Home Games. We recommend that you try these 2 programs:

1. StarsCaption. This versatile poker table helper converts stacks into big blinds, displays the built-in HUD, places tables on the screen when multi-tabling, and saves betting profiles.

The program has analogues for other networks: 888Caption and PartyCaption

That's not to mention the pop-up blocker and other routines that StarsCaption takes care of completely. The program is free up to NL10 and in tournaments up to $3 with no time limit. It also works for free in play money games.

2. Hand2Note. The program saves every hand in the database and displays all collected information in the HUD. This allows you to find leaks in the game of your opponents faster and win more.

The tracker has integration with StarsCaption, which makes the poker even easier

Software for collecting statistics is also good as a tool for analyzing the game. Just analyze your hands in the tracker, and soon you'll be playing poker much better than your friends. Hand2Note has a basic version and is free on a permanent basis. You can download the tracker from the official website.

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