Recently, PokerStars added a pretty unique experience to their software.  It is called Home Games.  To learn more about what this new feature is, click on the link.  Meanwhile, I will try and talk about how I view this update.

PokerStars Home Games basically allows you set up your own poker club.  Currently, it can be hard to play with your friends on PokerStars mostly due to the high traffic of players that are on there at all times.  How can you solve this?  Create your own poker club that only the people you choose to be allowed in can play.  This allows you to play against your friends (or enemies) and no one else.

Once creating your own club, you can create a variety of cash games and tournaments.  All the games that are currently offered by PokerStars are at your finger tips.  Though, currently there are a couple limitations on the limits you can play.  But since this new update is still in the beta stages, I would think these limitations will be lifted.

Ok, now that is the gist of it.  I think this will be especially helpful for people out there that currently run a home poker game and are looking for another option.  Hence the name “Home Games”.  I also think this will be helpful to all those people out there that constantly are wearing a tin-foil hat and accuse many players of some sort of cheating.  (I too can fall under this tag, as I have had my suspicions).  But if you are playing with only people you know, assuming that is who you let into your club, this excuse is pretty much thrown out the window.

So, I created my own club, which is already up to 35 members.  Centered around mostly limit 5 card draw.  Though, there may be other variations of 5 card draw implemented.  I have assigned a few people as being an admin, mostly so that the players that reside in European nations can have their own time-friendly tournaments.

I decided it best to not include cash games in this club.  Since the traffic for 5 card draw is not exactly all too high, I did not want to create something to directly compete with what was currently being offered by PokerStars.  However, currently PokerStars has an extremely weak offering of 5 card draw tournaments, especially limit 5 card draw.  SOOOOO, this is where this club comes in.  I am hoping to give other players more options to play some 5 card draw tournaments.

If you would like to join this club, log into PokerStars and under the “Home Games” tab, search for club # 8373.  PokerStars will ask you for a passcode.  The passcode for this club is “5 Card Draw”.  Make sure you capitalize the C and D in the passcode.  Once you do that, it is time to put on your online poker face and play some cards!  Good luck to all who decide to join the club!

I just got finished filling out an application for the possibility of being a member of the PokerStars Team Online.  Now, before I make it sound special, I believe all Supernova-level players get the opportunity to fill out an application.

But oh man, it is like buying a lottery ticket.  I can feel the suspense running through my veins just thinking of the possibility of claiming such a position.  It would truly be a dream come true for me.

PokerStars did the same thing last year, in the fact that they asked all Supernova-level players to submit an application.  I was pretty upset to learn that I missed the opportunity when it was too late.  But I made sure to be on the outlook for it this year.

So if you play on PokerStars and are a Supernova VIP, make sure to keep an eye on your “my news” window that pops up every time you log on.  I don’t want you to miss the opportunity like I did last year.

I sent a email to PokerStars to remove the doomswitch, and this is how they replied:

Greetings from PokerStars.

As much as it might be a convenient explanation for when you receive a bad beat, there is no such thing as a “doomswitch”. It is simply a fanciful term invented by players, who in the early days of online poker, were seeking to explain away their poor results by blaming factors other than the natural randomness that occurs in the game.

PokerStars has no control over who wins and loses at our tables, and we cannot determine how your hole cards, the flop, turn and river are going to be dealt. We just deal the cards and the rest is up to the players in the game. We are sorry to hear about your bad beats, but please understand this has nothing to do with PokerStars or our shuffle.

Our software produces a shuffle that is completely random, which favors no player over any other. The methods we use ensure complete randomization of the cards, and complete unpredictability of the cards to come. You can see the description of these methods at:

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/features/security/

We arranged for the largest consulting firm specializing in software security and quality, Cigital, to review PokerStars’ shuffle.  Their investigation found the shuffling be fair and random. You may read about their analysis at:

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/rng/

If you are a real money player, we encourage you to review your own hand histories and to perform your own analysis. We have dealt over 45 billion hands and freely give real money hand histories any time someone requests them. If you want, we can send you a copy of every single real money hand history that you have played.

*Every* proper investigation of our shuffle has found the same thing: That our cards are randomly shuffled. Many who have conducted such studies have posted their findings to the Internet. You can find two of them here:

http://bit.ly/de932a

http://bit.ly/9ORjbu

We hope this information helps you to understand that PokerStars’ games are fair. We value all of our players, and take the integrity of our site very seriously.

I guess now I just have to cope with the fact that I suck at the pokers.