PokerStars Home Games - Your Friends, Your Stakes, Your Rules!

Custom games are nothing new in online poker. Despite what some slick marketing will have you believe, the ability to create a custom tournament for your circle of friends (or enemies) is not a new innovation, but PokerStars has taken the private game to the next level.

The new PokerStars Home Game feature will allow the player setting up the custom game to set the rules of their private games on PokerStars and invite all of their friends to play, just as if they were organising the weekly home game. There will customisable features including the ability to set up a leaderboard to track results and pay out an overall season champion, as well as the opportunity to engage in either tournament play or mixed cash games.

This exciting development makes hosting the weekly game that much easier. No longer do organisers have to keep track of buy-ins and payouts, as well as the overall results for their players, they simply have to click a few settings and allow the PokerStars client to take care of all the admin work while they get down to crushing their friends.

Best of all, there are no more worries about missing the local home game. Now you can log in and enjoy the banter from anywhere you can play PokerStars. Even some of the biggest names on PokerStars are getting on board with the home games feature with Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu stating, “My favourite aspect of Home Games is the fact that you can create your own Club and customise it any way you want, just like you would in a home game with friends... I love playing mixed games, and the software allows you to choose from a wide variety of games to add to your Club. The Leaderboard is also something I love. I'm a stats geek at heart.” Negreanu explains what it's all about in the following video:

PokerStars is the best-placed online site to offer games with their massive array of mixed games on offer sure to please even the guy who calls Badugi in the Dealers Choice game (for the record we hate that guy too).

To set up your own online poker club simply click the “Home Games” tab in the PokerStars software. From there you will be able to invite others to join and appoint other administrators of the home game, as well scheduling games and setting up rules and custom leaderboards.

Another cool feature will be the ability to interact with social media applications. You will now be able to invite your friends to join your home game via Facebook and other social media sites. This way even your friends that don’t yet play on PokerStars (are there any of those?) can join the fun and follow the user-friendly instructions to get into the game.

To celebrate the Home Games feature, PokerStars is giving players the chance to take their whole home game (or up to eight of them if you have a large home game) on a trip to one of four amazing worldwide poker events. The winning poker club will have to pick from Macau, Vancouver, EPT Snowfest or Buenos Aires. The prize will include a hosted home game with Daniel Negreanu, Jonathan Duhamel and one other member of Team PokerStars. The extra member is also a special part of the prize as the winning poker club will be able to choose from any of the other members of Team PokerStars to fill the extra seat.

To get in the action for a chance to win the prize, simply download PokerStars and take advantage of PokerNetwork’s exclusive 100% up to $600 bonus. Signing up via PokerNetwork allows to take advantage of a large number of exclusive promotions that are held throughout the year including cash and live event satellites. More information about the World Home Game competition will be available in the PokerStars client.