Host a private poker game online with friends

Your home game, without the kitchen table: nobody deals, nobody counts chips, and the friend who moved away can still sit in. On PokerClub your game lives in a private club: a private poker room that only the people you approve can enter.

Set up your private poker room in five minutes

1. Sign in with Telegram

Open poker.privateplay.net on a phone, tablet or computer and sign in with your Telegram account. There is nothing to download and no new password to create.

2. Create your club

Tap Create club and give it a name, for example "Thursday Night Poker". You are the owner. PokerClub gives the club an eight-character invite code.

3. Send the invite code

Share the code in your group chat. Friends tap Join with a code, type it in, and appear in your list as waiting for approval. Nobody gets into the club until you approve them, and if a code gets passed around too widely you can change it.

4. Open a table or a tournament

Pick the game, the blinds and the buy-in range and open a table. For a structured night, set up a Sit & Go that starts when the seats fill, or a scheduled multi-table tournament.

5. Hand out chips and deal

As the owner you run the club's chip bank: send virtual chips to members so they can buy in, and top them up when you decide to. Then take your seat. PokerClub deals, runs the clock, builds side pots and pays every pot.

What you control as the owner

• Membership. Approve or reject every join request, and remove members who should no longer play.
• Stakes. Small and big blind, antes, and the minimum and maximum buy-in for every table.
• Game and format. No-Limit Texas Hold'em or Pot-Limit Omaha, as cash tables or as Sit & Go and multi-table tournaments with your own blind levels, rebuys, add-ons and late registration.
• Table options. Seats per table, turn time, a time bank for tough decisions, and whether rabbit hunt is on.
• Chips and rake. Grant and top up virtual chips, and set a rake or switch it off.

Cash game or tournament?

A cash table suits a relaxed night: people join and leave when they want and the blinds stay the same. A tournament suits a night with a clear start, a clear finish and a winner. For a two-hour evening with six to nine friends, a single-table Sit & Go with a starting stack of about 100 big blinds and 10 to 12 minute levels usually finishes on time. Add a rebuy period for the first hour if your group likes to take chances on the early hands; it keeps everyone playing while the table warms up. The home tournament guide goes deeper into stacks, levels and payouts.

Here is the kind of structure many home games use. You can copy it or change every number:

Why friends trust the deal

The first argument in any online home game is about the shuffle. On PokerClub every deck is sealed with a cryptographic fingerprint before the first card is dealt. Every card that is revealed, from the board to the hole cards shown at showdown, comes with a proof anyone can check against that fingerprint. The deck could not have been changed during the hand, and cards nobody saw are never published.

Hole cards stay private from the other players. Table chat keeps the banter going, and rabbit hunt settles the "what would have come?" question after a hand ends early, without changing the result.

Play private poker on any device

Everyone uses whatever they have: iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, Mac or Linux, in any recent browser. PokerClub installs to the home screen like an app (on iPhone: Share, then Add to Home Screen), and a player can sit at up to four tables at once, with the table waiting on them highlighted.

House rules worth agreeing on

• How many chips each member starts with, and when the owner tops people up.
• Whether chat stays friendly or anything goes.
• When the game starts and whether late arrivals can still register.
• One account per person, always.

One rule is not up for discussion: PokerClub chips are virtual and have no cash value. Trading chips for money or anything of value, inside or outside the app, is against the Terms and gets players banned.

New to private rooms? Read how a private poker room works. New to the games? Read how to play Texas Hold'em and Omaha, warm up with Free Play, or see the FAQ.