Octopus Overlords

I know there's been some interest in online poker so we've set up a Poker Stars Home League and I'll be setting up games every Monday night at 5 pm Pacific/6 pm Mountain/7 pm Central/8 pm Eastern. Tomorrow night's game will be No Limit Hold 'Em.

A few things to get yourself set up:

1. You'll need to apply for the Home Game and be approved before you can register for any games. The invitation link is here: [url]pokerstars://home-games/invite/3695474/Chew on your baby, [Dog Name][/url]

The Club ID is 3695474 and the Invitation Code is Chew on your baby, [Dog Name]

2. Chat will be conducted over Discord. Here's the Discord invitation link: https://discord.gg/cczRVVj8 The link expires in 1 day but we can send a new one if you miss the deadline.

3. The Poker Stars buy-in for every game is $20,000 chips. You can get $15,000 free chips every 4 hours by clicking a link in Poker Stars. I can also set up to play you in a cash game and dump chips to you so you have enough for the first few buy-ins if you have any concerns about having enough.

4. The games will be for play money only, no real money involved at this point.

I hope there will be some interest!

The link in Step 1 is completely broken.

Instead I suggest folks download the Poker Stars client from http://www.pokerstars.bet , set up an account, then click on the Home Games link (which is in the lower-right for Windows, MacOS, or Linux — not sure how to get there on the mobile apps, and strongly suggest folks do not try to play using their mobile app though I know it's possible). From there, there's an ugly green button labeled "Join a Poker Club" (which is just below where I pointed the big red arrow in this picture )


At this point you have to enter the Club ID (number) and Invitation Code as shown: From there you'll need to get accepted into the club and everything else MHS lays out in the note above!

Hope folks are interested; I think this could be pretty fun.

Thanks for the invite, but I must pass.

Ok, I'm in. I'm on a business trip right now in Mexico, but I will try to get this set up tonight in my hotel.

Thanks for the invite!

This sounds really cool! Unfortunately I currently work Monday nights, alternating weeks (including tonight). If you need fish for next week and I don't forget though, I'd be interested.

We have Monday or Wednesday nights open, so if Wednesday works better for more people, please let us know!

Alright, I'm on line to approve folks trying to get into this club. As of right now, it's just MHS and myself (so maybe we'll turn this into a game of online strip poker). If tonight doesn't work, but folks are interested, please use the process I spelled out in the first response of this thread to get the Poker Stars software going, and the steps in MHS's original post to join us on Discord.

Hope you can come play!

I'm fine with the strip aspect presuming we don't have to cam. I'm unlikely to turn up wearing pants anyway.

In my case, I work a rotating schedule so Mondays are just as good as Wednesdays for me... I'd have to miss every other week for now regardless.

I may sign up but I'd be an irregular participant at best.

The beauty of the Poker Stars model is we play with whomever shows up that night. Irregular participation is no obstical.

I applied on Pokerstars. Man, I'm annoyed when they merged with FullTilt I lost my username on the latter. I much preferred it.

Might I suggest posting an announcement in EBG and/or on the general OO Discord channel? If some folks are like me, they may be interested but not frequent this forum.

Hey guys, I apologize, but I'm probably not going to make it this Monday (11/16). It's shaping up to be a hell of a work night, and I might wind up having to work tomorrow night as well. If I wind up being available I'll still join, but otherwise I'll try again in two weeks, or whenever the next one is that I can make. I really hope this takes off... it's a great idea.

Bummer to hear you’re swamped at work. Hope things improve soon. Unless we get about six for a game (unlikely, this week), it wouldn’t be a “real’ poker experience, so don’t feel badly if you have to miss tonight. In general, though, there’s no expectation that folks would play every time MHS sets up a tournament. Just come play when it works out.

I hope it comes together as well!

I might make it in from time to time. I'll see about signing up when I finish work today.

Thanks for the PM because I missed this thread. I think this sounds fun. I probably won't get organized quickly enough to make tonight's game, but I'm in for the future.

Fantastic to both! Assuming we get things up and running, this'd be super casual and folks would be able to join (or not) whenever their schedule allows. It's really only the first time you join that there's any back-and-forth required to get you into the Home Game group.

OK--I'm free tonight and applied to join the group.

paulbaxter wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 7:06 pm OK--I'm free tonight and applied to join the group.

You're in!

And there is now a No Limit Hold 'Em tournament set up for 5 pm PST/6 pm MST/7 pm CST/8 pm EST tonight.

paulbaxter wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 7:06 pm OK--I'm free tonight and applied to join the group.

Here's the Discord link:
https://discord.gg/3HW9j5Kf

It only took me 23 minutes to crush them. Maybe next week there will be some real competition.

MHS wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 9:25 pm It only took me 23 minutes to crush them. Maybe next week there will be some real competition.

If you guys ever decide to have a money game, even small stakes, I'd be in.
I need to have something to play for, other than just the thrill of victory.

I'd be happy to play in a meagre money game, preferably a tournament with at least one full table. But I think I'll try to actually show up to a play money session first. Real stakes definitely lead to more serious and cautious play, but it may be a barrier to entry for some folks, at least at first. SO IT'S WHY WE'RE ALL GOING TO STOP TALKING ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW SO AS NOT TO SCARE ANYONE AWAY. But once they're hooked and have taken out a second mortgage, that's when we'll sink our teeth in.

Yeah, I'd think that if we got a regular group of play-money folks, the next logical progression would be a $5/$10/$20 tournament.

That can be tough because there's absolutely different motivations in each case. It can be *very* difficult to come up with a good game of cards in a no-money environment, but if you're also socializing at the same time, then there can be some added value in sitting together. If a zero-$$$ game happens to be a new game type (there are well over a dozen types of tournaments available on this software), then that, too, can be a motivation to try your best in an effort to "figure out" how to play that game. If, when you sit to play poker, the only motivation that exists is to add to your balance sheet, the free money games can seem an absolute waste of time.

But, here in the end-of-times, we've found solace in getting together online with friends, multiple times a week. We get into voice and/or video calls with each other, bullshit about what's driving us nuts each day, crack on each other for making bad poker plays, send silly virtual "throwables" at each other to elicit a reaction, share silly oldster memes with each other, talk about the wildfires or corona response or election results or weather or what life used to be like or whatever — and in general find some socialization outlet with folks who don't live behind the same walls.

We do also play for money, but the stakes are between 1/3rd to 1/20th of what we'd play for in real life. Some of that is due to the higher frequency of getting games together, some of it is because when folks have to make trackable exchanges of money (rather than cash out of wallets) results are a bit more in-your-face, but most of it is because we don't want to exclude anyone from our groups who wants to get together around the virtual felt for an evening of cards. For a lot of our group, the playing is the "thing", not the divvying of money at the end of the night. (And I'd say that even for the folks who're really in it for the bottom line, that isn't the case every time they sit to play. Sometimes you want to make fun of one particular player or rave about some type of Bourbon you've discovered, or just blow off steam behind your monitor and forget about your day job for a few hours...)

Anyway, I'm hopeful we can get a quorum of fOOlks who want to spend Monday evenings together over the poker table. If/What it turns into after that is completely TBD.

So, I would love to play. I will try to find time, but I’m not sure I can right now. Especially with the upcoming holidays, I’m really slammed. Also, I’m up for no money fun and conversation, but a money game would drive me away. With two kids in college and getting the house ready to sell, I just don’t have any money to spare. Imagine if I told the kids “I can’t pay for the next semester of college... I lost the money playing online poker.” After they finished beating me up they would check me into an addiction treatment center. LOL! Maybe in 2 years (when the oldest finishes college) I would be more open to a cash game, but still maybe not; I suck at poker, but want to learn and socialize.

I'll stake you. Sounds like you own your home....

I play on Pokerstars with a couple of groups semi-regularly; one is every week on Friday and the other is every other Monday. So I could be available on an occasional Monday, depending on what else I have going on. The other games I play in are just cash games, so I might be especially intrigued by a low-stakes tournament (e.g. $5 or $10 entry fee).

I enjoy the social aspect of the game.
I'd be up for joining a few games of free play if it helps lead to a consistent low stakes game.
I have zero experience in Zoom or Discord, so I could use the free games to get that setup and get used to.

Would anyone like to claim the username 'indanether', who has petitioned to join this group? I don't want to just approve some rando...

As an FYI, no game tonight because Poker Stars is doing a server update around the time we'd be playing.

Hey gang, are you all still doing this? If so, I will join now. I'm downloading the client right now. The discord invite link is expired (as expected), so a new invite would be great.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

https://discord.gg/5jBJDjeX

Your request has been accepted in the Home Game Club.

We haven't played the past few weeks, but maybe this'll knock some dust out of the system and we'll get a game together.

Be sure to get your free chips (available every 4 hours) so that you can "afford" the 20,000 chip entry fee.

I got the chips ready (I played a bit to get from 15k to 20k). What time?

OK, anyone interested! There is a game set up on Poker Stars for Monday, 1-11 at 8 pm CST. Looking forward to playing!

Glad to see the game back, thank you for the reminder! Unfortunately I was doing some semi-legal lockdown vacation travelling and wasn't home. My work schedule is such that I probably won't get another chance for a couple weeks, but if the games persist I do hope to catch you before the apocalypse. Which may or may not be in the next two weeks....

I hope to see you there, Sudy. I finally made it tonight. Was fun (only partly because I won). MHS kept mentioning this “ camaraderie” thing: I will need to look it up. Regardless, the more the merrier!

Bummer we'll miss you these next few weeks Sudy. We had a good time playing last night, but it's definitely a more-the-merrier situation.

Congrats on the win Papa Smurph!

Thanks for letting me win, Meal.

Are you playing tomorrow, MLK day? I’m not completely certain I’ll be able to make it, but I’m checking to see if you even want to try.

I went easy on you when I had the chip lead, but after you took it from me, I was playing my heart out. You won fair and square!

I'm certainly available to play tonight. MHS is the driver of this league (I'm just the "owner" in the software because she already "owns" a different league, and you can only have one). She's been hyper busy with work for the past few months, so it's TBD whether or not she'll put a game together. (If she does an email will get sent out.)

If folks are interested, be sure to post on this thread so she knows what's up.