Play online poker with friends: guidelines and tips to enjoy poker with your friends

Do you like poker and do you share your hobby with your friends?

What are you waiting for to play online poker with them?

Combining routines and finding time to get together to play poker is really complicated. Different schedules, commitments or obligations prevent you from seeing each other so often. Therefore, what better than turning distance into a reason to discover all the benefits of online poker.

To make the most of online poker with friends, keep in mind the tips listed in this post to avoid that overconfidence can trigger arguments between you.

Choose the platform and the type of game

The first thing to do is to choose the right platform to play online poker. The ideal would be the one you choose together taking into account aspects such as: variety of games and tournaments, software quality, rake and rakeback, as well as traffic.

Another aspect of great importance is to corroborate that it is a completely regulated platform and that it has certificates that guarantee its security and reliability, such as the Gaming Labs seal.

In the world of online poker, you can either choose to play in poker rooms or download an app to play. In the case of rooms, they usually have an option strictly designed for those who want to play poker with friends. As for the apps, the best option would be to create a private poker club.

As for the types of games you can play with friends, there are cash games and tournaments. We explain each of them.

Cash games

Cash games are those in which you receive an amount of chips equal to the coin value you have invested.

Before playing a game, you will have to decide whether or not you are allowed to re-buy in case you run out of chips. To make the game more exciting and to learn how to manage your bankroll properly, games without a rebuy option are the most suitable.

In addition, you have to decide the blinds, the betting structure, as well as the poker variant you want to play. If none of you have too much experience playing poker, the Texas Hold'em variant will be your best option rather than trying other slightly more complicated ones, such as Omaha or Razz.

Tournaments

Unlike cash games, the chips in tournaments do not have a correspondence in money, but in points. Tournaments are a very dynamic game format, in which players are eliminated in successive phases.

There are numerous types of tournaments, each with a different betting structure and dynamics. Freerolls are an excellent option to play online poker with friends without money. Registration in freerolls is free, unlike other tournaments where an initial buy-in is required. Despite having 0 cost, there is a jackpot at stake.

Create your own poker club

As we have already mentioned, if you decide to download an app to play poker, you have the option to create a poker club. It is completely free of charge.

In addition to joining the clubs hosted in the app, you can create a club in which one of you will be the club administrator. This administrator will be in charge of organizing the game or tournament and sending the relevant invitations for the rest of your friends to join.

But not only that. You will also have to decide the game format (Hold'em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud, etc.) and set the buy-in. The key to success in playing poker with friends is that every decision is made together - when playing with friends, all of you make the rules!

Enhance the experience with video calls

Since you can take advantage of all the benefits of online poker, why not take advantage of video calls?

During online poker games, a chat is available for players. If this option seems too cold to you, since you are playing with your friends, go for a joint video call, which will make you think you are all together in the same room!

Pros and cons of playing online poker with friends

Enjoying online poker with friends certainly enriches the experience. Managing all the excitement and pressure during games and tournaments is much more manageable with people you trust.

In addition, if you choose to make a video call while playing poker, you can comment on the moves and learn together how to improve strategies or how to identify the different poker player profiles.

Despite the undeniable advantages of playing online poker with friends, there are also certain disadvantages to be taken into account. For example, overconfidence, as well as the friendship that unites you, can lead you to commit certain actions, considered illegal or that go against the rules of poker etiquette.

In this sense, it is more frequent in circles of friends to collude. This type of "strategy" is not accepted in poker and is considered a total lack of respect towards the rest of the players. We speak of collusion when a couple or several players have allied to harm a third party or the rest.

On the other hand, keep in mind that adding third parties to these games between friends is never going to be a good idea, so think carefully if you are considering the option. Your complicity and laxity with the rules can be easily misunderstood by third parties, as they may well be used to other dynamics.

Your trust, the fruit of friendship, may become aggressive to them because of situations such as collusion. Adding them will mean that the degree of information at the table will be very unbalanced for them, and that translates into a disadvantage.

Finally, you will have to keep your objective in mind. If you simply want to have a very entertaining time, online poker is an excellent option. However, if there is money at stake or if one of you is very competitive, you must be aware that the degree of concentration may decrease given the complicity between you.

Finally, we will have to take into account our objective if we are going to play online poker with our friends. There is a whole online world of tournament and cash tables where our friends can exploit all their desire to compete.

Because we have to make sure that we never forget the reason why we get together to play. Nor forget that the rules of the games of friends are set by us. And that getting together for fun at a poker table is just another way to share quality time with some of the people who matter most to us and accompany us in this life: our friends.