Poker in the time of Covid

Howdy friends!

I looked and somehow we don’t have a dedicated poker thread outside of the poker hands thread. My wife has been watching old poker shows on youtube and has the bug again and wants to play, but we’ve pretty much been out of the online game since Black Friday.

So, any good suggestions? Best places to play legally? Trustworthiness, ease of cash out, etc etc etc?

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I set up a Home Game in Pokerstars for the guys in my regular weekly home game, and we’ve been playing mixed game turbo tournaments using play money chips once a week for about 6 months now.

This is a group of guys that never played online, so it took a couple of weeks to get them used to the software. But once they got the hang of it we agreed to a buy-in and payout structure and have been playing ever since. They send to me in Venmo and I payout immediately or by the next day if I get knocked out early.

We even have a dedicated zoom meeting space that we all log into so we can chat during the game. Start to end it takes up to ~3 hours.

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I think shes in interested in playing things like sit n gos and some bigger tourneys.

I like the option but we dont really have a dedicated group of poker friends.

Anybody play on ACR or anything?

I’m on True Poker, one of the WPN skins (as is ACR). It’s fine, you can deposit and withdraw via Bitcoin and other cryptos which is pretty easy. I’ve probably played less than 100 hours this year, almost entirely at 50NL Blitz, so I’m not a reg or tourney player but I think the games are reasonable and WPN has enough traffic that I assume the tourney/SNG scene has enough action.

If it’ll help I can screenshot the SNG or Tourney lobby next time I’m on my laptop.

Also for those looking for a simple NLHE home game setup without bells and whistles, PokerNow.club is excellent.

2nd this. I play cash games with a group of friends on there once a month or so and it is nice basic software. It also has PLO but my group is lame and won’t play it.

https://twitter.com/Joeingram1/status/1343461144195788800

https://twitter.com/PadawanPesh/status/1343469132226777088

https://twitter.com/PadawanPesh/status/1343472169712381953

https://twitter.com/PadawanPesh/status/1343472562429292544

Guy lived down here (Rosarito Beach) for a lot of this year. Seemed nice. He actually was scheduled to start a ft at the beginning of Covid that I think is still postponed.

He def wasn’t in the top percentile of social distancing while he was here(not that I am) fwiw.

He has more money than I do but in that spot im prob arriving a month earlier and having 0 contact until the official test

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Supposed to be reply to OP, still getting used to software

What are you looking to play? Just for fun or trying to maximize hourly?

Bovada has softest games but a small table cap, I think 4.

The Winning Poker Network (WPN) has a bunch of different skins and is the biggest “legit” US facing site. They have rakeback leaderboard schemes for sngs and cash so thats basically a tax on the recs who only play a few games and don’t place on lb. So better traffic but tougher games

Global Poker Network might actually be legal since they sell you gems and then sell them back for cash (lol) I think traffic is super shitty though.

There are Chinese app poker sites that are kinda shady and you have to sign up through an agent. But lots of ppl do it and they’re supposed to be super soft.

Or just move to Mexico and grind on Stars. There was a 109 mtt with a 5mm guarantee last Sunday!

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Real headscratcher, that one

I’ve been grinding Ignition for the last couple years and it’s soft and safe. You can’t play tons of tables but the software is trash anyway so 4 feels sufficient. It’s anonymous and without chat fyi so that can kill the fun factor a bit.

I’ve put in some time on ACR as well and I do like the software. I despise the super long late regs and re-entries though and it’s the only site where I’ve been unable to become a winning/withdrawing player, albeit with a fairly small sample size.

WSOP Covid guy is an idiot. In that spot you straight up quarantine, period.

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I was once playing in a live $4/$8 LHE game. A guy called a chip runner over and bought an additional $400 or so in chips to add to his stack. Then, he asked and received a table change so he could move to a new table with a big stack and pretend he was a big winner in what I assume was an attempt to either intimidate or impress his opponents.

The player could also be lazy and is just putting his entire roll on the table instead of a smaller portion.

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On the heater of a lifetime in terms of avg buyins/hour.

Just your standard 100/hr at 13 abis sngs.

Thanks Biden!

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not sure what your question is. if you move to another country and send them proof (i think they will require a lease of sorts and some utility bills) then you will be treated as a resident of said new country. it isn’t about nationality, it’s about residency and physical location. can’t tell you what the rules are in your new residency as you didn’t specify which country it is.

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Just started playing on GGpoker because AFAIK its the only network available in Taiwan after Stars pulled out.

All I can say is I wish I could’ve been in the meeting where it was decided that a competitive advantage would be to have a non-optional setting of slow-rolling the river each time there’s an all-in. Had any of these people ever gambled before?