We’re well into the year 2011, and it seems as if the two giants in the poker industry are doing their best to keep up with the times. Recently, PokerStars unleashed a new feature called the PokerStars Home Games, a revolutionary feature that allows users to set up a home game network among friends. Not to be outdone, Full Tilt also released its new feature called Multi-Entry Tournaments wherein players can enter the same tournament several times.

PokerStars Home Games

PokerStars’ Home Games operate on a fairly simple premise; they basically just allow friends to set up their own network and customize it any way they want. It’s almost as if they’re playing a live home game. Players start by setting up the home game, which entails choosing a particular name and creating an invitation code. Then, the player who set it up becomes the host and manager of the “club”. He will customize the lobby, the table designs, and even tournaments. Then, that player can invite other players, which is done by email.

Once the players have joined, the manager will confirm their invitations. Once inside the club, players can choose to play any version of poker they prefer. The club will have its own historical log of all the tournaments played and there will even be a leaderboard displayed that’s excusive to the club. Of course, there are limitations. Each player can only create one club and can only join three clubs. One club can consist of a maximum of 50 players. PokerStars won’t be monitoring the clubs for Collusion, however, since they are going to assume that the members know each other.

Conflicts shall have to be resolved within the club themselves. The feature’s only at the .net version of PokerStars but it’s going to be in the main site soon. So far, it’s been getting quite a positive response from the community. It added a more social aspect to the game and people are just psyched by the thought of having their own club to maintain along with their buddies.

Full Tilt’s Multi-Entry Tournaments

On the other side of the fence, Full Tilt introduced their multi-entry tournaments feature. Basically, they can buy in multiple times to these tournaments. Some features were implemented in order to prevent collusion. The new feature has been lauded by players of Full Tilt, especially the tournament players. Full Tilt also introduced their Badugi/Nine Game Tournaments and their Run it Twice Mixed Games.