I play in a regular poker game. Usually we play about once every few months at someone’s house. Since, everyone is sheltered in place, we can’t play out regular home game. Last night we played on PokerStars. We also used Zoom at the same time so we could all see and hear each other. The game went extremely well and we play for about 8 hours (until 3:30am). The Zoom call was clear, the video was great, and you could see everyone’s face (there were seven video images in a split screen) almost as if you were in the room. One of the players used for company’s corporate account so there was no 40 minute time limit. The only issue with the PokerStars play money platform is that the house takes 5% of the chips out of every winning hand. But one of the players programmed Excel to calculate these deductions based on the time the each player was in the game so we could calculate everyone’s winnings and losses at the end of the night. No dealer was required so the play went about 3-5x faster. No one needed any cash as we just PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle to settle up at the end.
With this shutdown, we all need to keep entertained. This format works really well especially since one of our players moved out of state and can now play with us again. Digital transformation is a thing. Work from home (and now play from home) are a thing that will probably be here to stay. People and the world is adapting and some of these adaptations will accelerate transformations that were happening anyway and others of these adaptations are leading to innovated ways of doing things that are in some ways better than the way we were doing them before.
Chris