AFC Online Poker is evolving again, here is why…
Note: If you want the brief version you can just skip to my ‘Final Thought‘ at the bottom, but if you want the evolution and rationale behind this change, read on…
Phase 1: Pokerrrr2
We actually started playing with an app called Pokerrrr2. Everyone downloaded the app onto their phones or smart devices, played the game using some pretty cool & funky gestures to play (e.g. swiping up to fold your cards or tapping the screen to check – all pretty good fun).
We soon discovered some limitations – the chat on the app was terrible, we didn’t even think of a video call at the time (though in hindsight we could have had one in parallel as we do now), and the money was handled externally and was a bit of a pain to manage – everyone sent me whatever they wanted to have as a kind of ‘float’ for themselves and I managed a set of accounts keeping track of how much each player had in a trusty spreadsheet, updateing these amounts when people played (-£1) or when they won games (+£x).
There were no rebuys or Add-ons in Pokerrrr2 and no advanced registration either.
Phase 2: Pokerstars
The move to Pokerstars at first was a little overwhelming – a much more professional platform (literally, a platform that the professionals use) – extremely flashy and in your face, Pokerstars was anything but discrete. Once over the initial shock though, we see that it had everything we wanted, can still accommodate our modest little £1 private (‘Home’) game and added a lot of extra features such as:
- Early registration
- League Tables tracked in the app
- Money handled in the app (this was a huge relief for me no longer having to track that)
- Rebuys & Add-ons
- Much better interface with chat and various other features, playable on any device
Phase 3: Poker Now
So why move away from Pokerstars?
Well, it is a tough decision, we’ve been using Pokerstars for 6 seasons now and it’s served us well. It is, after all, a huge platform and as I wrote earlier, used by the pros. Pokerstars though, is not without it’s problems (in the context of our home game). The main issue was when one of our regular players was effectively, well, no, literally ‘locked out’ of the game – due to leaving the UK, Claudia could no longer play in the (UK based) game due to gambling laws restricting her access. Location detection seems to be getting more sophisticated too – Claudi did use a VPN as I have done from France but it didn’t work and we even borrowed and wiped out Kath’s account too into the bargain (sorry Kath!!). I always managed to login via a VPN (actually the same VPN as Claudia used) from France but on a mac with Claudi being on a PC – so maybe something like Browser breadcrumbs when downloading a new version of the app or something similar gave up Claudia’s location.
Obviously – and yes I am conscious I am writing this publicly – none of the above is permitted by Pokerstars, I was breaking the rules too by logging in via a VPN from France – but at the end of the day let’s look at the facts, it’s to play a £1 private game of poker. I’m hardly Nick Leeson.
I’ve also thought of writing to Pokerstars to ask for permission but they’re obviously not going to make an exception for our game – they obviously can’t do that.
The solution for (legit) international play is to separate the game from the money. We can then have a free game and no border issues at all.
Having looked at various free options (including PokerStars itself), Poker Now for me is the winner because it is lightweight, easy to access for beginners, highly configurable and having tested it – myself and on Thurs 12/6/25 with 11 players, it works. The platform doesn’t actually matter too much to solve the main issues we’ve come across (the main one being international inclusivity), the important decision is separating the money (which for me is the main benefit of Pokerstars, not all the razzmatazzy stuff).
So let’s take a look at the Pros & Cons of this change…
Pros
- International Play – by far the biggest ‘pro’ is the ability to include anyone from any country should they wish to join – this is huge in a game where we want to reconnect with friends who could be scattered around the globe
- Early Registration – like Pokerstars, Poker Now also allows early registraton – but the early registration in Poker Now is actually better – because you can register early much further in advance for a number of games whereas Pokestars only shows you the next one – see the Upcoming Games page on this website to see this.
- Combining Free & Paid Play – taking money out of the game actually enables something unique and pretty cool – with a bit of organisation (around taking payments and how payouts work), we can have players play for free or paid in the same game – this is great for inviting new players to the game and actually not too much impact on paying players (especially as the buy-in is low and in practice the large majority of players do want to pay to play, it just allows an easy entry into the game for new players who may be hesitant – i.e. a good ‘gateway’ into the game – to try it out).
- Simple Fee Structure – One single payment of £3 is still pretty small and also simple – it’s then easy to say to people that’s all you’ll pay – especially people who may be suspicious about poker and worried about losing more money (yes they exist, even at these low stakes, a surprising number of people are very suspicious of poker) – I’ve actually always found the balance between telling people ‘it’s only £1’ and ‘well, actually if you take the rebuys and add-ons it’s up to £4’ and ‘actually it’s not exactly £1, it’s £1.10 but that’s because Pokerstars takes a rake, and so it’s actually between £1.10 and £4.40’… !!?!?! A flat buy-in of £3 is much more straight-forward.
- Passwordless Login – It is impossible to forget your password on Poker Now, because it doesn’t have one. It uses a passwordless login which I personally think is ideal for a browser based poker site.
- Browser Based App – Poker Now is a browser based app so no more install or version issues. More than once I have had players say they would join then give up due to difficulties installing the app. So it will be nice to say goodbye to those kinds of issues.
- Integration – A minor technical thing but being a browser based/link based app, Poker Now is more integratable with other sites (e.g. this one). This is not possible with Pokerstars which is a very closed ecosystem.
Cons
- External Money Handling – The biggest ‘con’ is having to go back to external money handling which is obviously a bit of a step back. It was cool having Pokerstars handle all of the money. It feels overkill transferring money back and forth for such tiny amounts but actually these days with quick payment links it’s very easy. On balance this is a small price to pay to have a much more inclusive game so I’m fine with it. It would also be possible to switch ‘Treasurers’ among regular players if we want to do that but I’m fine with it and would also suggest for the first few games on the new platform I do it anyway to make the transition easy for everyone (first game was easy enough – very easy in fact).
- Manual League/Standings Updates – PokerNow gives you the game standings but doesn’t maintain a ‘league table’ which is updated after every game. In any case, as it wouldn’t be fair to start from scratch (particularly on David who’s had a great season so far this season), I’d want to continue the league tables from Pokerstars and not have any players lose the points they’ve earned so far this season – so I have done that and transferred the stats from Pokerstars to this website – see here: AFC Poker Leaderboards – I have even updated these stats from the game we played on Thursday (12/06/2025) and have the necessary algorithm to update the stats going forward from future games. I will need to do that manually but can do that after every game (Game stats are also transferred, here: AFC Poker Games.
- Missing features – There is actually very little missing from the PokerNow app & interface. Some of the indicators (e.g. timer, winning a hand) are, let’s say, a little quieter than Pokerstars (in fact the whole app is a lot quieter than pokerstars – I would argue that’s not necessarily a bad thing – though I do miss the beep beep when it’s your turn – replaced by a flashing yellow light by your player card) but otherwise it has pretty much everything. Add-ons are also not possible but rebuys are (any number, currently set to 2) and I can handle the need for add-oons via the Blinds structure which are very controllable).
- No Pot Limit – One key feature (hence listed separately) that is missing and was a big part of our Pokerstars setup being more beginner friendly is the ability to make the game Pot Limit. This stops aggressive players ‘bullying’ other players. This is not currently available in Poker Now (at least not in the free version) but to a certain extent mitigated by the ability for people to play for free (and the fact that it remains a very low buy-in). Also as a lot of the players are a lot more experienced now I think this is less of an issue than it used to be and in fact, many players may prefer to be playing NL as a lot of people see that as ‘proper’ Texas Hold-em.
I’m not sure if that’s all the Pros & Cons, but certainly the main ones.
Final Thought
I’ve given this a lot of thought and after lots of research and testing, it’s not been a difficult decision to make.
The deal-breaker for me is when we lost a player – I’m just not prepared to do that. This has always been far more about reconnecting with friends than it has been about a game of poker and I mean that – so obviously that doesn’t work if any one of us gets locked out of the game.
There are the pros and cons listed above and for me the pros clearly outweigh the cons, hence an easy decision.
Will I/we miss Pokerstars? Speaking for myself, yes, probably a little just because it has served us well for so long, but as I said above, it’s certainly not been without it’s problems. I also do like Poker Now and find it more than sufficient (and I’m also prepared to go back to handling the money – it’s much easier to do these days than it was back in the Pokerrrr2 days too). It’s clearly more suited to the kind of borderless ‘Home Game’ we want to play. It doesn’t handle money in-app but there actually doesn’t exist any app that does and at the same time allows international play. The interface may take a little getting used to (it’s nowhere near as mature (or as big) as Pokerstars is) but it does have everything there we need and it is just a case of getting used to where to look for things inside the app.
Sowieso, I hope that explains my rationale – and – I hope you will agree with me that this is a good way forward. Feel free to comment below or via Whatsapp, give me a call… whatever you like. It’s about all of us, leave no-one behind.