I wanted to post something here to tell everyone all about our new private live game server, and answer any questions you might have about it. Especially during this time of COVID, we think you will really appreciate this feature.
The History
When the lockdown started and all the poker rooms closed, we started getting requests for the ability to create private ring games and MTTs on our server, so that friends, co-workers, or even people that knew each other from cardrooms could organize an online game together. Some of the games were being held at private tables on real-money poker sites, but of course there was a barrier there — many of their friends didn’t want to create an account and give all their personal information to a real-money site located in, say, Costa Rica. Also, this option required downloading poker software onto their computer, which is not always possible or desirable (our software requires no download — runs in the browser).
We starting creating some private tables and then made a general announcement to that effect, and got a huge response, so much that our live server is overwhelmed with private tables, making it hard to find the “public” games such as our daily MTTs.
The new Private Server
So today we are moving all the private games to a separate server. There are some new buttons you’ll see on your member page that look like this:
The Public Live Games button takes you to the public server, which contains all our daily live MTTs, Sit-N-Go’s, and ring games. Every game on that server is open to all APT users.
The Private Live Games button takes you to the private server. Every game on that server requires a password, which is set up by the game creator.
The Live Games Results button lets you view your wins and losses at both public and private games. One of the most common requests we’ve been getting is to be able to keep track of wins and losses at the “cash” (ring) games. This is now available here.
Instantly set up new private games
In the past every game had to be set up manually by ME, leading to two problems.
- You had to wait up to 24 hours for your game to be created
- I was spending half my day setting up private games
Our new custom game request form instantly creates the game for you!
That’s it! Then all you have to do is give your friends the game password (we recommend using something easy to remember, like stevepoker). Your friends will need a free APT account to join, but that requires just a name and email.
Potential problems
At the moment, there is no way to delete your game or edit the settings (for example, change the max buyin, starting stack, etc). We hope to add this soon, but for now you are welcome to create another new game, or simply fill out our contact form and we’d be glad to make any changes you need.
The only other potential problem is that all the (play money) chips you had in your account did not transfer over to the private server. But don’t worry, you get 10,000 free chips every day, just for logging in.
Enjoy!
We hope you and your friends will enjoy this new feature while the cardrooms are closed, and beyond! If you aren’t a full (paying) member of APT yet, and you appreciate this service, maybe you could buy a membership as a way of saying thanks to us 🙂 Your membership fees help all of us here at APT do what we love all day, and we appreciate you! And, we can help you win your private games!
