Welcome to Craft Poker

Welcome, and thanks for stopping by. This is the first post on the Craft Poker blog, so it's a good place to say what we're building and what you can expect to find here.

What Craft Poker is

Craft Poker is online home poker with friends. The idea is simple: get your people around a virtual table and play the games you actually want to play, without the hassle of chips, math, or scheduling everyone in the same room. The live game runs at friends.craftpoker.com, and you can play in a browser or in native apps for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android.

Fun Money, not gambling

Craft Poker is not gambling. Everyone plays with Fun Money, which has no cash value — you can't buy in with real money and you can't cash out. We think that's a feature, not a compromise: it keeps the game friendly and social, and it means anyone can pull up a seat.

So many games

The thing we're proudest of is the sheer breadth of games. Alongside the usual Hold'em and Omaha (including hi/lo), you'll find Stud, Razz and Stud-8, the draw and lowball family — five-card draw, deuce-to-seven, triple draw, badugi and its cousins — and a deep bench of rare variants like Chowaha, Courchevel, Dramaha, Mississippi Stud and Archie. It's one of the widest varieties of poker you'll find, and it makes mixed games and dealer's choice genuinely fun.

You can play it as structured tournaments — with rebuys, add-ons, bounties and late registration — or as casual ring games whenever a few friends are online.

What this blog will cover

We'll write for three audiences here, and each has its own feed:

• Players — release notes, new game variants, and tips on how to run a great home game.
• Investors — progress updates and where the project is headed.
• Kickstarter backers — behind-the-scenes news and early looks at what's coming next.

If you're ready to play, the table's open at friends.craftpoker.com. And if you're new to any of the games, the Players' Manual walks through them. See you at the table.