Get better at poker. Play with friends, no limits.

A bet in front of you on the last card, and nothing left to come. A short lesson, then ten spots on the felt: fold or call, and see exactly what they were betting with — the value hands you beat, the misses, the hands that beat you. Only ever asked where the answer holds whether they bluff a little or a lot.

Deep Stack, at five prices

Three times the usual chips and a slow clock, from 750 up to 40,000. Post-flop poker where the stacks are deep enough to actually play it. Ordinary tables in every other way: they count towards your rank like any other.

Build your own table

Pick the seats, the stakes, how deep you sit, how fast the blinds climb, whether heads are worth chips, and which of the regulars sit down with you. Invite anybody you like: a high roller at a cheap table brings their own game with them, so you can play the hardest company in the cast for a price you can afford to lose. The prize is the same either way, and nobody you invite can ever make a table softer than its price.

Pot-Limit Omaha

Four cards each, and you must use exactly two of them with exactly three from the board. Pot-limit betting, deep stacks, and the same cast you already know. A genuinely different game, at The Big Pot.

Short Deck

Thirty-six cards — the deuces through fives are thrown away — and two rules come with them: a flush beats a full house, and the ace plays low under the six, so A-6-7-8-9 is a straight. Far more of it connects. Three stakes.

Omaha Hi-Lo

Every pot cut in half: one half to the best hand, the other to the best low — five different ranks, all eight or lower, ace counting as one. You still use exactly two from your hand for each half, and they are rarely the same two.

Five-Card Draw

Five cards each, face down, and no board at all — nothing on the table to read and nothing to share. Bet, throw away as many as you like and take replacements, bet again, show. The only thing anybody learns all hand is how many cards you asked for. Two stakes, at The Parlour.

Every side table

Fast, Heads-Up, Bounty and Deep — the game you know with one screw turned, at twelve stakes between them. None of them gate your climb up the free ladder.

Short games for a spare minute, each a round with a score at the end. Poker Solitaire: 25 cards dealt one at a time onto a five by five grid, and every row and column scores as a poker hand; or a Puzzle, all 25 face up to swap until you make a target that can always be made, with a Daily puzzle that is the same for everyone. Ten Hands: ten fast hands of Hold’em against the regulars from 1,000 chips, and what you finish with is the score. Mystery Card: Hold’em where one of your two cards stays face down, to you too, until the river. Play as many rounds as you like; without the membership it is one free round of each a day. Your best is yours alone: no leaderboard, and nothing touches your Roll.

Blackjack

It is not poker and we are not going to pretend otherwise: there are no opponents, no position and nothing to out-play, because the dealer draws to seventeen whatever you do. Three houses, and each one tells you its edge before you sit down. A curiosity, priced honestly.

Everyone gets a Pip Rating, from how close each call, fold and opening move is to the best play, and a place on the leaderboard. Members also see it drawn day by day, and which kinds of decision are moving it, so you know what to work on.

The eight membership drills each keep a rating that moves both ways, and your stats draw it spot by spot, next to how often you are right and your best run, the same way they already do for the two free drills. No streaks and no clock: it is exactly where you left it whenever you come back.

Stay at the table when you are knocked out and see it played down to one, every hand face up. Tap anyone still in for their cards and their chance of taking it. Only ever once you are out, so there is nothing to act on.

Shuffle gives everybody a face. Members choose theirs one feature at a time — hair or a hat, eyes, brows, mouth, nose, glasses, beard, top and what your hands are doing — with the face drawn big while you pick. It sits with you at every table, in rooms with friends and on every hand you share.

Card backs that wear a real foil, a gilt ring round your avatar, a brass dealer button, a deep sound for the table and two more table finishes. Some come with the membership; the rest the membership lets you buy with chips you won — and anything you spend chips on stays yours for good, membership or not. Nothing in the Chip Shop is ever payable in money.

Come back each day and claim chips counted in buy-ins at your table: one on day 1, three by day 7, and three every day after that while the streak lasts. Members get double, so six buy-ins a day once the week is done. The streak items and the Regulars’ Table are the same for everybody.