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At the poker tables, collaborating with other players is often considered to be collusion and this is usually not allowed. This has been the case even for streamed poker games. Even so, one of the best things about watching these poker streams is being able to speculate about what the player will do next and criticize the actions they take. Now, what would be more interesting would be having the ability to influence the actions of the player without having to risk any money. Well, this is now a reality thanks to the debut of a new kind of poker stream.

PokerStars and Run It Up Studio‘s Jason Sommerville have recently partnered to bring one of the most unique and innovative forms of Twitch Poker to fans of the game. Referred to as Chat Plays Poker, the new poker stream gives the poker fans the chance to be more than just observers. Now they can vote on what a surrogate live poker player should do at the tables in real-time.

How It Works

The voting that will decide the direction of a Chat Plays Poker game will be controlled by the host of the show who will decide what options the viewers are presented. Once the options are displayed, the poll will run for a total of 30 seconds after which the results will be communicated to the surrogate player. This surrogate player will then act based on whatever the viewers choose.

While the viewers will have a plethora of opportunities to determine how a player acts, not each and every decision will rely on them. This is intended to ensure that the surrogate player is able to keep the game going in certain situations – in most cases, these will be fairly simple decisions such as raising or folding a pair of Aces.

The first Chat Plays Poker game was streamed last week with several more in the pipeline. Poker viewers can expect to have a chance at making decisions at poker games featuring top poker players like Joe Stapleton, Chris Moneymaker, and Jesse Fullen.

“We’re truly giving the audience — all those chat experts I’ve heard from over the years — a chance to test their skills and see how they do in a real poker setting,” says Jason Somerville.

To be a part of the poker action, all that players will need to do is to log onto the Twitch accounts and visit the PokerStars Twitch channel.  Unfortunately, the extension that allows players to vote on the surrogate player’s decisions is currently only available on desktop. As such, mobile devices will not cut it for now.

When watching a Chat Plays Poker stream, click on “vote on the action” and then “enable” to allow the feature. Once that is done, you can vote on whether the player should bet/raise, check or fold.