In case you’ve missed the big banner ads at the top of PocketFives, we’d like to introduce Family Pot, a tool that helps connect online poker players. If you’ve won a major pot, made the money in a tournament, or simply have a few minutes to kill, you can hop on Family Pot and spread the word. Let’s take a look at how it works.

As a simple tutorial video posted on its website explains, “Family Pot allows you, while playing on any poker site, to follow your friends easily by getting automatic updates from them on their game progress with no need to chat, text, or talk. You can be followed easily in the same way.” That’s the essence of Family Pot in a nutshell.

The main screen of Family Pot houses your Friends update box, poker news, and Tweets from pros. You can also view a list of your poker friends and Facebook friends, a feature that will help you stay up-to-date on the latest from the industry. You can choose from a fixed list of famous poker players and news sites to follow. The main screen also shows your Family Pot user name, status, and links to send messages to friends inside Family Pot and on Facebook and Twitter.

Your Friends box (pictured above) is your avenue to see how your poker friends are doing. When you first sign up for Family Pot, there won’t be any friends listed, but you can invite them through e-mail or Facebook. After they have joined Family Pot, you can add them to your friends list.

When your friends play, you’ll be able to get a notification about it and to see through the use of poker icons whether or not they’re online. You can also view their game highlights, what sites they play on, what games they play, and a general update about how the games are going so far. They can also display their tournament situation with seven different poker icons that describe their chip counts

You can fire up several online poker tables and use what’s called “Mini” mode (pictured), in which the Family Pot informational window will appear vertically or horizontally next to your tables. That way, you can take a look at where your friends are playing and how’s it going for them at the same time you play. This window can be moved around your computer screen with your mouse and can be narrowed or widened as needed.

If you play on the browser games that not require downloading any software or if you play on Facebook apps, just download the “Mini” toolbar from the main page. Then, you can continue staying connected wherever you play.

If you want to let your friends know how you’re doing, you’ll need to update your Family Pot status. There are several “Quick Update” buttons that allow you to specify what poker site you’re playing on, what kind of game you’re playing, whether you’re doing well or poorly, the status of the tournament you’re involved in, and your chip count. The “Mini” mode window also has these same options. You can also share multiple games if you’re playing more than one table at a time

If you want to talk with any of your Family Pot friends, especially while you play, there’s a chat button. In the chat box, you can display the cards you had in the hand. There is also a group chat option for private groups.

If you’re going to be playing a poker session in the future or want to share your latest session, you can enter the details of it by clicking on the “Share More Games” button in your Family Pot profile. These sessions, as well as the sessions of your friends, will be compiled into a special calendar.

Family Pot is completely free, so check it out today. And, if you do, please come back to PocketFives and let us know what you think.