building a poker table, looking for thoughts

I'm getting ready to build a poker table for our weekend games and tourneys. I have looked at homepokertourney.com and got some pretty good ideas. I was wondering if anyone else has built a table and had some thoughts. I would like to get it right the first time and not have to say "hind sight is 20/20".
Thanks for your thoughts and ideas.

There are a lot of ways you could go with this..
What do you want to include on the table.
Cupholders.. ashtrays, maybe someplace to put your cards 'n chips when yer not playing. A drawer..
An ashtray, I'd like to see that either hooks to the table or pulls out, rather than one sitting on the table.
Maybe a set of little matching end tables for folks to set stuff on.

do you want a raised armrest kinda thing around the table?
wood, leather, vinyl?

prints on your felt?
those are thoughts anyway

We almost always play our home game at the same guys house because he custom built a table and it is very nice.

He order the pre-build legs and built the surface from plywood with a pad a felt.

He then built a padded vinyl bumpr around the playing surface.

The thing that makes this table really nice is the adjustable cup holders. These holders are designed to latch into the table in the space been the bump and the table surface. They attach in very easily and remove very easily.

This makes it easy to set a variable number of people and not be locked down to sitting where the cup holders are built into the table. We can easily adjust from 6 to 12 and not have major issues.

Effexor made his own table and posted pics here... Finally finished my poker table

Just make sure you get the right kind of covering for it, I tryed to cheap out and use some fleece or something on my first table and the cards wouldn't slide right it was really annoying.

My friends and I built a couple of tables. It depends on what you want to do. We built a few table tops, that can be moved and set a top any table. They are nice because they are easy to move and fit in the back of a truck. I suggest cutting a hole where the dealer would sit for a chip rack, portable cup holders and buy your fabric from a fabric shop. You will have to look around, but you can actually find poker fabric that is for poker tables. That way the cards slide like they should. I had a buddy build a great table, but the cards stick so we never use it!!! The playing surface is the key!!! Cheep carpet padding works well for the padding on the table and the rails. If you want to go all out, build six little tables for drinks. Put them on some caster wheels so they can roll and move easy. If you have six of them you don't have to worry about cup holders on the table. You will have two for each side and one on each end. That will give you plenty of room for drinks and snacks and you don't have to worry about them spilling on the table!!! Good luck on your table!!!

OK, here's what I'm thinking so far...It's going to be an oval table that sits 8 (10 just gets too crowded), I'm going to order poker suited speed colth and some neoprene for under the playing surface. I'm thinking about raising the padded rail (vinyl) so that I can put some rope lighting under it. I have gone back and forth about having it racetrack style or playing surface edge to edge.
As far as cup holders, I saw a really cool idea that keeps the drinks off the table. the cupholders slide out from underneath the table. Of couse this is my "Dream Table" and since it's my first, I may have to scale it down to basics so as to not bite off more than I can chew.
Ashtrays are not an option because we are a nonsmoking household as are all of the homes we play at. We just take a couple of short breaks for the smokers.

I like Effexors table. I recently had a folding leg octagon table given to me. I'm going to try to refurbish it. It has an unpadded vinyl playing surface in bad shape.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts! If you have any more please let me know.

I don't know your woodcrafting skill level, but I built two of these, one for me and one for my daughter, and we both love them.

http://www.newyankee.com/getproduct.php?0604

I have 1 tip & 1 tip only, if you know you're going to have to move it sooner or later, make sure it either has fold up legs or you can remove the screws or whatever you use to hold the legs in.

My friends & I built 1 in highschool & as soon as it was time to move out, it was a bicth to get out of the house. GL man