Home Games Info

Just wanted to give a layout of our weekly Friday night home game and get some feedback of what everone thinks. Also wanted to hear about your home games.

Our basics are $10 buy-in gets you 2000 in chps. We have from 6 to 11 players each round, and usually play 2 rounds per night. Each round usually takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

We keep a point system that gives you 1 point for every $10 won. We have 2 "captain" chairs, the rest are fold outs. We place cards face down on the table, A thru however many play. Example 6 players A,2,3,4,5,6 face down.

To start, the point leader picks his card and chair, with the A being the button. Everyone else follows according to point order. This gives us a random seating order. We play with 2 decks to keep the game moving (plastic cards last forever), with the SB shuffling the cards they will deal.

With all bets, calls, and raises, chips are kept if front of players until action is finished. We then push chips to the pot. (No "splashing" the pot) Otherwise, we try to keep our rules as close to a "casino" environment as we can in order to get players used to it if they ever decide to play a tourney at a real casino. Also, we have our first round of blinds the same in order to avoid an early chip-up since most everyone calls the BB in the first round. We play with 15 minute blind rounds

Blind schedule: 50/50 Payout schedule: 6 plyrs $50/$10
50/100 7 plyrs $50/$20
100/200 8 plyrs $50/$20/$10
150/300 9 plyrs $60/$20/$10
250/500 10 plyrs $60/$20/$20
350/700 11 plyrs $60/$20/$20/$10
500/1000
1000/2000

So, that's our basic layout. Let me know what you think. Any questions and I'll answer them the best I can. Also let me know about your games.

We have one of the most organized home games I've played.

Thanks for feedback and GL all.

Yota

well, I tried to separate blinds and payouts, but the spaces I put in were deleted. LOL oh well, you still get the drift. Thanks again

I like to keep mine a simple as possible, which means a cash game at whatever stakes people are comfortable with. No blind timers or tournament clocks, no arguments over payout structures, nobody sitting around bored because they've been knocked out and nobody sitting around bored because they don't want to be playing any more but they're stuck in a tournament. Plus you get to play 100BB or more deep.

Looks good just be careful the decks don't get mixed up.

I, like Oz, think cash games make for a more fun poker night.

I hear ya guys. We still play the ocassional "cash" game, usually at the end of the night for a bit. I was really just curious how many people out there play a regular home tourney style game, and what suggestions anyone found in their own home game to make them as organized as possible.

LOL We use 2 different color decks, and keep em separate. Although over the years, there has been 2 times when we realized cards were missing. They were found in the chip case we keep em in and now we count the cards at the beginning of each night.

GL everyone. Yota

Ours are usually pretty similar. I have two groups. one does a cash game for those reasons. the other group liked tourneys and saw losing as an extra punishment for not playing well. we usually put 1000-1500 in chips and start blinds at like 25/50 and raise either 5 or 10 min but keep buy in 1 or 2 dollars. That way we do have the tourney mentality, if you get last you're beer bitch and have to watch (unless you want to leave). We usually play about 5 in a night so it turns out being 10 dollar buy in for the night. only negative is if you win its only the 2 tourney and not 10 but it keeps everyone wanting to play which is nice. We have 6-9 people usually so big winner of the night will walk with maybe 8-10 up but no one usually loses more than like 4-5. unless someone is hot/cold for the night.

Sounds pretty cool. We've talked about half buy-ins for half chips, and mellowing out the blinds a little bit to try and get our average game down to the long games are 1 1/2 hours and short games about 1 hour in order to get more games in. We've also talked about adding $5 to our buy-in for 5000 starting chips for one longer one now and then.

Well have funand gl out there

I'm gonnahaftasecondis

Completely agree that when I'm playing a home game it better be cash. No need to worry about the game going to late, or Bob taking a smoke break every 30 minutes, keeping track of blinds and a timer, blah blah blah...cash games are better

They are but in the home clubs I'm in there are only play money tourneys and cash games so no incentive to play them

Glad to hear your games a running well. One suggestion I would have, to make new comers feel a little safer, is not let the next dealer shuffle their own cards. Let the person who dealt the hand before, shuffle the next deck and pass it to the SB.

If you find games starting late, have a chip incentive for those who register before a pre-determined time (6:55 for a 7pm start). Those that are late, don't get the extra chips.

Your starting stacks and blind levels will determine the skill and patient factors for your tournaments. As it stands now, these finish too quick for the more skillful players to have time to exploit their games.

Check out this Site for more info on patience/skill factor