How much is "fun" for you?

Weather it's for a tourney or a cash game, how much will you spend on a game and still consider it to be a "fun" game? I know we're all pros and we never lose , so it really doesn't mater the buy in, but for the purpose of this poll let's suppose you're going to lose your buy in. What would you lose and still consider it a fun and friendly game?

$0

I put $10 because "0" wasn't there. I quit playing for "fun" a long time ago. Trying to get into the money now, no matter what.

I agree with you DG, poker is gambling and gambling does not usually consist of having fun. Fun poker is playing for play chips not real money. X

If I'm just playin with some friends or whatever, $20 is no big deal. Its usually enough to have a fun night and just shoot the shit while not worrying too much about how much money I could win or lose. $10 would be better, but $20 is about as high as I'd go without worrying about if I win or lose.

I'm more referring to when your friends/family call up and say, "Hey let's get a game together." How much could you bring to the table and not care if you donk it off while you're drinking and having a good time? Or, possibly you're too serious to enjoy a game like that anymore? If so, I hope I don't get to that point. I like to make $$ when I can, but I also enjoy poker as a "game".

Really? No body in the casinos are having fun at the slots, or the tables? I like to "have fun" when I'm gambling. Heck, even throwing down small bets on sporting events make them more "fun" to me.

$40 to $50, makes the pot worthwhile...

With just friends at a home game, I would probably spend up to $100 and still have a good time. But if it's like Crystal's family plays (dealer calls the game) then only $10. I really don't care for anything but standard casino games and really don't like to play much of the oddball rules stuff.

This ^^^^^^ ... exactly !!

But ... in my case when it's with Crystal's family ... they have agreed to NOT call the games they love to torment you with ... so I go up to $100 there too ...

I don't know about losing a buy-in and having it be fun.

I consider it fun if I get my money in good. However I've been known to go to the $40 buy-in tables and donk off a small amount. I've done it after I was up $1700 at the $300 buy-in game, and after I made the money in my big tournament.

Oddly enough I'm up $8 playing a 'raise with any good hand, shove if anybody wants to push me around' at the table'. When you're used to your buy-in being $300, and you're up $1700, who cares about $40? What's that, like 12% of my buy-in? Why not mess around a little bit.

It's funny, because the raise/re-raise/all-in elicits such interesting responses from the people who consider themselves 'regs' at a game I barely even consider poker... (the blinds are 1/2 NL, the buy-in $40... what are you gonna do with 20 BBs, when $45 is barely a respectable 3 bet...)

Anyway, I guess that amount.

I wouldn't play at all if it wasn't 'fun' (and have taken some time away when it was no longer 'fun'). What would be the point of playing?

As far as how much would I want to donk off at a 'friendly' home game. A friend of mine holds a regular weekly game, one that I haven't bothered with and have noticed each month the blinds are getting higher (started at 10c/25c and is now $1/$2). I don't participate for a few reasons, one of them being that I don't like playing poker for 'real money' with friends (so I guess your question is... what do you consider to be 'real money' in a 'friendly' game, lol. For me it stops being 'friendly' once you're at 50c/$1 blinds for a cash game & over a $50 buyin for SNG/Tourney-style game).

I don't particularly like playing serious poker with friends so I always take a pass.

Don't even go there! You know that Crystal has banned you from all home games since you whined when we wouldn't play Old Maid and Go Fish with you.

I'd say $20, just to keep it friendly.

$200+ because when you ship it there is nothing more fun

Now, I... I... I'..... I'm reeeeally getting angry....

I'm gonna go pout til they let me play again ....

Fun? I listed $20, but it is all relative too how big a bankroll you have, the odds of ending in the money, etc; Plus, when you are winning consistently they all seem fun.

Maybe I should clarify; I like to put games together with friends and/or family and I'm trying to maximize the turnouts. I don't want to overprice the games so that they aren't "fun" anymore, but I also don't want to go so low it's not "fun". Then again, my family used to play penny-ante back in the day

I usually go with a $10 buy-in cash game $.05/$.10 blinds or $.05 ante (depending on what the players are used to), then they can re-buy if they so choose.

In reference to antes, if I get several older people together they tend to say "what's this blind crap?" And forget putting together a tournament! "Why do I have to pay more this time?!"

So, that's why I have to roll with the flow

However, if I have a table full of (my age) friends, they are used to throwing down a little more $$ and playing hold em'. So, I'm wondering what people would still consider a "friendly" game. Note, I know NO high rollers. We're all probably middle income players.

I would say between $20 and $30 bucks if you're doing it once a week. Once a month, I'd say around $50 or so.

^^^This! Amen brother!!!
I play to make money, not to have fun, end of story.

a free roll at CC is fun! So to me no money....and as far as a 200$ mtt its more nerve racking if you are not used to playing them than anything.

It's not so much how much is still fun it's more of how much isn't fun. Once you've tasted 50nl, you just can't go back below 10nl

Is it fun? Is making money the 'fun' part?

Personally I play to win and have fun while attempting to do so.

I think there might be room for interpretation as far as what is meant by 'fun'. When I say I have fun playing poker, I'm not suggesting that I play whimsically... 'for fun'.. who gives a fk if I win or lose... just call/raise/shove/fold.. cuz it's 'fun'... weeeeeeeee. Um.. no.. not at all. I play poker because it's still fun. For myself, if I were to play to make money, I really don't think it'd be fun anymore. (not suggesting I don't like to win money).

200+ because there is nothing better than $1/$2 live

I think you're right, Poker Orifice. But I struggle with the decision of whether poker is 'fun' for me, no matter what happens.

I do enjoy the idea of playing poker. But when I'm on a losing streak, and that's quite often, I'm stressed out. The stress is a lot better than it used to be, but still there. I have a very addictive personality. I want to be the best at anything I chose to do, which I'm sure everyone feels that way, but I take it to the extreme.

When I joined the military, I think I had played probably less than 10 "real" games of pool. By the end of my second year in the army, a friend and I had taken up the sport and his personality was the same as mine. Long story short... At the end of the two years I tried out for the All-Army Pool League. I took 2nd place out of over 450 tryouts! I could walk into a bar and bet someone I could beat them in pool with a broom handle and win every time. That's just the way I am. But even with pool, I struggled to find the game 'fun' because it wasn't really a game to me. It was almost a 'live or die' situation every game.

I know this is an unhealthy way of looking at things such as games or sports, but it's tough to not feel that way for me. With poker, it's a game that appeals to every square inch of my body. But unfortunately, it's also a game that includes a lot of math if you want to get really good at it. I sucks at teh math! Pool also has math, but I'm great with angles without having to actually deal with the math aspect of it... I just see them. In poker, you can't just see the math, so I struggle with that part of it.

I'm not saying you're wrong in any way, shape or form. I'm just saying that with a game such as poker, you are going to find different variations of 'fun'. And I think this is what the OP is trying to get at. He's trying to find a happy medium in us so that he can better structure his home games to appeal to the most players.

This pretty much sums it up for me too. At the stakes I usually play, my win rate is often less than what I'd make at minimum wage. So if it's not fun, I might was well be working at a real job. For home games, we never do tourneys. It's way more fun to play the wild variations, and the rules are always explained. The stuff below is still inconclusive. Let's not forget about Between The Sheets (aka Acey Deucey).

http://www.pokernews.com/poker-games...us/variations/
http://www.pokerology.com/poker-scho...er-variations/

See, I hate those "wild variation" games. I still play them with Crystal and her family because it's usually just $5 in change that we're playing with. But I also don't call it poker. It's more like gambling when we play it that way, and I play it as such. I'm just a couple of players short of a really good home game (tourney style) that will be HE or maybe a weekly mix of HE and Omaha if enough want to.

+1 to this. We have a semi-weekly poker night here with friends, and we play a $10 buy-in. I put $20 for my answer as we used to play for that in a previous game, and it was never stressful, but it was certainly enough to keep us playing for the win.

I'd been trying to figure out how to phrase my own attitude, but you put it well. +1

I'll add that poker was, originally, when I started, more adrenaline charged, more exciting -- now the fun is in seeing the crazy things that happen and trying to deal with it. The game is a puzzle, as you try to fit the players, position, cards, EV into their places each hand and see if you can solve the riddle each hand presents. That's what's fun.

@ K_Kahne_Fan ---A fun home game would need, for every person, the potential of winning enough to make it slightly worthwhile monetarily, but not losing so much it hurts. The level needs to be right to make it a fun night with pals, win or lose. Some people are OK with losing $100, some would feel pain and not have fun. Some people don't feel any excitement if they do not have much on the line.

A poll won't do it, unless it's a poll among the very people you want to get together to play. But even more -- it's who is there. Everybody needs to be in the same financial ballpark or willing to play "seriously" (i.e., not shoving every hand and laughing uproariously) for less than they might, and everyone needs to be able to laugh at a beat. There's also the balance between those who think poker is gambling and those who think there's skill.

People who play sports play for fun, but have times when they lose that it isn't so fun.

$20 :-) is fair enough to lose to my friends and still be in a good mood from Capt. RiverRatBackdoorFlushDrawCallToTheRiverWithAceHigh TurnFlushDrawRiverFlushTakesMyMoney.

When I play with my friends we put $10 in the pot for each game. That is our limit. As far as on-line goes, I will only play the bigger stakes games if I win some good money. I do not deposit (safer for me that way) The thing I hate the most is when people forget that this is just a game. Yes, there are a few that make a living out of playing poker but for most of us it is a game. Enjoy it. Mind you, I have screamed and yelled at my computer a number of times but all in all, I play oker because it is fun.