Tips for Running a Home Tournament

[db1119]

For some of us there is no such thing as a nearby casino and the only time you ever really get to play a good game of poker is online or the couple times a year you find the time to make the trip to the casino. I've been hosting a tournament at my house once a month for the last year, we started with 12 players with a $20 buy in and the last one this February I had to cap it at 40 entrants with a $50 buy in. The popularity of poker as you know has exploded and the best way for people to get it out of there system is at a home game...playing not under the pressures of the casino. Now I have rebuys and I keep track of wins and we take a percentage out of each pot to put up for a championship for each months winners at the end of the year. Anybody have any other tips for a home game? Visit www.homepokertourney.com its a great site.

 

[sorcerer_]

That's a great ideea ...
I also want to host a tourney at my place just to play with my friends and have fun, so I ordered online 2 decks of cards and 300 chips (they come with a metal case)
I can hardly wait for them to arrive.
saddly, there's no casino in my area

 

[superdave]

I've used the info on this site before and my tourny was a success. 1 thing I usually do to keep the game going is to use 2 decks per table. When someone goes out, they start to shuffle th deck that is not being used to prepare for the next hand.

 

[Heshkak]

2 Decks per table. That's a great idea.

 

[hdneto17]

only nerds know the phrase 'too much alcohol'

 

[mikester47]

How often do you raise your blinds at the tourney you run to keep the action good?

 

[etomicsean]

we do tourneys often. we raise blinds every 15 minutes. we use two decks. we have a beautiful table. we actually may do one tonite. anyone in boston?

 

[jumbalia_67]

playing in a single table sit and go there is no reason to play any of the first 25 hands u get dealt so that u produce a tight image so that u steal the cash in the late parts of the game when the blinds are high

 

[JonSherwood]

Everyone has mentioned everything we do at my monthly tourney's. We use two decks per table and we raise the blinds every fifteen minutes. I give money to the top three or four places depending on how many people we have. It usually runs from 8-12. There isn't too many people around here who are willing to pay the buy-in.

A lot of times if someone goes out, in order to not be bored they'll be willing to be all time dealer at a table. This is always nice and keeps the flow going. Always see if anyone's willing.

Jon

 

[brentosman]

I never evel thought of 2 decks at a table. That's a very good idea, I would hate to be the person who gets out and then has to shuffle though

 

[chawkguy]

Live tourneys are fun. Just look out for the cheaters. I have been a victim many times.

 

[andysam05]

i like playing at games with two decks per table, and small amounts of chips, the more chips the longer it takes

 

[crazypolak]

wow thats awesome. My friends and i have the same thing. Friday night is Poker night!! lol

 

[Tball]

me and my buddies, before we were 18 would call up all the kids in our school who played poker when ever we felt in the mood. My main group of buddies would bring tables and folding chairs to my buddies dads house who was never home. By the end of the night there would be 30 some people there. It was awesome. It took 2 Five-hundred-chip poker chip sets. The buy ins were 20 dollars with no rebuys. 3rd place only got money back, 2nd got 100, and 1st got the rest. The real money was to be made at the side games when people dropped out because they were all on tilt. HAHAHA.

 

[peter1811]

I ran some turneys too and it's pretty much funny.

We started with a 5 $ and now we do each week 2 tourneys.
( each with 5 $ ) and one time a month a bigger one with 50 $ buy in.

We have a average of 80 Players and each week some more.

 

[xYOUNGBLOOdx]

make sure theres a cut card though...there is usually one guy who trys to cheat at a home game!

 

[Steveg72]

caution

I had a friend doing a home tourney until he got busted by local authorities....i suggest using a place of business such as a local bar...anywhere that alot of cars and people are less likely to draw attention by neighbors and such.

 

[CraigC]

how did it get busted by cops? as long as money isnt on the table they cant prove its gambling.?

jw cuz ive been to games that have been close to being busted but havent.

 

[peter1811]

Oh Guy ,

you can play with so many chips you want, just let the cash out there.

If you put the cash on the table and the cops take you ....

Sorry , but thats a beginner mistake....

Wish you more luck for the next time....

 

[alymudd]

That is a great idea...I bought my boyfriend a set of nice chips (better be they cost a butt-load) and made come poker chip holders out of oak (yes, girls can work with power tools). Mostly we just play for fun, but it gets ridiculous b/c no one ever leaves the table and we just give them more chips when they go out.
For my friends bachellorette party, I decided to host a poker night and am seriously thinking of making it tournament style, with margaritta's and a cozy loosers lounge. The buy-ins won't be much and of course the bride-to-be will play for free, but I hope it will be loads of fun.

 

[Jhoops180]

I have a home poker tournament about once every two weeks with some friends. We have about 12 people so we have two tables and a final table for the last 6 people.

 

[db1119]

just had my march tournament and 54 people showed up...haha i had to tell people they could play outside! Best part was that I won...kinda feel bad having all those people to my house to give me money Better be more prepared next month

 

[alymudd]

db1119....

I hosted a poker tournament for my b/f's bachelorette party...I ended up winning twice, but she had free buy-in's all night. I was worried that some of the other girls were upset that I won, considering the poker thing was my idea anyways. To adjust that, after I had won the second time, I switched to dealing the rest of the night to give some of them a chance. Honestly, out of all of us, I play poker the most (by far) and it was a bit easy beating them. Besides, no one else was dealing correctly which was gritting my nerves. Originally, the dealer moved with the chip, but after a few people flipped more than one card and then kept the wrong one there and burned three cards pre-flop, I gave a short instructive lesson which didn't take probably due to the pina-coladas.

I guess the lesson is, if you want to play serious poker, play with serious poker players...and if not, just deal. Unless you want to take money from easy prey.

 

[Holdempimp]

HOME GAMES

Ive played many home poker tournaments with my buddies from school. For the longest time we didn't use any type of structure, Ive found that using the pokerstars tournament structure gets your tournaments finished in a decent amount of time as opposed to playing for 6 hours with anywhere between 10-18 players as we used to do. Structure is pretty simple, 1500 in starting chips, blinds beginning at 10/20 and being raised every 15 mins. For example, two table sit and go tournaments take about 1 hour. You could adjust the increment of time to fit your needs.