Home Poker Games

If you ever want to throw a home poker game don't do like I first did and just throw one on the fly with knowing the minimum. If you did like I did, you would find yourself in a world of trouble. Drinking more than my fair share of beer didn't help matters as it made my temper fly when someone was being an ass.

On my next ring game I got a little smarter. I didn't drink so much alcohol. Not only I doubled, but everyone had fun.

When I threw my first home tournament, it was after Thanksgiving. It was basically friends and family tournament. That one ran smoother but one lesson I learned was posting rules on late players, and players who invite others without so much as asking the host if there is a seat available as one did. However in the grand scheme of things, the good side, bigger pot. Down side of having 9 players on a 8 player table is one doesn't get a rack and it's crowded.

Since people had a great time with that one I held a tournament after mulling it over with my office. Had 12 people which was a good turn out. Evite is good for these kind of invites. You can get your yes, no, and maybes. You can even tell if someone has even read the invite. Two drawbacks is not everyone is email savvy and there are those who don't even have email (shocking I know). You can limit the amount of guests (you don't want 20 showing up when you are prepared for 16). You can also control whether or not they can invite guests or not. I recommend you control this aspect because I tend not to play poker with anyone I don't know. Just follow the if a friend is a friend of an initial invite then it should be good enough for you. I read though one guy who runs tournaments said if there was cheating involved and it was a friend of a friend, he would cut the stranger's thumbs off and the person who brought him.

You also want to control the time it starts. I will say, no game starts at a certain time on the dot unless you are playing the WSOP. So what to do? Request people show up at 7pm but the game starts no later than 8pm and stress to them that they may lose their seat or playing rights by showing late. More on that later.

Another problem was the game went slow. Be aware on how the blinds are set. If you want to give a large sum of money ( I did 1200) then make it so the blinds are sizable by the 3rd hour. Otherwise it will take a while and my first game of hold em ended at 2am. I now do 1000 and I keep the blinds small in the beginning but make dramatic jumps in the end..

My next game was my birthday. We only had 7 players. Not certain what happened there but it was fun none the less. However that was due to a last minute add on and a last minute drop out. The add on was a pleasant surprise but soured by a cancellation. Not so big pot. But people still had fun.

In August I did another and I had 7 (seemed to be my lucky number). I nearly had a cancelation but thanks to my stern lecture on how this affects everyone, I got her to show. I added a re-buy option in this game which increased the pot. It was used quite a bit as there were 3 re-buys. I cut down the amount of money and as a result, the game ended in a decent hour. By the way, if you have a laptop, for timer purposes I go to www.pokerroom.com. There is a poker timer software which organizes the time and blinds schedule. It's a great piece of software and it's free. It also makes your tournament look professional as I have had nothing but great comments on my timer and it automatically restarts vs. a kitchen timer which dings. You can pause if need be.
Lesson Learned: Need to clamp down on flaky people and not count on them. If they reserve a seat and don't show then there should be consquences for that. I don't me never invite him, but make it known it's frowned upon.

On my Novemeber game in many aspects, it was the best ran tournament I have had yet. We had 15. We would have had 16 but a last minute cancelation blew that. This time I had poker rules. Very important and it's a miracle that I survived this long without them. Have them posted in the room and given to the players prior to the game so they know what they are walking into. If they choose not to read them and then say "I didn't know that." then you have something to fall back on. Willful ignorance is not an excuse.

Few examples are in my game in betting, you just have to meet the minimum blind (or all-in) to play and you can bet any amount after that big or small. In other games, they enforce the minimum bet. There are pros and cons to this.
Pro for not enforcing the minimum raise amount is the game is more lax, people are having fun without the intensity of meeting this and that. Many have stated this. However I read in some published home poker rule that if you announce Raise, but don't (you put in the minimum bet for just a call) then what is the minimum? So before my next game either I have have a clause for people that does this or I have to enforce the minimum bet. Problem is it's not posted and in my first poker game, I had one cutthroat player on table 2 (I was on table 1) who was enforcing it. Worked to his advantage too. See the problem? Nobody hemmed or hawwed but it could have been worse.

Another recent problem was dealing. People were having an issue on how some were burning the cards. Maybe cheating. However, I may need to state all burn cards on the table, face down, no peaking.

If you need good poker advice go to www.homepoker.com. This has made things simple.