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How to Successfully Start a Home Poker Game
Looking to host a home game? Here are some quick tips to help you throw a successful and entertaining poker night.
Choose your game and your guests wisely. A safe bet, and the most popular game today, is Texas hold'em. It is fast, exciting, and widely known (most televised poker is hold'em, including the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour). Select players who are at relatively the same skill level and get along. Aim for six to 10 players if playing hold'em.
Next, decide the buy-in and the stakes. Your friends should know how much money to bring to play or buy in to the game. A typical buy-in needs to be an amount that is affordable, so people will attend, yet not too low, so that participants will take the game seriously. Usually somewhere between $25 and $50 is a good buy-in for a tournament game.
It is important in tournament play structure that the stakes increase with time, so that fewer and fewer players are playing for larger and larger pots. Additionally, the blinds, antes, and bets need to increase so that players with the least amount of money can be eliminated. There are four betting limits in poker: fixed limit, spread limit, pot limit, and no limit.
The most risky and exciting form of stakes is no-limit poker. The amount of a bet or raise is limited only by the amount a player has in chips. No limit is the standard of professional poker, but for home games, in which you want to give your guests the opportunity to play for a few hours, a good suggestion is to start out with a fixed limit for the first two hours and then switch to a pot or no-limit until the game is finished.
You will also need to determine the prize distribution. To allow more than one player to win (some people favor the winner-take-all philosophy, but some don't), decide a prize for the three top finishers, perhaps with first place winning 70% of the pot, and second place taking 20%, and third receiving 10%.
It is important to remember that all of the money goes to the players. The host cannot keep any money for expenses, or the game can be considered a "rake", charging people to play, which is illegal. The only way a home game host can make money legally is to win his or her own tournament.
Once the buy-in and stakes are determined, choose the chip denominations. Casino standards are usually $1 for white, $5 for red, $10 for blue, $25 for green, and $100 for black. You will also need to stock up on chips. Provide enough chips for each person, around 75-100 per player, and enough to represent at least $500. Chips are divided into four basic types: casino poker chips, pure clay chips, clay composite chips, and composite chips. A set of 500 chips can run anywhere from $40 to $500, depending on the case, kind of chips, and additional included items (such as dealer buttons and cards). A good starter is a 500 11.5 gram clay composite chip set. These sets usually come with aluminum case, two decks, and a dealer button, and run about $50.
Good cards are also crucial to a well-planned home game, and plastic is the way to go because of its durability. KEM plastic cards are a good pick because they last for a long time and are washable. KEM packs run about $12 per deck. Have three new decks per table on hand for game night.
The final thing to do is create an announcement including the structure and rules for your home game to mail or email to your guests. It should include the day, time, and place, the buy-in, the structure of stakes, and how they will change based on hours of play, a maximum number of players, distribution of chips and prize money, the chosen game to be played, and the rules of that game.
Remember to plan to have drinks and snacks on hand for your guests. It is also a good idea to create the right atmosphere by setting up the TV with a running tape of a recent poker tournament or show and throwing on a Sinatra CD.
If you follow the above tips, you can easily plan and execute a successful home poker game.