Home Games - How Do You Do Yours?

Mr E

For those who play home games every week, how do you run them?
What money/blinds/blind intervals do you use?

We have a poker night once a week, 5-6 players. Blind intervals of 10-15 minutes (a game lasts around 2 hours). Blinds usually get up to at least 500/1000 by headsup, sometimes more.

We play 2 games per night (start around 8pm finish 12/12:30am).

Chips are good quality clay chips, standard home chip denominations (5,10,25,50,100). We have repurposed the $5 chips as $500 chips. So everyone gets about $5000 in chips to start off with.

Everyone pays €5/€10 into a money pool (amount depends on the week). Second place player gets his/her money back, winner gets the rest.

We also keep a league table... we haven't decided how/when its going to end, but its a good incentive to do well.... We've been playing almost every week since last November.

So how do you do yours? What is your experience of what does or doesn't work in a home game?

gerry87

Ours are really a complete joke, nobody else really plays poker, only home games. It took me months to get them to agree to 25/100/500 chips as opposed to 1/5/10/20/50/100. They hate putting a clock on blinds or a limit to rebuys, we just decide randomly. It's usually €5 rebuy, some nights just one re-buy.

We usually start with 1500 or 2000 in chips. But i'd say a freezeout with more chips would make for a better game. Gotta try and work that in next time.

Juan Pablo

Play one most Thursdays, €25 rebuy with between 5-8 players. 2500 starting stack with 2500 for the first rebuy with 3000 for the second, 3500 for the third and capping at 4000 for the fourth fifth sixth rebuys ect. Top up 4000. 5 levels of rebuy, 20 minute levels, 25/50, 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 150/300 with f/o starting at 200/400. Plenty of time for people to get money in. We play winner takes all which gives a decent amount to play for, strict no deals policy, anyone found doing deals heads up have sanctions imposed. Most anyone is ever in for is around 175/200, with the average spend per head most weeks around the 100 mark, eg last night there were 5 with 1st 475, the week prior same numbers with 525 in the pot. We've been having these games most weeks for the past couple of years and its a format that seems to work, its best to aim for a format that all players are comfortable with to be honest, some like freezouts, some like a rebuy, find a general consensus and tweak the blind levels if games are finishing too soon/ going on too long and stick with it would be my advice!

ArmaniJeanss

We play STTs, about 5 a night at 90 minutes each.
Chip denoms 1,5,10 :eek: Starting stack about 100.
Blind levels 1/2, 2/4, 3/6, 5/10, 7/15 etc.
Clock is about 15 minutes, but is reduced to 8 minutes when 4 people are left, 5 minutes for the final.
First 2 people out have to deal rest of game (Head Bitch and Assistant Bitch ). Having 2 dealers (*) speeds up the game a lot.

AJs.

Please make sure you have 2 totally different decks of cards before doing this, the 5 Kings incident was a disaster.

Waylander

We alternate weekly between a €30 fo with 3-4k starting stack, or a €20 rebuy with 2k starting stack. Blinds start at 25/50 first 3 levels @ 20 mins, balance at 15 mins.

Marq

PL dealer's choice with a compulsory mississippi straddle. blinds .50/.50/1/2/4/8/16/32

As has been pointed out before, this is the only home game worth playing.