First Poker Night

Joseph

Hi all,

Tonight I'm running my first poker night, novice at poker so am looking forward to it.

6 of us will be playing. We're going to be playing No Limit Texas Hold'em.

It's only a small game for fun so the buy in is very low:
Buy in for 5 euro and re-buy for 5 euro.

I'd appreciate some advice in general for running a poker night and more specifically on the winnings.

I was thinking of setting a time for when the game has to end and at that time the person with the most chips gets the pot, and the person with the second most chips gets their buy-in covered.

Also, is it acceptable for me to take a cut for hosting it? Spent money on food etc

Thanks

Good luck with it but for God's sake don't play limit hold'em. It's like removing teeth. Awful game.

PocketAces

Deaddude wrote: »

I was thinking of setting a time for when the game has to end and at that time the person with the most chips gets the pot, and the person with the second most chips gets their buy-in covered.

Not a fan of this myself... Played a game like that once and it ended up with me and the big chip leader going heads up. He slowed everything down cos it's to his advantage. He wasn't calling me unless he had pocket aces or something, so I had to go all-in most hands and takes his blinds as quickly as possible. It was ridiculous, the time was being used as a weapon essentially.

Deaddude wrote: »

Also, is it acceptable for me to take a cut for hosting it? Spent money on food etc

I guess if you went to considerable expense, but I'd sooner just have no food or as the host take the 5er or 10er hit if it's just for fun... Seems a bit stingey to me to take from the pot for a couple bags of doritos and dips. The pot will be quite small as it is, so I wouldn't be too keen on taking more from it.

Good luck with it, and enjoy !

Joseph

Forgot the no before limit

Joseph

PocketAces wrote: »

Not a fan of this myself... Played a game like that once and it ended up with me and the big chip leader going heads up. He slowed everything down cos it's to his advantage. He wasn't calling me unless he had pocket aces or something, so I had to go all-in most hands and takes his blinds as quickly as possible. It was ridiculous, the time was being used as a weapon essentially.

How would you suggest working it instead of a time based system?

Well I'd suggest you do what most people do so. A nice standard sit and go with 1 rebuy. None of this timed nonsense. 2nd gets money back, winner takes the rest.

If you tweak the stack sizes and blind increases you'll be able to either play 1 game for a long time or a few games over the same period. Make sure there is a tv and playstation/xbox in the room for those who get knocked out and wanna move onto something else (poker is the most intensely boring thing in the world to watch live unless you are in Vegas and Marty Smyth is on a final table according to Rag2gar).

Apart from that enjoy.

PocketAces

Deaddude wrote: »

How would you suggest working it instead of a time based system?

If you're concerned about it going on for too long then increase the blinds more regularly. Every 15 minutes if you're really pressed for time. 30 minutes should be fine though.

tipp86

I remember last summer when we were travelling california before we hit vegas there was 4 of us and we played a lot of these kind of games at night for the laugh.

The best thing ye can do is play maybe 3 €5 games in the night. This will ensure people wont get to bored.

8 minute blind levels.

4 different chip colours eg : red 25 , blue 100 , black 500, green 1000.

Give 4 red chips, 4 blue chips, 3 black chips and 4 green chips.

This will give a starting stack of 6000, 8 minute blind levels so the game should be over easily in under a hour. This will allow 2 or 3 games. If it was me i would give winner takes all but you could also payout €20 - €10.

Here is how you should do blind levels

25-50 - 8 minutes

50-100 - 8 minutes

75-150 - 8 minutes

100-200 - 8 minutes

150-300 - 8 minutes

200-400 - 8 minutes

300-600 - 8 minutes

400-800 - 8 minutes

500-1000 - 8 minutes

KevIRL

Deaddude wrote: »

Also, is it acceptable for me to take a cut for hosting it? Spent money on food etc

Thanks

I would say definitely not.

Either

- Rotate the hosting of the game so everyone has to put up for grub
- Let the players know to bring along their own nibbles if they want
- Ask players to stump up a couple of euro toward the cost of food. (This being the least desirable really)

As for the timing question the others on thread have answered this pretty well.

GL with it

ArmaniJeanss

I wouldn't use 4 different colour chips if they are novices, you spend half your time having to re-explain to people how much each chip is worth.
3 different chips at the most, preferably 2.

Definitely have something for second, even if its just money back. It allows the play to be cleverer when its gets 3handed.

Definitely aim to have more than 1 game. Encourage the first 2 people knocked out to become dealers for the rest of the game, having 2 dealers means there is always a deck ready so no gap between hands. And because they want the game to end quickly they can make sure no-one is taking too long on decisions. And they can subtely encourage the game to end with comments like 'sure his all-in is only a quarter of your stack and you have a BB in there anyway, you should call with any two.'

For whats it worth we do it the following way with about 8 players.
Its very crapshooty but good fun.

Starting stack 90 chips freezeout no rebuys. 10x1, 12x5, and 1x20. (I tried to convert my people to more normal starting stacks but they find the smaller maths easier).

Blinds 1,2; 2,4; 3,6; 5,10; 7,15; 12,25; 20,40; 30,60; 50,100.

Level1 20 minutes, then 15 minutes. When its gets say 4 handed and there are 2 dealers as explained before then reduce this to 8 minutes.

When its gets to the final 2 reduce it to 5 minutes and call them pussies if they don't get it all in very quickly.

Each game should take about 80 minutes.

Snacks and stuff, basically everyone should be bring something, whether its a 6 pack of Tayto or a bag of Wine Gums.

AnchormanSL

Regarding the food,get maybe 2 bottles of Coke and a big bag of crisps or something for the first time.Some could bring their own.You'll notice though no matter how long you've been friends some won't show the same hospitality when it comes to them hosting.If it comes to this, just stick to yourself.Bring your own going to there's and tough on them if they don't do the same going to yours.

It's not a necessity to have food but it's a nice touch from my experience!!

Treehouse72

DEFINITELY no charge for hosting. That's not in the spirit of a fun home game. Just rotate the hosting or agree you all chip in a few quid for refreshment, but don't take the payment for this out of the poker money.

Also, the "time limit" method you mentioned is no good. I would go with Tipp's general plan, but I would go for longer blind levels...say, 15 minutes each with unlimited re-buys until a pre-agreed level (say, the second or third last blind level). This will stretch out the game for a few hours, but will mean a point will come where people start getting knocked out and the game will wind down. And at €5 per re-buy and 1500 chips to start, it should mean nobody will spend more than say €20. So...

> Initial €5 buys 1500 chips
> Unlimited re-buys for first 7 levels of the 9. After that, no re-buys and it becomes last man standing
> Levels of 15 minutes each as per Tipp's structure (meaning a c.2 hour game, which should be enough).
> Have a stopwatch running (ideally a count-down alarm one) to keep track of the levels as well a sheet with the blind levels written on it as it can be hard to remember where you are. We used to move a chip down the sheet to keep track of which level we're at.

zuutroy

The game with my mates is 10 bob in for 2000 chips and 5er rebuys for the first hour.
Blinds are 20 mins long and are as follows:

10/20
20/40
30/60
50/100
100/200
150/300
200/400
Frozen at 300/600

This structure usually runs the game off in 3-4 hours for 8-10 people. I'm not a fan of having a night of multiple crapshoots.