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Tips on Hosting Home Games (Looooong!)

Some Tips on Hosting Games

Get plenty of players. Invite all your friends and family members to come. If you need more, make your game micro-stakes and use Meetup.com, Craigslist.org, or Homepokergames.com to recruit more players. You must have at least 6 players there on time for it to be a good game, 10 is much better. In order to assure 6-10 players, I suggest getting at least 12 people to fully commit “yes” for your first few games. As your game gains a good reputation, you won’t have to overbook as much.

Recruit for your game at least 3 days before game day, but not more than one week before game day. Don't recruit too early or people might forget they have RSVP'd, or you might get discouraged since most people don't commit for games far in advance. Recruiting for a game too late is no good either, since most players have their games lined up at least 3 days in advance.

Always be firm from the beginning on what the game setup is going to be. Choose cash game or tourney, mixed or single game, what the stakes are, payout structure, blind levels, etc. and stick to it. Don't allow your guests to vote on these decisions or the game will never get started. Also, people will be less likely to come if they are afraid the $20 NLHE tourney they expected might end up $10/$20 Badugi by game time.

Don't allow your recruits to say Maybe. You will have no idea how many people will come. Just a simple yes or no is all you need.

Don't allow persons under 21 to play. They are much more likely to cause trouble than older players.

Don’t put too much faith in people that say they are bringing guests. My experience is that players that RSVP with a guest are almost always no-shows… Presto, your game is now two people short!

Use three colors of chips max. Any more than this, and there are a lot of questions and errors about what the denominations of the chips are. Use denominated chips if you can. Standard colors for chips are: $0.25: Green or Grey, $0.50: Pink, $1: White or Blue, $5: Red, $25 Green, $100 Black.

Have a clear and consistent policy on credit. People will ask eventually.

If you get a no-show, call or e-mail the no-show and let them know it was a disappointment that they did not show. If they do it to you again, never let them play again. I hate to be a hardass, but poker games are tricky. One or two people too many and the table is too crowded, two or three people too few, and the game is too slow. In general, we do not have problems with no-shows, and a lot of that is due to our low tolerance of no-shows. If you tolerate no-shows, you will get no-shows. If you have a tough policy on no-shows you will find yourself with games full every week with serious players happy to have a reliable game. If you tolerate no-shows, you will find yourself with shorthanded games that start late and the entire thing dies out after a couple weeks.

As the host you will eventually have to make a difficult rules decisions regarding yourself or your good friends for substantial sums of money. Be ready for this. I personally spend a lot of time on rules issues, so I have confidence in my decisions. When I was newer, I allowed the table to decide. Allowing all players to vote or flipping a coin will also work. Appointing an experienced person to settle disputes is also a good option. Be careful of people who claim to know the 'official rules', there is a lot of variation even in Vegas cardrooms, and no rules manual can cover every situation. Whatever your choice, it should be clear to everyone ahead of time and consistently applied.

Some of the most contentious rules problems involve oversized chip, forced showing of cards, accidental board cards dealt, and accidental muckings. If you know how to handle these situations, you have the worst situations covered.

Don't play for money with paper cards unless you are ready to buy two new decks for each game.

Have plenty of small bills available to make change at the end of the night.

Keep a bunch of high-denomination chips in your pocket and use them to do rebuys right at the table. It is fast, and you don't have the table piled up with low-denomination chips at the end of the night.

Don't make a big fuss about food or drink. I have killed a couple of poker games in my life by serving too much food and drink. My serious poker game turned into a serious party, which is not terrible, but not what I was after. Pretzels and soft drinks are plenty.

For a cash game, have a fixed stop time for the game. Without a set stop time, the losers will beg to keep on playing indefinitely. The winners will want to quit, the losers will call them wimps, and it is kind of a messy scene. I actually set an alarm, but I realize that is extreme.

Be deadly serious about each buy-in and cash-out. Count and double-count each one. Nothing sucks more than thinking you had a bad night at the table, only to find out you made an error in the bank. Careful banking is tough to do when you are trying to host and play at the same time. Don't let other players get their own chips or cash themselves out. If any mistake happens in the bank that night, you will immediately suspect your buddy, even if the mistake was yours! The banker typically makes about 25 transactions each night, and each transaction has potential for error. I personally double-count each cashed-in chip at the end of the night, writing down the amount after the first count, and making sure this number matches my second count. This is slower than most games I have seen, but my bank is always square these days.

When getting your game started, go with a low-stakes cash game like $0.25/$0.50, $40.00 max buy-in NLHE. Most players know this game and are comfortable with it, so you are more likely to get players. After you have 3 or 4 of these you will then have the players necessary to spread that $500 buy-in heads-up Chinese Poker tourney you have always wanted to have.

Try to stick to a regular schedule. Many of us whipped married guys need to warn the SOs that we will be gone certain days to play poker. It is best if we can give this warning far in advance, such as telling the SO we play every Thursday at OEric's, every Friday at Aaron's, every Sunday at TK's, and the first Tuesday of every month at John C's. See how reasonable that must sound?

Remember that most of your players are there to have fun. Your games should be fun to attend. There is nothing wrong with wanting a serious poker game, but keep it light. Bonus hands, bounties, pot sweeteners, trash talk, and silly trophies help a lot. Also remember that as the host you can bend the rules 'in the spirit of fairness' when weird situations come up, just remember to be consistent, don’t bend a rule for your buddy, then penalize a stranger.

Hosting a regular, spirited home game has been one of the great pleasures of my life. I hope these tips will help you join the fun!