College dorm game: rake question

[StepBangin]

Hi, my roommate and I will be running a cash games about 3 to 4 days a week in the huge basement in my dorm. Last year we had a total of 43 different players show up over the course of the year. We would regularly have 10 to 20 and once had 33 show up. We just used any cards that we could and didnt rake the pots.

This year I plan on buying 6 to 8 decks of nice KEM Cards. I dont want to buy all of these with my own money, so I would like some suggestions on how to come up with the money.

We play 0.25/0.50 NL Holdem with a $20 Min and no-max buy-in. Would it be reasonable to set a very low rake structure up in order to pay for the cards? Once the cards are completely paid off I would eliminate the rake. How should the structure be set up? I would try to keep it pretty small if I do this?

What other ways could I come up with the money? It's hard to just ask people for money because some might not show up very often and some might play every week so it wouldnt be fair to ask everyone for a set ammount.

Any ideas on the best/most fair way to pay for these cards would be great!

[skitzofranik]

well if youre really not trying to take money from your "friends" I think simply raking the small blind from every pot should pay for those cards rather quickly. That way theres no confusion about how much totake out according to pot size and what not, since i'm assuming you dont have a permanent dealer in these games.

[wiper]

^^

what he said sounds right...

however, i'd caution you running a raked poker game on university property...1 kid goes broke, cries to his mom and dad, mom and dad call the school, you just wasted 10's of thousands of dollars..

and good luck finding another good school to accept you when they found out you were dismissed from another university for running a card game...

[DavidNB]

I wouldn't do the rack thing, ask for a donation at the begining when players buyin or pass the hat or something

[dlorc]

Just have a $1 entry fee to the game or something.

[SumZero]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi, my roommate and I will be running a cash games about 3 to 4 days a week in the huge basement in my dorm. Last year we had a total of 43 different players show up over the course of the year. We would regularly have 10 to 20 and once had 33 show up. We just used any cards that we could and didnt rake the pots.

This year I plan on buying 6 to 8 decks of nice KEM Cards. I dont want to buy all of these with my own money, so I would like some suggestions on how to come up with the money.

We play 0.25/0.50 NL Holdem with a $20 Min and no-max buy-in. Would it be reasonable to set a very low rake structure up in order to pay for the cards? Once the cards are completely paid off I would eliminate the rake. How should the structure be set up? I would try to keep it pretty small if I do this?

What other ways could I come up with the money? It's hard to just ask people for money because some might not show up very often and some might play every week so it wouldnt be fair to ask everyone for a set ammount.

Any ideas on the best/most fair way to pay for these cards would be great!

[/ QUOTE ]

Do NOT run the game as raked.

One thing you can do is figure out how many people you expect to be there over the course of the year and do:

8*cost of KEM deck / 3*num weeks*num players = suggested donation amount.

You then risk owing the balence but you end up not raking a game. Total cost for the decks should be <$300. $300/3 times a week = $100. $100/20 players = 5. How many weeks are you running this? 20 weeks would make .25 cents a person.

So either do a .25 or .50 or $1 suggested donation from each person at the start or else suggest that the players donate all their rough winnings at the end of the night (I.e., instead of cashing out $52.75 I'd cash out $52 and .75 goes to defer the cost of the deck of cards).

When my roommates and I ran a poker game in our room pretty much 7 days a week for 1.5 semesters of school we paid for all the supplies (cards, chips, table, etc.). We were not using the expensive KEM cards, but our stakes were much lower with .25/.5 and .5/1 limit dealer's choice games.

[TomHimself]

get copags they are 10$ cheaper and still very high quality

[NickMPK]

Don't rake your game...it will dramatically reduce participation and could set you up for legal problems.

Ask for some donations from your regular players. If they refuse, split the cost with your roommate and win the rest of it at the table.

[Graevis]

Game Land Ebay Store

$75 gets you 10 decks (5 packages of 2 decks) of Copaq cards off of the Game Land ebay store. They should easily last the year.

[carnivalhobo]

just ask the winning players to toss you like 5 bucks to cover it