Home game questions

[whoiskb]

I'll be hosting my first home game during the SuperBowl and have a few questions for some of the pro's out there.

Game details:
- $20 buy in
- 10-15 people

1. Would it be better to play a limit or no limit game? Seems like the group is split and people have made arguments on both sides as to which one is more fair.

2. The people coming are going to be of all skill levels as we have some people who have played poker before, but never hold em or have even sat down at a NL game. But we have some guys that play 3 times a week. Is there anyway to try to even things out? I read on another site to put a bounty out on the better people so they are targeted to get taken out, but I am concerned about the consequences of that. Any thoughts on how to make it more fair?

3. If we go NL, I found this blind schedule, http://www.homepokertourney.com/blinds.htm and was thinking of using that first T1000 schedule and raise the blinds every 20 minutes. According to the site it should put the game at about 4 hours which is about what I am targeting. Any thoughts?

Thanks for all your help.
KB

[AHiltz]

NL will go faster.
Bounties are a bad idea.
Pay at least 3 people
To hell with fairness. Luck will even out the playing field for the newbies

[siknd]

when i started hosting homegames there were all kinds of opinions. but im a prick, so i dont care about opinions. i made the rules very clear, and stuck to a very traditional and purist form of poker. this is the only way newbies will learn, and the quicker you implement a firm gameplan, the sooner the quality of your homegame will improve.

bounties can be fun, but dont base it on your perceived assessment of talent, ie putting bounties on the heads of the players you think are the best. put bounties of the ITM finishers in future tournaments.

there is no real way to 'even things out'. by its nature, poker is a game of skill separation. to handicap the game i suppose you could either offer newbies a 1/2 entry fee or double starting chip counts, but as my opening opinion, i dont really think this is a good idea.

the advice on homepokertourney is real good, but as 'tourney director' give yourself the ability to adjust the blind schedule if it seems to be dragging on too long, or creating a field of short stacks becuase its too fast. this is the single most important factor, so if your inital structure sucks, change it up.

id recommend setting up a side game where busted players can play a ring game.

oh, by the way, im not a pro, so i guess you can ignore this advice.

[Jason]

I recently ran a tournament with 22 people. My set-up was $10 NLHE – 40 chips valued @ 1500: 20 Whites valued @ 10, 18 Green valued at 50, and 2 Blues valued at 200 according to this schedule. Payout was 45% ($99), 25% ($55), 20% ($44), and 10% ($22). We were done at either the 1000/2000 or 2000/4000 level. So I felt that was good length of time, between 3 to 4 hours, to allow everyone a chance to play well and also catch some good hands while finishing before the cows come home.

There are many other sites like the one you posted that have similar schedules and chip amounts. The main thing to consider is making sure you give everyone a good number of chips to play with - not too few or too many. And also make sure you physically have enough chips to accommodate everyone - be prepared for the unexpected such as players not showing up or even extra ones you didn't plan on arriving with friends.

Majority should dictate the game to play, but if it is indeed split, I'd favor NLHE because it's easily the most popular and would run faster for the same set of chips versus limit. The all-in factor is exciting and will draw attention.

I personally wouldn't worry about trying to even things out with “bounties”. Even though there is a lot of skill involved in poker, there's enough luck for any one tournament or ring game to make it a null point. It's not like basketball where players could literally dominate every game. If LeBron James shows up at your pick-up basketball game, it’s a statistical certainly he’s going to dominate every time – if Dan Harrington shows up to your tournament, while although always the favorite, he is statistically guaranteed to lose at some point. New players and fish can and often do well or even win on any given night. I play in a poker league in Tennessee and I see it happen routinely. And, for the players that are talented and have studied the game to have an advantage, that should be their reward and opportunity to shine.

Some other helpful hints:
1. Have the schedule of blinds and chip amounts posted somewhere – I used a white dry/erase board
2. Have cheat sheets available for hand rankings
3. If you have one or more new players, go over some common rules to be mindful of – i.e. no string bets (say call or raise, not I see your 20 and raise you), bet in turn, don't fold when you can check, and the like
4. Encourage everyone to follow the rules, but also be flexible and not take it too seriously
5. Be flexible on the schedule in terms of breaks
6. To alleviate boredom to eliminated players, as was mentioned, encourage $5 or $10 ring games

Good luck and have fun.

[whoiskb]

Thanks for all the input.

KB

[Kessler]

When I play home games, it usually goes like this:

5-9 players
NLHE
$10 - $20 buy-in gets you 50 chips, non-denom so chip colors don't matter(makes it easier to count when someone goes AI)
No Rebuy
Blinds start @ 1/2 and double every orbit
2 decks, Dealer deals one, CO (or someone) shuffles the other deck during the hand
Pay the top 2 spots, but players can agree to split (They usually do, so we can start over and get 2-3 tournaments a night)
Busted players usually BBQ, watch TV or just drink until the Tournament finishes

-Kes

[whoiskb]

Busted players usually BBQ, watch TV or just drink until the Tournament finishes

-Kes

Luckly in our game, the superbowl will be playing for the busted players. If the bowl is boring, there is always the xbox.

[Pelion]

When I play home games, it usually goes like this:

5-9 players
NLHE
$10 - $20 buy-in gets you 50 chips, non-denom so chip colors don't matter(makes it easier to count when someone goes AI)
No Rebuy
Blinds start @ 1/2 and double every orbit

That sounds horribly shortstacked to begin with. Id recommend starting at least with 100BB so it actually has some play in it. Otherwise its just finding a hand to go allin with.