Written By: PokerSite.org
If you like to play poker and have a good time with friends, you should think about holding your own home poker game. Nothing is more fun than getting a group of your buddies together to have a night of Texas Hold’em and good conversation. However, if you’re a casual player it might be intimidating to set up your first home game. This article will walk you through the steps, and give you tips for having a great poker night.
Game Structure
The first thing you need to decide is if you’re going to have a cash game or a sit and go type tournament. If this is your first home game, I’d suggest hosting a tournament because it keeps things simple. You don’t have to deal with players buying in and cashing out sporadically, and there are less issues with chips being lost or stolen.
To set up the actual structure of your poker tournaments, I’d suggest taking the common structures from online sit and go tournaments. Most sites start each player with 1,500 in chips, and 10/20 blinds. Blinds increase every 10 minutes, but you might want to stretch it out to 20 minutes since the dealers will be slower then at an online game. Here is a good example of a structure for a home poker tournament, including starting stack, blinds, antes, and breaks:
Also, for payout structure you should again look to the online poker sites, because they have it down. For a 10 person sit and go, the payouts are usually 50% to first place, 30% to second place, and 20% to third place. However, if you have more players you’ll have to adjust accordingly.
Setting up for the Tournament
Your first task to host the game is to find players. The best way to do this is to invite your close friends or family, because you don’t want any shady characters around, especially if there are significant amounts of money involved. Also, since it’s your first tournament there will probably be a few hiccups, and you don’t want strangers there who might get more upset than they should.
Next you need poker chips, a poker table, and chairs. I suggest setting this all up beforehand, including counting out starting chip stacks for each player. Make sure to have enough tables for all the players. If you’re going to have less than 10 players, you can all sit at one table, and for each increment of 10 more players coming, make sure to have another table with chairs available. The reason to count out chip stacks before hand is to reduce any risk of chip stealing. Put each chip stack in a plastic bag, and give them to the players when they pay you as they arrive.
Make sure to keep all the money on you or in a safe place at all times, especially if there are players at the game who you don’t know well. You might want to pick up a pizza or two and have drinks on hand, just to keep everyone happy especially if the tournament runs late.
Explain the Rules
Before the tournament starts, make sure to explain the rules to all of the players. Tell them about the structure, when blinds will go up, what each color of chip is worth, the payouts, if the dealer has to cut the deck before dealing, etc. It’s important to explain all of this beforehand so there are no issues after the tournament has started.
After the tournament has started, just enjoy it, and give yourself a pat on the back for setting up a great poker tournament. Have fun!
