What should I do in advance to plan a home game? I have 2 poker tables, and 2 decent chip sets. I want to invite about 35 people, I'm assuming less than 20 will show...

~ Lady H

I have had a few home games, so maybe i can assist you. First do your tables hold enough room for 10 people or more if needed? If so you have the room. As far as chips go do you have 500 sets or smaller? just divy out the chips (all of them if you can) 20 is a great number as you can pay top 3 decent payouts, like 50 30 20 or anything your group decides. set blinds for 20-30 minutes unless you have all kinds of time you can use a kitchen timer or the various websites that offer timers. Send out invitations about a month in advance to get rsvp's and then send out reminders 2 weeks in advance. You should have the drinkers bring at least a twelve pack or decent amount of drink for a few people that way you dont run out and you dont have to supply for the whole evening. Offer finger foods or chips and dips you know. I dont know about your area but instead have asking people to bring things you can charge a buy-in/house fee per person to offset costs but i know thats illegal in a lot of states. Any other questions pm me or reply here, good luck and hopefully you take down your own game.

My tables are ten people + dealer tables. where as ofcourse we will be self dealing, so 11 each. I play often at others home games, however they tend to be more spur of the moment, so I want to start a monthly game. The law here is that I cannot specifically rake the tables, but I think having a $5 addmission jar or something would be appropriate, to go towards pizza and drinks or whatever. Most home games I've played at used either cell phone timers (hehe) or the freetimer on hometourney.com but I spoze even an eggtimer would work. I think with this first tourney 20-25 people will likely show, so I suppose I probably should ask around and see if anyone has another table or two. I believe my chip sets each have 2500. I won them in a tourney so I'll have to take a look.. anyway, wish me luck!

~ LadyH

Good luck if you get 25 people try to squeeze 12 qnd 13 at the table and break down accordingly. It isnt that hard just pay attn to the blinds and dealer and try to keep the tables as even as possible..... if you have a total of 5000 chips thats plenty and home tourney.com is where i used to go to but i found the kitchen timer at the tables to be a lil more conveinent(spelleing). I played at 12 person tables before premium hands are a must its funny....lol

Yea, that's the deal. Most places in this country anyway...the US. Depending where you live though it might not be a big deal. Realistically there are criminals out there that should be dealt with instead. Some poker game where the homeowner makes a few bucks to cover costs is the last thing that taxpayers should have to pay for.

Then again, if you live somewhere where the law enforcement has nothing better to do or your game gets too big you could attract the wrong attention. But it sounds like it's just gonna be a pretty small affair and it's doubtful that you'll have anything to worry about if that's the case.

Good luck in your endeavors though.

What we used to do was bring your choice of bev then when all were there play a few 1-2 games (unless people wanted to play higher) and then everybody chipped in to buy enough pizza to feed the national guard lol and after the we were done eating (still playing side games) we would start our tourney. Some times you hit a streak and your seat payed for itself in the side games. highest live side game we ever had was a 5-10 game 100 min buy-in had 6 people playing and i lost my 100 in 30 minutes but came in second in our tourney got my buy in and loss back 120 total lol thank goodness. But the side games are pretty good for killing time as they start up after the tourney starts to eliminate people. That way everybody has the oppurtunity to not be out of their mind bored and after the tourney if we have 4-5-6 people left over we play a 10 buy-in winner take all thats usually how we kept people around but we havent done one in awhile i miss them....lol (pouting now) Anyhow good luck none the less if its a huge success you wont be able to end the weekly get togethers i promise lol

Hi Guys,
Do any of you use software to run / organise / keep track of these home- games ?
(Some of us like to drink while playing - so it could be a good idea in some circumstances (like If I am in charge, chuckle.)

Regards
Paul

p.s. Any home-Gamers from the UK here ?

UK never used software as I am way to into my game to drink and play and I've been known to take it way too serious, but I think there are a few software choices that may be worth a shot but I havent checked on them in a while I will do a google a little later and see but like I said i am the TD so I take it with a sense of urgency or pride or whatever word fits best there...lol I always have to remind the blinds to post especially if I get knocked out early i am scoping all the tables or dealers to enforce blinds not betting out of turn etc.

Hey guys! Thank you all so much!!! I had my first home game about 2 weeks ago, it was a success!!! I didn't win real big, but I had a great time!

~LadyH

That is a big event to pull off, LadyH, congratulations! I'd love to hear the details; how many people showed up, how many at each table, highlights of the party, etc. Seriously, if I'm ever going to attempt this I'd love to be able to learn from your experiences.

Tracy