Starting a homegame

I have had the pleasure of running a small homegame off and on for two years and reckon that it is by far the easiest, most relaxing way to hone your skills without straining your wallet, in an atmosphere which is generally quieter and more friendly than most card rooms. There are several types of homegame, on a scale from the purely social, with the cards as secondary to the banter and, often, the consumption of beer, to the professionally-dealt semi-legal Private Game set up in someone’s basement or the back of another establishment, often run with a tax of some sort.

The type I am advocating here is somewhere in between, where a group of friends get together perhaps once a week to play a little tournament, and some low-stakes cash afterwards, for the late night crowd. Personally, I find it a little frustrating to concentrate on any kind of game when the other players are clearly not paying attention in the slightest, so if you want your poker party to be a party first and a poker game second, it’s a good idea to make that clear to your invitees. Having said that, I have made some great friends from the group of people which descended on my house every Wednesday night, and the emphasis was on having fun rather than taking it too seriously; the money element was just enough to give them something to fight over, not make or break their week.

The principle elements of a homegame are always the same. Equipment needed: cards, a dealer button, a cut card (postilion) to keep on the bottom of the deck, a timer, a set of chips, some kind of cloth to cover a hard surface. That’s it. I know people who have gone about furnishing their homegames with ex-casino furniture – proper cushioned tables with cup holders, Kem plastic cards, a countdown timer downloaded from the internet and displayed on a computer – but that’s not really necessary to play in your living room. In fact, my postilion was one of the jokers from the deck covered in gaffer tape (naturally the right size), my timer an egg-timer, my button someone’s mobile phone, and my baize a piece of fabric from the haberdashery section of my local department store.

The only really important piece of equipment needed to run a game from home is the chip set. Recently, places where these can be purchased have popped up almost daily, and you can get a reasonably good one for less than $100. The problem with the very cheap plastic chips is that they’re not really designed for poker – you can’t stack them or fiddle with them as they’re often various shapes and sizes, and they’re hard to count and come in awkward numbers. You need probably four colours of basic chip to run a tournament. Of course if the stackability and feel of your chips is of no concern to you, you could use anything that comes in distinct shades – M&Ms, pasta, counters from board games. I would advise against anything edible, however, as people’s currency tends to ‘disappear.’

Here’s an example of my weekly £10 no-limit hold’em rebuy tournament:

Twelve players each start with 1,500 in chips (two 500 (Red), four 100 (white) and four 25 (green)). So we’re up to 24 red, 48 white and 48 green.

The blind structure was as follows, with each level being 20 minutes:

25 – 25
25 – 50
50 – 100
End of rebuys
100 – 200
150 – 300
200 – 400
300 – 600
400 – 800
600 – 1200
800 – 1600
1000 – 2000
1500 – 3000
And so on, raising the small blind by 500 until there’s a winner.

This was a pretty slow structure, but the whole thing can be sped up by tweaking the level time or starting with fewer chips, or skipping a couple of blind levels (like the 150 – 300). It’s a good idea to tell everyone what the structure is in advance though, and not change it in the middle just because someone, for example, needs to catch the last train home.

For rebuys, the first few people received two 500 chips and five 100 chips, then three red 500 chips, and then after a while, one 1000 chip (black) and one 500. The idea is to keep the number of chips manageable, while avoiding players having to continually ask for change from someone who’s hoarded all the small denomination chips. By the end of rebuys, we would usually have in play the original 48 green and around 68 white, and perhaps 72 red and 4 black chips circulating. So with an overly excitable dozen people, you might need 50xColour1, 100xColour2, 100xColour3 and 25xColour4.

Of course, running a freezeout is simpler – everyone starts with the same number of chips and when they’re gone, they’re out. As far as distribution of prize money goes, you can do whatever you like, from a winner-takes-all format to a 50% 30% 20% split for the top three. Again, it’s a good idea to let everyone know in advance how the prizes are going to be awarded. By setting out your own rules clearly at the start, any potential arguments are avoided. It’s up to you how stringent you want your rules on things like string betting and showing hands etc. to be, but it’s generally a good idea to get into good habits that won’t get any friends in trouble in the less friendly surroundings of casinos.

There has only been one argument at my homegame – one player took about five minutes to act every time it was his turn and eventually another player snapped and said it was unfair to use up a quarter of a blind level per decision. As the runner of a homegame, you’re the Tournament Director and have to resolve these little fights which sometimes break out over trivial matters. Just make a decision and stick to it; as long as you’re consistent people simmer down and get on with enjoying the game. One thing to be absolutely ruthless over is cheating – it is unacceptable even in a low-stakes game to have players doing anything unfair.

So where do your players come from? I gathered mine from a selection of old school friends and people that I met playing at other games and even card rooms. Their friends started to come along and suddenly my mailing list had thirty names on it (although attendance ranged from four to my maximum room capacity of sixteen). I know a few people who advertise their games on the internet and it’s as easy as dropping them an email to get an invite. It’s totally up to you. As far as refreshing the weary gamblers, I provided coffee and soft drinks and if people fancied anything else they could bring it along. Pizza tended to be ordered around midnight.

Finally, to cash games – again using the example of my 25p- 25p pot limit dealer’s choice game. On average people bought in for between £10 and £20 and chips were in three colours – Colour1 (25p) Colour2 (£1) and Colour3 (£5). If you have different colours from the tournament chips it’s a good idea to use them. Make sure only one person is responsible for cashing in and out; it’s surprising how often the pot at the end of the night doesn’t quite tally with the chips on the table when many people have been exchanging cash for chips and vice versa. As it’s your game, you’re responsible for this working out, and there will probably be fewer accidental mistakes made if you know you’re covering any potential discrepancy.

Playing table stakes is always the best idea- betting in IOUs or with an unlimited reach into a wallet is a recipe for disaster. Giving credit is a whole other kettle of fish and for the purposes of a little friendly game like this it’s best to just play with what’s been paid for and is sitting on the table, with the usual all-in rules applying. I tended to allow any game to be chosen (no wild cards) but if there was even one dissenting voice then we’d just play hold’em or limit the game choice to the ones all players present knew. This just keeps the whole thing friendly – it’s no fun to sit out while other people play a game you’re not familiar with, or lose money trying to keep up.

The great thing about this homegame was the fact that although the stakes were small, the people there were taking it fairly seriously, even though it wouldn’t have hurt any of them to just call all bets and see what happened. You can learn a lot from gathering a little group of competitive people and putting them round a poker table, even when they’re mainly playing for fun.