Home game beginnings - a defined plan or leave it up to the Poker Gods. (4 Viewers)

[thePokerClub]

Think back to when you started your home game....

Did you have a defined plan or grand vision for what you wanted it to be and work actively towards that?

Or, did you leave it up to the Poker Gods? Word of mouth, consensus on game styles, setup, etc.

Which route did you take and what was the result?

 

[Poker Zombie]

I started during the poker boom years. There was no grand plan, and there was only one game (hold'em).

I did do research (HomePokerTourney.com) so I wouldn't say I left it up to the Poker Gods, but I have made mistakes and learned a lot over the years. I still refine my game every time, even though I'm 20 years in. Always be evolving.

 

[bubz_davis]

I had a night that I felt like playing, called some buddies very last minute and nothing came of it. Ordered a mat table topper to play at the dining room table that I thought was awesome and started to look at better chips than the dice chips I had. Stumbled upon PCF, looked at some of the home games thread and became addicted! Ha. Game grew pretty well and now have some decent regulars twice a month!

 

[GrizzKS]

I started during the poker boom years. There was no grand plan, and there was only one game (hold'em).

I did do research (HomePokerTourney.com) so I wouldn't say I left it up to the Poker Gods, but I have made mistakes and learned a lot over the years. I still refine my game every time, even though I'm 20 years in. Always be evolving.

This could be me.

HomePokerTourney was a great resource!

 

[LotsOfChips]

Mine was definitely planned. It was almost 5 years from conception to fruition.

I played a bit of poker with friends in high school and later in college, but then work and life took over, and I didn't play for over 30 years. When I finally bought a house, had a stable job, and knew I was going to be in the same location for a while, I decided that I wanted to get back into playing poker (and hosting).

I started by looking for local games, and stumbled across PCF, where I met many awesome hosts that ran amazing games. I also met some other hosts in my area that ran games that were, shall we say, less well run (dice chips, plastic folding tables, paper cards, etc.) .

I made it a point to attend as many of the various games as I could, in order to learn as much as I could about poker, about hosting, about the equipment involved (chips, tables, cards, etc.), and about what I liked and didn't like about each of their games. Along the way I also met lots of players from all of those games, and made notes and got contact information for people who I wanted to eventually invite to my game.

I started to buy equipment for my game, including a refurbished Chanman rental table, a casino used set of Horseshoe Cleveland (Paulson THC/RHC) cash game chips suitable for everything from .05/.10 to 5/10, a Royal Card Room tournament set capable of 30 players and everything from T10k to T1M stacks, and a variety of card setups (Kem, Copag, Desjn, Bicycle Prestige, etc.). I also purchased the Tournament Director software, and taught myself how to run a tournament with the program.

Just about the time I thought I was ready to start hosting, COVID hit, so my plans were disrupted. I saw some threads on PCF about hosting online games, so I bought the Poker Mavens software program, and invited the people that I had met to join my online game. That was a pretty good experience, and I learned a fair bit about hosting and running games, even though it was all in a virtual setting.

Once live games started happening again, life got crazy busy, so I had to put any ideas of hosting live (and online) games on hold for a while. Finally this last year things settled down a lot. I retired from my job, and after a flurry of catching up on a long list of projects that I had been putting off for several years, I decided to restart my poker hosting plans. I knew that I had a good list of players for my player pool, so I designed and built a second table. It was a unique design (super-ellipse), and I needed a special tool (CNC router) to cut the shape, so I researched and built the tool, and eventually built the second table.

Finally, just this past January, I hosted my first live tournament. I had 16 players (2 full tables), and played a super deep stack, super high roller event, with T25 base and T1,000,000 (T1M) starting stacks, with an included T1M rebuy or a T1.2M add on. It got almost my entire set (1700 chips) of tournament chips into play. I included a pulled pork/beans and rice dinner for free as part of the event (it cost me less than a single $50 buy in to do that).

Reaction was incredibly positive. All of the players commented afterwards that they thought that the event was very well run, and a ton of fun. They commented positively about the cards, the chips, the tables, the game clock (Tournament Director on a big screen TV), the structure, the food, and the overall vibe of the evening. Word got around, and for my second tournament upcoming in April, I already have 24 players confirmed, so I had to borrow a third table for the evening.

So yeah, definitely planned, although I'm sure that the poker gods had a hand in there somewhere as well.

 

[BPTDirector]

I learned every tournament I ever had. It all started when I heard about a game(tournament) at a co-worker’s house, actually in his garage, middle of spring, doors open, great time. Dice chips and folding particle tables, but had me at hello even though I was dead money( at best ). I was hooked.

I wanted chips like casinos had right off and bought a FLV set from Spinettis at 40 cents a chip! Borrowed tables, and the BPT was born. The first five seasons I had between 32 and 40 guys playing each month, had ridiculous starting stack of 1500 chips with 25/50 starting blinds. Turbo structure only spared some by having 45 minute blinds rounds.

Then I found Chiptalk. I know, dirty word these days but it was where I got in on the original Pharoah’s Paulson Chips mold group buy. I remember pre buy price was .79 per chip back then. Learned about shuffle behind, copied a new structure from @BGinGA who has always been helpful and 18 years later my game has matured into a two table max, 20 minutes blinds rounds, T10,000 structure with a nice gradual Blinds approach. Everyone knows the shuffle behind method, and shows up on time for fun, food, and fellowship.

 

[TheYeti]

I started during the poker boom years. There was no grand plan, and there was only one game (hold'em).

I did do research (HomePokerTourney.com) so I wouldn't say I left it up to the Poker Gods, but I have made mistakes and learned a lot over the years. I still refine my game every time, even though I'm 20 years in. Always be evolving.

This is also me. I still have a folder of HomePokerTourney docs on my PC. Maybe I should hang my framed hand-rankings back up!

 

[NickyT]

Stay loose with everything while your starting and listen to the other players what they like and what they would want in future games. Try to find a good middle to make everyone happy. Too many rules and you'll probably scare off a lot of players.

 

[thePokerClub]

Cool to see all the stories here.

I got into poker during the poker boom of the early 2000s and would just play with buddies for fun constantly. A club wasn't even on my radar. Used to play at the Gardens and the Bike weekly tournaments, but then poker just fell off because of life. School, moves, and then starting a family.

Fast-forward to right after COVID, and I got an itch to play in a tournament - but I didn't want to have to go to the casino. So, I got a pen and paper and wrote out a structure and list of other Dads from sports and school. I really wanted to create a club structure with points because my friends and I are die-hard fantasy baseball and football players.

Started floating the idea to my list of guys and got a few bites. I had also built a hexagon poker/game table during COVID as a 'stuck at home' project so that would be my starter.

I focused on my point system a lot and put together a LeaderBoard concept that everyone liked. Best concept was Missed Participation Points. At a minimum everyone gets Participation Points for playing like most other systems discussed on PCF, but the Missed Points rule let players pick up any Participation Points they missed if scheduling had them miss the last Event. Keeps everyone relevant on the LeaderBoard and prevents any one person from running away with it.

Admittedly, I have had less of a focus on supplies and more of a focus on my point system and in-game incentives for players. I do have Barrington tables and recently got toppers with the club logo/name and the name of my poker product company SeasonStack. Now, I have gone down the chip rabbit hole - more to come on that as I am building a custom tournament set.

I always try to outdo myself year over year and (I will post more on the actual year over year trajectory) am now in what I am calling my Phase 3. Phase 1 was get it started, Phase 2 was grow the pool of members, now Phase 3 is supples and incentives.

Like I said more to come on it, but I am now getting local sponsors to contribute to the prize pool with overlays in exchange for my members getting in-game incentives to use when they visit the business between Events.

My wife is a small business, I have a small business outside of my full-time, and I want to interact with small business in this way to grow the club out. Also, kind of self-markets the club without me doing anything.

I want to be one of the premier clubs in soCal......whatever that looks like. Just riding the wave and playing some cards.....

 

[SteveEH]

During the poker boom I did the unplanned thing. I played with my core group of high school friends, and added people I met through bar tournaments/online groups. This didn't sit well with my friends - they were interested in socializing more than competition against poker randoms. Plus there were a few bad apples.

My post COVID game was planned. I wanted to curate games for my friends/coworkers/neighbors, most of whom are non-players. It has been successful, slowly evolving from fixed limit Hold'em to mixed big bet and fixed limit games. I documented what worked here: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/sustainable-game-with-friends-that-arent-poker-players.94681/

 

[HiveKueen]

Covid killed the league i had played in for 10 years. When that host indicated he would not restart post-covid I started my own league, modeled after his in many ways. But I did have a vision for how to improve upon what he was doing. I reduced the number of games per season from 10 to 8, adopted the use of points instead of qualifying people for the season championship based on money winnings, expanded the season championship from 6 to 8 players, adopted venmo for exchanges of buyins and prizes, established a home game club on PS for the weeks i couldn't hold a live game (travel, weather, illness, etc) and i added a tournament of champions in which only season champions play. I have several chip sets to differentiate the championships from the regular season games. Last season i started holding 2 Casino nights games per season - casino blind structure, cards, buttons, chips. We're coming up on our 3rd anniversary. By this summer, we'll have a waiting list for our 20 seats per game.

 

[springbox]

Me and my (then) roommate would hang out and watch old WPT tournaments on some free Roku channel and I decided I wanted to start hosting. Originally we were using a folding plastic table with red felt, like a big rectangle from a fabric store, taped onto it lol. Bought a dice set which I used maybe once or twice, then somehow found my way here. Definitely not all that planned out.

 

[bigdonkey]

The Poker Gods set me on the path when, @ 11-12 years old, I bought my first set of poker chips, a hodge podge of bakelites at a 2nd hand store to play all of crazy games my dad brought home from hunting camp.

I'm my early 20s when Moneymaker won, I hastily bought a set of dice chips and rounded up some friends to play tournaments on the kitchen table.

By 2004 I felt like I had the TD stuff figured out so I combined my group with our parents group and ran our first league season. Bought Td software, a set up of KEM and copag and built a table. It ran from Sept through May, every 3 weeks, with a championship game with starting stacks based on points earned and a heads-up tournament of champions. All Hold em.

By season 3 I introduced a couple of nights of Omaha and a night each of 7CS and Razz.

In season 4 I unexpectedly became a father and it was my last season running the league, and I didn't play much for awhile either. My friends left the group and the older guys invited more of their friends and the game kept running. Hold em only.

10 years later I started a new league with my friends, based largely on the old league. I introduced Omaha, O/8, Stud and Razz from the start to avoid the Hold em plague. By year 3 I started letting the top 10 in points pick the 10 games for the next season and we've played the gambit - short-deck, pineapple, 7CS/8, HORSE, triple draw, badugi. Last year I i introduced a dealers choice tournament of champions and next year I'm making the championship game 8-game.

I started playing in the old game again about 3 years ago, and in Aug. 2024 the host passed away (as had a number of the older guys over the years). My dad was upset that he'd be losing the game so I started hosting that one as well to keep it going. It's limping along with 5 old guys, me and a regular from my league. Can't get the old men to play anything but HE.

So, by and large, pretty well planned out from the start but definitely made some big changes along the way

 

[Jaxen]

It's 2001. My roommate decided that, since he had no love life, he'd like to get a card game together a la The Odd Couple. ("Hey Felix, what time is it?" Felix looks at his watch and says, "Monday!") Started with four guys (actually 3 and one guy's girlfriend and now wife) and grew a bit from word of mouth. $10-20 buy in and we'd play until one had all the money, typical game went from after dinner to 3-4am, and the winner would then often buy Steak 'n Shake.

Played with old casino paper decks and the plastic interlocking chips until I went to Vegas and discovered Gambler's General Store and bought 300 plastic Dragon chips. I don't remember what we played on at first but the roommate bought an octagon table a few months into it.

Those games were dealer's choice with mostly stud variants with wild cards, although we created games that are close to what's now called Derailment, Scarney and Archie. Hold'em? We played a little bit, thought it was kinda dumb ("the whole hand is predicated on these 2 cards?") but were like, "Well if they play the Main Event in this, it must be legit." (Plus the Travel Channel had just started airing the WPT) After a while we wanted to try a tournament and 12 of us played 7-card stud until 4 people were left and switched to Hold'em till the end.

Soon I got a set of dice chips (paid about $150 for 500 of them on eBay ... stooooo-pid!) and we thought we were baller. Graduated to playing four tourneys in the midsts of the cash games, and since we're all uber-competitive we created a points system based on all the results to determine who'd make our version of the end-of-year All-Star Game. I "upgraded" to Nexgen River Poker Tour chips (still our primary tourney set for just short of 20 years before I discovered Tinas here), we expanded to 7 or 8 tourneys a year, now play cash games over the summer ... and we played happily ever after,

 

[Old State]

I was first exposed to poker in the early 90s while in college. We ran a blackjack game that funded our beer and going out money. My roommate and friends would play random circus games after but I could never get into it.

Late 90s another friend brought me to play with his uncle and friends. 7 card stud and this time it was different. I LOVED straight poker. Started a game up every few months with crappy chips and cards.

Fast forward to 2002 and my roommate from college (the one who had the idea for the blackjack game and a poker and gambling enthusiast) decided to host a holdem tournament after seeing the ESPN Robert Varkonyi win. This was the year before Moneymaker …so it took a long time to get 22 players. I had to get a book on how to play holdem! Most of the players were only familiar with stud. My buddy also found out about ASM clay chips from a magazine article and had a set. Everyone was blown away with them

The tournament was a big hit and everyone loved holdem. At the time NL cash wasn’t even something people did. The casinos (we are an hour and a half from AC) only had limit. I got some slightly better diamond chips and Kem cards and we played a limit holdem a few times.

Then came Moneymaker and the WPT in 2003. Next thing I knew I was hosting a weekly $2/4 or $3/6 limit game and four of us started hosting NL tournaments. The four of had ordered ASM chips late 2002 (cash sets) and got them pretty quick before Moneymaker. After we ordered tournament denominations and they took 6 months!. The boom happened quickly. We all built portable tables and were doing 7-8 tournaments a year while I hosted the weekly cash games. Some of the cash games were two tables!

In 2005, the Borgata in Atlantic City was the first casino there to spread no limit cash hold them. It was the casino we were all playing at and everybody wanted to switch to no limit. I was very nervous it would change the game and it absolutely did. Our weekly game became monthly and then by 2007 we were lucky if we had three or four cash games a year. People just weren’t very good at no limit and didn’t like to lose so much money so quickly, though they rarely admitted it.

The tournaments continued till about 2009 when we all got married and had kids. I didn’t play for several years. And then got a cash came back together around 2015 with some new players and some of my old ones. That game continues to right now..

 

[Old State]

It's 2001. My roommate decided that, since he had no love life, he'd like to get a card game together a la The Odd Couple. ("Hey Felix, what time is it?" Felix looks at his watch and says, "Monday!") Started with four guys (actually 3 and one guy's girlfriend and now wife) and grew a bit from word of mouth. $10-20 buy in and we'd play until one had all the money, typical game went from after dinner to 3-4am, and the winner would then often buy Steak 'n Shake.

Played with old casino paper decks and the plastic interlocking chips until I went to Vegas and discovered Gambler's General Store and bought 300 plastic Dragon chips. I don't remember what we played on at first but the roommate bought an octagon table a few months into it.

Those games were dealer's choice with mostly stud variants with wild cards, although we created games that are close to what's now called Derailment, Scarney and Archie. Hold'em? We played a little bit, thought it was kinda dumb ("the whole hand is predicated on these 2 cards?") but were like, "Well if they play the Main Event in this, it must be legit." (Plus the Travel Channel had just started airing the WPT) After a while we wanted to try a tournament and 12 of us played 7-card stud until 4 people were left and switched to Hold'em till the end.

Soon I got a set of dice chips (paid about $150 for 500 of them on eBay ... stooooo-pid!) and we thought we were baller. Graduated to playing four tourneys in the midsts of the cash games, and since we're all uber-competitive we created a points system based on all the results to determine who'd make our version of the end-of-year All-Star Game. I "upgraded" to Nexgen River Poker Tour chips (still our primary tourney set for just short of 20 years before I discovered Tinas here), we expanded to 7 or 8 tourneys a year, now play cash games over the summer ... and we played happily ever after,

Gamblers general store was where we bought our first Kem cards! They were the only place I could find that sold them. They used to sell the real thick cut cards the casinos used back then. I still have a few.