.25/.25 vs .25/.50 (1 Viewer)

Cyo

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Thoughts on the impact at low levels of .25/.25 vs .25/.50?

I'm not thinking that anyone is folding for a quarter from the SB. So, what experience have people had trying the SB and BB being the same?

Thanks
 
There are several theads on this topic. They play pretty much the same. What is more important is stack size. Are you playing 100BB deep or more?
 
Yep. Our game plays like a .25/.50 but we play .25/.25 to delay the sting until the 3rd buyin. Keeps people around longer for a social game.
 
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I've hosted both .25/.25 and .25/.50 NLHE. IME, .25/.25 may run a little smaller or about the same depending on your players.

If it's a very new game or your players don't have very deep pockets, you can always run .25 single blind for $20 buy-ins. This lets players buy in 80bb deep while keeping the pain threshold of a rebuy extremely low for most folks.
 
I'm not thinking that anyone is folding for a quarter from the SB. So, what experience have people had trying the SB and BB being the same?

I think you're asking the wrong question. It doesn't matter whether the BB and SB are the same or not (unless it limps around to the SB, which should rarely happen.) What matters is the total of the blinds.

Suppose someone wants to come in at double the blinds - a pot raise. If playing 25c/25c, that bet is $1. If playing 25c/50c, that bet is $1.50.

Suppose there are two limpers and the next person wants to raise by pot... if playing 25c/25c, that bet is $2. If playing 25c/50c, that bet is $3.50.

Basically, the bigger blinds mean a bigger starting pot, which should amplify everything that comes after. (And if most people don't know enough to size their bets based on the pot, then it's just that much better for the few who do.)

If you really want to play small, you can go even smaller... in my 25c bb game, we use a 1/2 quarter for the small blind, just because people like it. (I use a pink chip or non-denom as the half quarter, which is also known as a "bit.") If you have nickels, you can also do 10c/25c... which is the same ratio as a typical $2/$5 game.
 
Our game played .25./50 for forever and no one ever folded a SB. I recently changed to .50/.50 and the PFR became bigger, adding in an extra $1-$2 to the pot pre.

In general my last few games have played bigger. Most, if not all contributors here on PCF, seem to think there's no difference, but our game did see a small change. I attribute it to some people now buying in for $60 instead now of their previous $40, either due to the mental aspect of it, or because it just became time for people to start wanting more play finally.
 
Our game is technically .25/.25 with no max buyin but there's unlimited straddles til the button so the game organically increases in stakes based on what everyone wants to buy in for and how many straddles people throw in. Max buyin is more of an important factor imo.
 
I've run $0.25-$0.25 NLHE with a $40 buy-in (mostly with new players and low level players) - preflop raises would usually be $1.

I normally run $0.50-$0.50 with a $100 buy-in (with regular players who know how to play) - preflop raises would usually be $2 (if there were no straddles).

It does depend on the players and stack sizes but you will probably see a little increase from $0.25BB to $0.50BB, but not much.
 
I think you're asking the wrong question. It doesn't matter whether the BB and SB are the same or not (unless it limps around to the SB, which should rarely happen.) What matters is the total of the blinds.

Suppose someone wants to come in at double the blinds - a pot raise. If playing 25c/25c, that bet is $1. If playing 25c/50c, that bet is $1.50.

Suppose there are two limpers and the next person wants to raise by pot... if playing 25c/25c, that bet is $2. If playing 25c/50c, that bet is $3.50.

Basically, the bigger blinds mean a bigger starting pot, which should amplify everything that comes after. (And if most people don't know enough to size their bets based on the pot, then it's just that much better for the few who do.)

If you really want to play small, you can go even smaller... in my 25c bb game, we use a 1/2 quarter for the small blind, just because people like it. (I use a pink chip or non-denom as the half quarter, which is also known as a "bit.") If you have nickels, you can also do 10c/25c... which is the same ratio as a typical $2/$5 game.

This is a good point, though again it's player- and stack-size-dependent.

When I've run .25/.25 with $20-40 buy-ins, the preflop raises tend to be in the $0.75-1.25 range. Raises at my $100-max .25/.50 game can be anywhere from $1.50 to $4.00.
 
We play .25 - .25 as NL25 game and .25 - .5 as NL50 game.
 
I think we've only done it once maybe.

I would say that you should just look at the people you're looking to invite and how they play.

In our games there's a lot of variation and .25/.25 or .25/.50 makes no difference. The big difference is due to who's playing that night and how much they're willing to spend.
 
Yeah, everything is always dependent on lots of factors... and in most good games, SOMEONE will raise before it comes around to the blinds, so the small rarely gets to call for half the big. To me, the size/play of the game is not influenced by whether the big/small are different, or how different they are - it's influenced mostly by the overall amount of the blinds, and the makeup of that night's players/attitudes. (The same players may make a small game one night, and a huge game another!)

But, in general:

50/50 will play bigger than
25/50, which will play bigger than
25/25, which will play bigger than
12.5/25

Also, in case you want to try three blinds...
25/25/25 will play bigger than
25/25.


--------------------------

Tiny bit of history - why do we have blinds, at all? Because antes are a PITA!

With eight players at the table playing a game with 50c bets,, if you want between 50c and $1 in the pot to start, you can have everyone kick in 10c to ante. That puts 80c into the pot nicely. But then you have to have dimes (or nickels) in addition to quarters and, worst of all, you're going to see 70c in the pot an awful lot and be looking for who failed to ante.

Instead, you can just have the first two seats post 25c and 50c, putting 75c into the pot... and you don't need a smaller denomination, and it's always clear if they've posted.

I used to deal a lot of 7-stud and collect antes. I much preferred using a larger forced bet, or today's blinded games.
 
I run a 50c/50c game in Manhattan and a $1/$1 game.

The 50c/50c game has buy ins from $50-100 and usually we have between 1100-1500 on the table by the end after rebuys. Usual raises are $2-4. No straddles allowed to keep the stakes where they are meant to be which a few people dont like but it keeps most people happy. I only do 50c/50c because I figured it was much easier than buying 2/3 racks of 25c i can buy 1 rack of 50c - i know blashphemous to this forum lol - but also cos 50c/1 and 1/1 are usually what I host also.

In terms of running equal blinds, it also removes the (unlikely) requirement for a chop, but also means that usually its simple for making sure people have the right blinds out, know what a preflop limp is and can push action a tiny bit more...

Anyway, my 2c is that equal blinds are pretty straightforward, fun and make sense in simple home games/

ps the $1/$1 game allows $5 straddles with $200 buy-ins to start and usually plays rather big with $2400-3000 on table by nights end.
 
Thanks for the responses.

I didn't expect there to be too much of a difference but I thought I'd check to see what others thought.
 
My neighborhood game switched from .50-1 to 1-1. It didn't change a ton, bit I tend to open for 4x instead of 3x now, so that itself makes the pots a bit bigger at the end.
 
There are several theads on this topic. They play pretty much the same. What is more important is stack size. Are you playing 100BB deep or more?
This. Buyin will dictate how the game plays FAR FAR more than the blinds. If you want a tighter game do 50 BBs. If you want to loosen it up with bigger bets and swings go 150BB +. 100BBs is the sweet spot IMO
 
This. Buyin will dictate how the game plays FAR FAR more than the blinds. If you want a tighter game do 50 BBs. If you want to loosen it up with bigger bets and swings go 150BB +. 100BBs is the sweet spot IMO
I don't know if I agree with this for everyone. Pretty sure my group would just shove more and rebuy more if i lowered the buy-in.
 
I don't know if I agree with this for everyone. Pretty sure my group would just shove more and rebuy more if i lowered the buy-in.

YMMV as they say but I have a very diverse set of poker friends and that is my experience. Also, I would encourage that kind of play (multiple rebuy and loose play) with your group as it may be very profitable.

Controlling the buyin also helps level things out between people with various risk thresholds. For example, my newer $.25/.50 game has players ranging from casino stakes guys to people that just started playing cash to occasional casino stakes players who have family dynamics that limit their risk level. The goal with this game is to cultivate more cash players from people who learned poker as a single table tournament game. As the newer cash players have become more comfortable there have been requests to up the blinds or buy in and I’ve been hesitant to do that too quickly. NOTHING kills a regular cash game faster than prematurely upping the stakes.

My older poker group (time not age) is a $1/2 and occasionally a $2/5 group. When NL cash got popular we had a $150 max for $1/2 and the game played well (with the exception that it killed our weekly limit game and people only wanted to play monthly if that).
After a few years of not playing, we got back together and they wanted a $300 max. Same players but a COMPLETELY different game. Very very loose in comparison and big swings.
 

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