Cash Game Advice wanted: Blinds for $50 home cash game (1 Viewer)

[RyGuy]

Hi All,

After watching Hustler Casino Live a lot recently, I'm intrigued by their $5/5/100 ante game and by how deep the players are considering the blinds. In my $50 home cash game, we play $0.25/0.50 (100x bb). This has worked out well, but now I'm wondering if I should lower the blinds so that the players are deeper, perhaps to $0.25/0.25 or even something like $0.05/0.05/0.25 ante. Should I just leave well enough alone, or am I onto something? Appreciate any insight!

 

[trever]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it
If you want to play deep, raise the buyin

 

[Eloe2000]

Hi All,

After watching Hustler Casino Live a lot recently, I'm intrigued by their $5/5/100 ante game and by how deep the players are considering the blinds. In my $50 home cash game, we play $0.25/0.50 (100x bb). This has worked out well, but now I'm wondering if I should lower the blinds so that the players are deeper, perhaps to $0.25/0.25 or even something like $0.05/0.05/0.25 ante. Should I just leave well enough alone, or am I onto something? Appreciate any insight!

If you have been playing with the same group of people for a while I would expect almost no change in play if you lower the stakes. I would only expect a change in game play if you upped the stakes. I would expect opening bets to be about the same.

 

[RyGuy]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it
If you want to play deep, raise the buyin

I suppose one small concern is that a player or two tend to bust after a few hours. I like the size of the pots, but I also want people to stay and be/play loose. That's why I'm entertaining lowering the blinds, especially since the $50 buy is pretty much set. I think any increase would push players away, even if we've been playing together for a while.

 

[SteveEH]

I suppose one small concern is that a player or two tend to bust after a few hours. I like the size of the pots, but I also want people to stay and be/play loose. That's why I'm entertaining lowering the blinds, especially since the $50 buy is pretty much set. I think any increase would push players away, even if we've been playing together for a while.

Think about game sustainability. If one or two players bust after a couple of hours, do they rebuy? If more players bust early will the game be shorthanded, for the rest of the night or will the game break up? Are your losing players comfortable with long term losses?

Buy in ranges are good. For example you could make the range $20-$50, and ask people to bring 3-5 buy ins for the night (depending on how much gamble is in your game).

Deep stack is definitly more interesting, but do your players understand the concept of bet sizing based on the amount in the pot? If not they'll probably open for the same amounts they're used to.

 

[upNdown]

Buy in ranges are good. For example you could make the range $20-$50, and ask people to bring 3-5 buy ins for the night (depending on how much gamble is in your game).

Right. This is how cash games work, especially for big bet games. If people aren’t ready to rebuy once or twice, then they’re probably not playing good NLHE - you have to be prepared to bust.
So if you’re strict about it being a $50 game, I’d have two suggestions.
1) lower the blinds to .05/.15 - then people can buy in for $15 and have 100 big blinds, with a couple of rebuys in their pockets.
2) switch to a $50 freeze out tournament where the blinds increase ever 20-30 minutes, forcing an ultimate winner after a few hours.

Or you could leave well enough alone, if everybody likes how it’s going.

Adding a 3rd blind in a Holdem game affects the game in ways I’m not familiar with, but o think if people are playing good poker, it will cause the game to play a lot higher than you would otherwise expect.

 

[RyGuy]

Think about game sustainability. If one or two players bust after a couple of hours, do they rebuy? If more players bust early will the game be shorthanded, for the rest of the night or will the game break up? Are your losing players comfortable with long term losses?

Buy in ranges are good. For example you could make the range $20-$50, and ask people to bring 3-5 buy ins for the night (depending on how much gamble is in your game).

Deep stack is definitly more interesting, but do your players understand the concept of bet sizing based on the amount in the pot? If not they'll probably open for the same amounts they're used to.

Depends on who the player is, but generally most do not rebuy. Not that they don't have the money--they just don't take poker as seriously to keep pumping money into it. I have a group of 15 players that rotate in and out for an 8-player game. The ones who do rebuy may do so 3x, though. That's partly why the buy-in is $50 (this took some convincing). We used to play for $15 and have built it up over the years, and it wasn't as fun if a player didn't rebuy and only left $15 on the table. Generally, the game does not become short-handed, and I don't think it has ever broken up. We play for 4-6 hours depending on who's playing and how many rebuys we have.

I would guess that if i made the buy-in a range, eventually they'll start just bringing the lower end of the buy-in and won't bring rebuys. I can't make them rebuy, but I can make them buy in for $50, y'know?

They do understand bet sizing, but I'm gathering that even if I lowered the blinds, they'll eventually open to $1 at least, especially later on in the evening after a few drinks.

 

[RyGuy]

Right. This is how cash games work, especially for big bet games. If people aren’t ready to rebuy once or twice, then they’re probably not playing good NLHE - you have to be prepared to bust.
So if you’re strict about it being a $50 game, I’d have two suggestions.
1) lower the blinds to .05/.15 - then people can buy in for $15 and have 100 big blinds, with a couple of rebuys in their pockets.
2) switch to a $50 freeze out tournament where the blinds increase ever 20-30 minutes, forcing an ultimate winner after a few hours.

Or you could leave well enough alone, if everybody likes how it’s going.

Adding a 3rd blind in a Holdem game affects the game in ways I’m not familiar with, but o think if people are playing good poker, it will cause the game to play a lot higher than you would otherwise expect.

Based on your options and considering the type of game/players I have, I think leaving it alone is the best play, followed by the freezeout tournament. I just don't think lowering the buy-in and encouraging multiple rebuys will work. I would still keep the $50 buy in and then lower the blinds, but others have me convinced that they'll most likely open at the same amount anyway.

I see your point about the third blind. It's probably a little too complicated for my group, and who knows what it will do to the game play. Probably best to leave it as is. I'll just start my master plan of increasing the buy in to $100!

 

[utgtrash]

lowering the blinds isn’t going to do much more than just feel weird. I would either leave it as is or have a match the stack cap at some point. you can get to that deep stack point if a couple players are the sort that will go deep. definitely going to change the game though. 150bb+ is a much different game and not everyone wants to play it.

 

[SteveEH]

Depends on who the player is, but generally most do not rebuy. Not that they don't have the money--they just don't take poker as seriously to keep pumping money into it. I have a group of 15 players that rotate in and out for an 8-player game. The ones who do rebuy may do so 3x, though. That's partly why the buy-in is $50 (this took some convincing). We used to play for $15 and have built it up over the years, and it wasn't as fun if a player didn't rebuy and only left $15 on the table. Generally, the game does not become short-handed, and I don't think it has ever broken up. We play for 4-6 hours depending on who's playing and how many rebuys we have.

I would guess that if i made the buy-in a range, eventually they'll start just bringing the lower end of the buy-in and won't bring rebuys. I can't make them rebuy, but I can make them buy in for $50, y'know?

They do understand bet sizing, but I'm gathering that even if I lowered the blinds, they'll eventually open to $1 at least, especially later on in the evening after a few drinks.

Sounds like your game is in a good spot.

I make it clear to my players on how much they're expected to bring to the game goes the whole night, and explain to buy in appropriately.

 

[allforcharity]

We do min $50 buy in 0.25/0.50, but just about everybody will rebuy at least once if felted, and we can get away with 100 fracs on the table.

If you lower to 0.25/0.25 then you can probably expect more limping or smaller initial bets and might need more fracs to stay sane.

 

[CrazyEddie]

If you want to play deep-stacked poker but have the same amount of money at risk (so that people aren't turned off by losing more money than they're already comfortable with) then you'll need to do three things at once:

a) lower the blinds
b) switch to pot-limit pre-flop
c) get everyone's enthusiastic agreement to try playing deep-stack poker and their understanding of why it's more fun

You can't change the buy-ins without affecting how much people will be risking, which means to play deep you have to lower the blinds. However, if you don't simultaneously switch to pot-limit pre-flop then people will just open the same amounts they're used to without regard to the size of the blinds, making the game no more deep than it was when you started.

And if you don't get people's understanding and agreement, they'll just grumble and complain and tell you they want to go back to what they've already gotten used to.