Buy-ins and Blinds going up over time? (1 Viewer)

[pokerchap]

We’ve been hosting a weekly home game for a little over two years. We started .25/.50 with a buy-in of $20. We now play .25/.50 with a $40 buy-in. Recently we play started playing 1/2 about once a month with a $100 buy-in.

Is it common for stakes to go up over time? Is this good or bad? Some players, especially the host want to keep it friendly and for not anyone to lose too much money. Other players (usually the better ones), want the buy-ins to be higher (100x big blinds or more) so we play more serious deep stack poker.

It’s a small stakes home game. So it’s pretty common to get many callers and people raising to $5/$10/$15 regardless of blinds and not unusual to see all-ins because of the relative low buy-ins SPRs. This results in people buying in 3,4,5 times.

Any advice from people that have run home games for longer? Goal is to keep it fun and inclusive, while hopefully getting better at poker. We have about 25 regulars with a mix of careers (and I assume disposable money). Anything from doctors, mechanics, IT, etc.

 

[TheRealStephen12]

It is normal, and many people here have increased the stakes in their own games many times. Your stacks are shallow, though. Playing .25/.50, .50/.50, .50/1, or 1/1 is probably better for a $100 buy-in to prevent the game from being a luck fest.

 

[pokerchap]

It is normal, and many people here have increased the stakes in their own games many times. Your stacks are shallow, though. Playing .25/.50, .50/.50, .50/1, or 1/1 is probably better for a $100 buy-in to prevent the game from being a luck fest.

Thanks for the feedback. Will try moving the buy-in to $100. Players are usually rebuying several times already so it shouldn’t be a problem.

 

[Machine]

I would change the blinds to .50/.50 with a $100 buy-in.

 

[SwissChip]

For me, 100-200 BB is a comfy starting stack in a NLH game.
The buy in must be fine for all players, if you want to keep it ‚friendly‘!
You can play limit games, where you can‘t lose your entire stack in one hand…

We play NL .50/1 for many years. It plays more like 1/2 or 1/3 sometimes, but we keep the fracs in play!
It‘s still a game among friends.
No need to win back if you lost, and no bad if you loose 3-4 buy ins.
It‘s still poker!

 

[cpac54]

50bb buyins? Either up the buyin or lower the blinds imo. That’s way too shallow.

 

[pokerchap]

Thanks for the feedback. Seems pretty consistent to up the buy-in or drop the blinds. I think we are going to go the buy-in. Appreciate all the input. This is a great forum!

 

[RocAFella1]

 

[Munchies11]

I would change the blinds to .50/.50 with a $100 buy-in.

We usually play 1/2 blinds on $100 buy ins with unlimited rebuys. I guess it’s more than average but keeps the pots juicy for most part and makes every hand count in a sense. We enjoyed it like that not sure if it’s common to play that high but hey that’s us ! Lol

 

[warma]

You can also mix it up. Maybe 50¢/$1 with an occasional 15¢/50¢ and $1/$2.

 

[arthurmorgan]

I usually host $1-$1 game with $100 buy-in.
I do not increase the blind but allow people to always buy up to the current max stack.
Hence, people just play artificially bigger after a 3-4 hours without me invervening. If somebody just wants to keep buy $100, that’s fine by me. Usually the game ends after 5-6 hours so it’s not a big problem.

 

[RagingAZN]

I think its natural for games to increase in size over time, especially one with a regular group. We used to play 10c/10c with $10 buy ins 10 years ago and now play 50c/50c with uncapped buyins. We easily get over $5-6k on a table by the end of a night nowadays.

Either way, the main thing is that your crew are having fun whatever the stakes are. We of course like to play 1000+ BB deep nowadays but if your guys are having fun playing 50 BB deep, thats perfectly fine too.

 

[detroitdad]

We started out playing .25/.50 with a $40 buy in. Then it changed to a $60 buy in. Now we play with a $100 max buy in. Rebuys can be $100, or up to half the deep stack.

The .25/.50 game plays a lot better once we hit the $100 buy in mark. The smaller buys seemed a lot more gambly.

A few times a year we will play a 1/1 game with a $200 max game.

I should say that we mostly play Dealers Choice.

 

[rjbf65]

A game I've played in for years used to be .10/.25 with people buying in for $20-$30 and now its .25/.25 with most buying in for $40. The .25/.25 was just a better set up compared to needing another frac to mess with. It's been those stakes for over 20 years. I'd say it's uncommon for stakes to basically be unchanged for this long.

 

[upNdown]

We started out playing .25/.50 with a $40 buy in. Then it changed to a $60 buy in. Now we play with a $100 max buy in. Rebuys can be $100, or up to half the deep stack.

The .25/.50 game plays a lot better once we hit the $100 buy in mark. The smaller buys seemed a lot more gambly.

A few times a year we will play a 1/1 game with a $200 max game.

I should say that we mostly play Dealers Choice.

Yup, that's similar to my game, which I kind of inherited years ago from a game that had been running for years before that. It was always .25/.50. But the buyins were originally $20 (though people would rebuy for more as the night progressed.) Now, maybe 20 years later, we're still playing .25/.50, but the buyins are $50-$100 and there are a lot of $100 rebuys throughout the night.
I suppose it's a combination of people comfortable putting more money on the table and people realizing that deep stacked poker is a lot better.