Cash Game Home Cash Game Blind advice (2 Viewers)

[jamesd57]

I've been running a cash game once a week for the past few months, but I find I'm having difficulty settling on a blind breakdown that I feel is adequate for our poker game.
Some background on the game, it's pretty casual, though there are a couple of larger sharks that always take home a decent profit.
Most people will buy-in for ten, but a number of us will buy-in for 15 or 20 dollars. No one generally goes above that just cause the game is decently casual.
There will be a decent number of rebuys, often we have about 8-12ish people playing over the course of a night, and we might get about 6ish rebuys overall from the group.
However, as I said, I'm getting stuck up on blinds.
I've been trying to implement a 5/10c blind structure, but it's getting a little pushback from some of the better, higher buy-in players, who would like to stick with 10/20 or 25/25.
I get the want for more cash in the pot from the get-go, however, with the game being relatively new, I'm fearful that it could push newer players away from the game if they keep losing their buy-ins so aggressively.
I just thought I'd post my situation, and see what people's thoughts were.
If you were in my situation, what blinds would you use, given initial buy-ins of 10-20 bucks, a casual game, with a range of new players to experienced ones?
Also, I didn't mean to but have kinda found myself as the de-facto host of the game (We're all college students which is why there wasn't necessarily a clear host) so any other advice / suggest rules you have would be appreciated

Sorry for an essay, now if you excuse me I'll get back to my real one

 

[Mojo1312]

Imagine my disappointment when I opened this thread expecting that you wanted advice on how to best move all in blind. Something I don't recommend you do out of position.

 

[JScott]

This sounds exactly like my game. Only instead of college students we're all entrepreneurs in a different stage of life. Some guys just have hard limits on what they "gamble".

We run .25/.50 and we do $10-20 buy ins. WELL below what you should start with for BB's. However, the game runs extremely well. It makes for juicy action and the game lasts all night. Even for your college guys it's cheaper than a night out drinking. We've recently changed it to min $20, Max $50 at a time, but i have $10 plaques that allow guys to only "gamble" (there's that word again) $10 at a time so they usually bust out and change the $10 in after. If it's on the felt it plays but weaker players will keep it off the table. We only see $200-400 on the table at the end of the night, and these are guys that will bring $200+ bottle of scotches over, it's weird how the mind works.

My advice, stick with .25/.25 for your regular game, and run a micro on a different night. win win

 

[Dodger]

My advice, stick with .25/.25 for your regular game, and run a micro on a different night. win win

As I was reading the OP, I was thinking along the same lines. Why settle on one? Let the big ballers have their night, but keep the .05/.10 for the guys who like this level.

Perhaps alternate weeks. Just communicate up front to your players so they know what to expect each week.

Couldn’t hurt to ask for feedback from your players either. They’ll surprise you.

 

[Mojo1312]

On a more serious note. Relax your brain. Blinds simply start the action. Players will set the price for seeing a flop. Six re-buys in an 8 to 12 player cash game is relatively low. The real problem from my p.o.v. is how will your group hold up against loose aggressive players, especially skilled ones?

How many players do you risk losing if you lower the blinds to .05/.10? Conversely, how many will stop attending if you hold the blinds at .10/.20?

 

[SeanGecko]

Simple solution here. 5c small blind $30 big blind. Perfect solution! Everyone will be happy!

 

[DrStrange]

I wonder how the players actually respond to the blinds. If the opening raise is $0.75+ no matter if the blinds are $0.05/$0.10 or $0.25/$0.25, then the players don't care about dimes and you can safely play for quarters.

The more critical question is the size and caps on the buy-in. $0.25/$0.25 with a $10 fixed buy-in is totally different from a $0.25/$0.25 and a $20 - $100 buy in game. The lower the buy-in, the better it is for the weaker players. It is much better to burn five small buy-ins on a bad night than it is to lose your whole wad in a single deeper stacked buy-in.

The other thing about "smaller" buy-ins relative to the blinds is that it makes it more likely a weak player can cash out a winner. If the better players can rebuy and match the stack of the weaker player, all it takes is one mistake to crush dreams of victory. The game will be much more healthy if everyone goes home a winner once in a while.

Another option - limit poker or spread limit (small) poker. These games feature higher variance relative to skill, again allowing everyone a shot at victory. The better players will still win, just not as fast or often. A "larger" fixed limit game might feel huge to the crew but in truth almost any comparable no-limit game player far harsher and bigger.

Bottom line - find out what is fun and do that. Don't let the sharks feast on the bait fish. Better to lose a shark to a bigger game than eat up all the rest of the players.

 

[JustinInMN]

We run .25/.50 and we do $10-20 buy ins. WELL below what you should start with for BB's.

Agreed, this is what I call "arena poker." There will only be play on two streets with stacks so low. Though with more frequent rebuys, eventually the stacks will average to about 80-100 BB anyway.

My advice, stick with .25/.25 for your regular game, and run a micro on a different night. win win

Agreed.

Bottom line - find out what is fun and do that. Don't let the sharks feast on the bait fish. Better to lose a shark to a bigger game than eat up all the rest of the players.

Excellent advice.

 

[Legend5555]

When we first started home games back in 2004, we did .25/.50 with $20 buy ins. I still remember having a lot of fun.

 

[Josh Kifer]

I'd stick with .25/.25. should allow the same action without needed a raise of the cash on the table, too much.

 

[Rhodeman77]

If your players don’t want nickels and dimes in play but you feel 25/25c is too shallow then why not try a single blind of 25c?

 

[Gobbs]

For $10 or $20 buy ins, go with micro stakes. I think .05/.10 is perfect. Maybe, once per month, run a bigger buy-in game for .25/.50 or something.

 

[Darson]

To me, the important number is how much the BB is. At 10c, an single chip opening raise would likely be 25c. At 25c, the same action would probably be $1.

We play a $20 buy-in 25c/25c post tourney game and it works fine for us but there are some guys who will only commit $20 once and will leave once their money is gone. I thought about switching to 5x/10c $10 buy-in but that doesn't really help as the sharks will just raise $1 or more anyway so the game ends up playing like 25c/25c.

I think that the higher the amount of money that someone is willing to commit gives an advantage as it allows bullying of less well-off players assuming they are equally skilled. So part of the friendliness is to have a group that are approximately equal in the amount they will play with. Of course, you'd love to have low skill high money people but that may dent the friendliness of the game.

Worst case is high skill high money people (I have one in my game) who will end up winning more often than not because they use their willingness to gamble to their advantage. My buddy will happily open raise to $3 in out 25c/25c game which a few of us have now learned to exploit but other suffer badly from.

 

[JScott]

Maybe that’s why our games are successful. With low buy ins and .25/.50 blinds guys are willing to play and generate action. If you only have $10 on the table, your risk is similar to limit poker. So try that.

I can play all night with $20 even if I’m having a bad day, and buying in for $10 at a time allows you to play more with less.

@DrStrange is correct, even if your blinds are 1¢/2¢ if your opening raise is $1-5 it won’t matter. We often have guys commenting by saying “cheaper than a coffee at Starbucks” when they throw in a $5 raise (although this speech gives away info ). Blinds won’t matter in this case, but stack size will. If that’s have your stack it’s a big raise, but if you know you’ll only be committing max $5 more, it’s more comfortable for a weaker player.

go with 25¢/25¢ and make it min $10-max $20. See how that works for everyone, they can always rebuy

 

[jamesd57]

There's a lot of good advice in here, thanks for it, definitely given me some thinking to do.
I think I might do a little experiment of running a game with nickles, 25c, and dollar chips, and doing 10/20 blinds, and one night of just 25c flat blinds, and see which plays better, and is enjoyed more.
Thanks so much everyone

 

[Beakertwang]

It's funny, in my 5¢/10¢ game, opens are usually to 50¢ or more, and nickels are never used post-flop. I've considered just going to 25¢/25¢, and I suspect that the game won't change much.

 

[SeanGecko]

It's funny, in my 5¢/10¢ game, opens are usually to 50¢ or more, and nickels are never used post-flop. I've considered just going to 25¢/25¢, and I suspect that the game won't change much.

We started with 5¢/10¢ then jumped to 5¢ ante 10¢/25¢. We will also do 10¢ante 25¢/50¢ blinds on NLHE. Our pot limit games are still 10¢/25¢.

 

[JustinInMN]

in my 5¢/10¢ game, opens are usually to 50¢ or more

In my game we frequently have opens to 0.30-0.40, but the later streets are always in multiples of quarters.

 

[Alex Lundstrum]

With the varying desires for stakes, why not do 5¢/10¢ with an optional 25¢ straddle UTG? This allows the larger stacks to bump the stakes a bit, averaging somewhere in the middle.

Another potential idea is to make the game 5¢/10¢ with a kill. Whenever someone wins 2 hands in a row, they turn the kill on and pay a 25¢ kill blind on the next hand and min bet increases to 25¢.

These are both ways to bring some extra excitement to the game as well as develop a nice spread between lower and higher stakes.