How to find players for a new home game? (2 Viewers)

Lol. Thank God I’m not there yet. I’ll be on the lookout for that. How about buying 10 times the chips I’ll ever use in my lifetime. Is there any medicine you can take for that?
 
6 days a week at 3pm....is that a Florida thing? :)
Yes! I had a 7 person game with my father, two high school buddies and three college buddies. Ended up putting ALL my chips in play and since I was fat stack all my players told me to cash out some of my chips. They’re new and they actually wanted me to rathole! I tried to explain that having a bigger stack doesn’t really mean anything but they weren’t having it. Either way, I got a couple of pictures of some big hands but forgot to take a picture of the big boat over boat.
 

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Yes! I had a 7 person game with my father, two high school buddies and three college buddies. Ended up putting ALL my chips in play and since I was fat stack all my players told me to cash out some of my chips. They’re new and they actually wanted me to rathole! I tried to explain that having a bigger stack doesn’t really mean anything but they weren’t having it. Either way, I got a couple of pictures of some big hands but forgot to take a picture of the big boat over boat.
Forget the boat over boat picture. I want the FREE BEER sign picture
 
In our local scene we have a Meetup group. We have 1752 members in the group. There's always different kinds of games going every week. Meetup is awesome because it has it's own RSVP system which allows you to control your home game. I would definitely recommend searching for a group already started/starting your own!
 
There are no poker meetup groups that close to me, but there is a guys group. I may go recruiting there as I seem to be stuck at 3.5 regulars counting myself, so it's a battle every month to get to 8 or 9 players.

People just suck. So get this. One of my buddies that's been invited to my poker nights and has made about 1/2 of them, and usually when he doesn't make it he drops a no late, like a few days before, is getting married next month. I hung out with him last Friday and he was talking about how people suck and he has a bunch of people who have not RSVPed for his wedding. We also chatted about my upcoming poker night this Friday, WHICH HE HAD NOT RSVPed TO YET! He never put 1 and 1 together, ROFL. For the record, I am invited to his wedding, and I immediately texted him and said "I'm in, just need to find a baby sitter", had that lined up for the next day and RSVPed officially. I get it, people suck, I don't want to be one of those sucky people.

But it wears on me every time. Tough. I just need to keep trucking, keep looking. It's like my Evite for this Friday. I'm at 8 yeses (including myself), although 1 wants to be an alt/observer and hang out, and another confided on the side that he should probably have put maybe (???). 4 nos - 2 with good reasons, 1 sounded like a cop-out, 1 no reason given. And 13!!! no responses.
 
One of my buddies that's been invited to my poker nights and has made about 1/2 of them, and usually when he doesn't make it he drops a no late, like a few days before, is getting married next month. I hung out with him last Friday and he was talking about how people suck and he has a bunch of people who have not RSVPed for his wedding. We also chatted about my upcoming poker night this Friday, WHICH HE HAD NOT RSVPed TO YET! He never put 1 and 1 together, ROFL. For the record, I am invited to his wedding, and I immediately texted him and said "I'm in, just need to find a baby sitter", had that lined up for the next day and RSVPed officially. I get it, people suck, I don't want to be one of those sucky people.

That is pretty funny but very frustrating haha. Sorry! Hope it all works out for you!
 
I know how frustrating it can be. One last recommendation about going after cigar smokers. I’ve been smoking cigars well over 40 years. There’s a tight fraternity among cigar smokers. And a lot of cigar smokers love Poker. Keep in mind as a cigar smoker we are frustrated with all the casinos. No smoking allowed. I live in Palm Beach County Florida. We have an incredible poker room at the Palm Beach kennel club. The problem once again there’s no smoking. So I prefer playing my small stakes game with my cigar smoking buddies to that action. As the weather gets nice, consider an outside game where you allow cigar smoking. You can go visit your local cigar lounge and recruit. I think you’ll find it easy. A glass of bourbon, a nice cigar, and a good poker game will not be turned down. And the cigar smoking fraternity is extremely reliable. Just a thought to consider.
 
I've also heard you can find players but playing in the poker games your local bars put on if you have any. If you meet any cool people, you can personally invite them to your next home game. I know a couple bars around me host tournaments, not sure if they are right now though due to covid.
 
I know how frustrating it can be. One last recommendation about going after cigar smokers. I’ve been smoking cigars well over 40 years. There’s a tight fraternity among cigar smokers. And a lot of cigar smokers love Poker. Keep in mind as a cigar smoker we are frustrated with all the casinos. No smoking allowed. I live in Palm Beach County Florida. We have an incredible poker room at the Palm Beach kennel club. The problem once again there’s no smoking. So I prefer playing my small stakes game with my cigar smoking buddies to that action. As the weather gets nice, consider an outside game where you allow cigar smoking. You can go visit your local cigar lounge and recruit. I think you’ll find it easy. A glass of bourbon, a nice cigar, and a good poker game will not be turned down. And the cigar smoking fraternity is extremely reliable. Just a thought to consider.
I like an occasional cigar, but might have similar issues to what you are seeing because I don't smoke in the house, and don't want smoke around the poker table for fear of it collecting too much smell.

I guess it boils down to, would a cigar smoker play a home game where he can't enjoy cigars as well?
 
I like an occasional cigar, but might have similar issues to what you are seeing because I don't smoke in the house, and don't want smoke around the poker table for fear of it collecting too much smell.

I guess it boils down to, would a cigar smoker play a home game where he can't enjoy cigars as well?
They might. But that put you in the category with everybody else. All good. I was just trying to make you aware that there’s a real cigar fraternity and it provides the loyalty and reliability you’re looking for. Like I posted earlier, our daily game at 3 o’clock has a waiting list every day.
 
I've also heard you can find players but playing in the poker games your local bars put on if you have any. If you meet any cool people, you can personally invite them to your next home game. I know a couple bars around me host tournaments, not sure if they are right now though due to covid.
I think that'll be coming up for me soon.

What's the best way to find poker bar leagues? Just reaching out to local bars to see if they run any "pub poker" tournaments?

Also, how do these usually work? You must have to spend $X on food or drink, right?
 
I think that'll be coming up for me soon.

What's the best way to find poker bar leagues? Just reaching out to local bars to see if they run any "pub poker" tournaments?

Also, how do these usually work? You must have to spend $X on food or drink, right?

The bars around me post it on their websites or facebook pages. Here's an example of a bar close to me, I think they just expect you to drink and eat while playing:

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I think that'll be coming up for me soon.

What's the best way to find poker bar leagues? Just reaching out to local bars to see if they run any "pub poker" tournaments?

Also, how do these usually work? You must have to spend $X on food or drink, right?
Check to see if any of them run World Tavern Poker. WTP has a website that lists all the bars and stuff so you can enter your zip there and they’ll pop up with a list of al the bars near you.
 
Check to see if any of them run World Tavern Poker. WTP has a website that lists all the bars and stuff so you can enter your zip there and they’ll pop up with a list of al the bars near you.
Dude you rock! One of my favorite local semi-sketch bars apparently is involved! I was looking at other bars and didn't see much, not sure why I didn't think of this place, so this was really helpful!

Have you played in them? How does this work? Is there a food & drink minimum? Are they usually self-dealt? Any weird rules? I don't see much posted regarding the tournament itself on the bar web page/FB.

Edit: This answered a lot of my questions: https://www.worldtavernpoker.info/world-tavern-poker-rules-guide
 
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There are no poker meetup groups that close to me, but there is a guys group. I may go recruiting there as I seem to be stuck at 3.5 regulars counting myself, so it's a battle every month to get to 8 or 9 players.

People just suck. So get this. One of my buddies that's been invited to my poker nights and has made about 1/2 of them, and usually when he doesn't make it he drops a no late, like a few days before, is getting married next month. I hung out with him last Friday and he was talking about how people suck and he has a bunch of people who have not RSVPed for his wedding. We also chatted about my upcoming poker night this Friday, WHICH HE HAD NOT RSVPed TO YET! He never put 1 and 1 together, ROFL. For the record, I am invited to his wedding, and I immediately texted him and said "I'm in, just need to find a baby sitter", had that lined up for the next day and RSVPed officially. I get it, people suck, I don't want to be one of those sucky people.

But it wears on me every time. Tough. I just need to keep trucking, keep looking. It's like my Evite for this Friday. I'm at 8 yeses (including myself), although 1 wants to be an alt/observer and hang out, and another confided on the side that he should probably have put maybe (???). 4 nos - 2 with good reasons, 1 sounded like a cop-out, 1 no reason given. And 13!!! no responses.
Hate to paint with a broad brush but I’ve found this to often be a generational thing. I’m a solid Gen X and have noticed people my age or older rarely late commit or no show. It’s almost always the guys 5-15+ years younger than me and has been that way for years since the poker boom. It never changed even as they got older. It’s frustrating and I largely gave up getting a game together with my original poker crew because half of them fell into this category. I play mostly with a group I met about 4 years ago now.

Before that I played stud with older guys at their game…which ran like clockwork for years…well before I was ever invited…or even born I think.:LOL: :laugh:
 
Hate to paint with a broad brush but I’ve found this to often be a generational thing. I’m a solid Gen X and have noticed people my age or older rarely late commit or no show. It’s almost always the guys 5-15+ years younger than me and has been that way for years since the poker boom. It never changed even as they got older. It’s frustrating and I largely gave up getting a game together with my original poker crew because half of them fell into this category. I play mostly with a group I met about 4 years ago now.

Before that I played stud with older guys at their game…which ran like clockwork for years…well before I was ever invited…or even born I think.:LOL: :laugh:
Interesting! I've never consider generational impact. I'm sure it's there.

Not much I can do about it though, except maybe adjust expectations. Should I go recruiting in a particular place to find more reliable attendees?
 
How do you feel about a shared financial interest in the game between spouses? I mean, at a $20 game there shouldn’t be any problems, but I’d like to get into $200 games.

I do understand inviting people and their spouses is helpful, though. I have fun with my wife and my friends wives around.

Funny comparison. Here, most my games people prefer no wives. Im
Not married, never have been so I don’t get it.
 
Interesting! I've never consider generational impact. I'm sure it's there.

Not much I can do about it though, except maybe adjust expectations. Should I go recruiting in a particular place to find more reliable attendees?
Don’t know I’d have any advice here. I’m a sales manager for a medical company and deadlines have been an issue with my younger people. I just had to send a “nastygram” to several that deadlines aren’t optional.

Back to poker….when we (a group of 4 of us) first started hosting regular tournaments back in 2003 lots of the younger guys wouldn’t commit until last minute and when they did sometimes showed up late. Luckily our tournaments were very well run and super fun. As more people got interested we put a deadline on registration. Suddenly we had 35 people signed up within 24 hrs of the evite going out!
We also started a late and no show policy. If you were late more than twice you got banned. If you no showed once you got banned….and we actually did it…but luckily only a couple people as most got the message and showed up on time. One guy we banned was a brother of a regular in our cash and tourney games. He begged us to let him back in. We allowed it but he had to pay his entry fee in advance …non refundable :tup:
Then we all got married and had kids and the tourneys stopped around 2009-10

My only advice would be to try and appeal to FOMO (fear of missing out). That or don’t invite millennials :LOL: :laugh:
 
35 people signing up within 24 hours, dude, that's awesome!

Might be time to restart the ol' tournament chain!? Maybe not go for 35, but a solidly full table of 9 is an impressive feat!
 
Dude you rock! One of my favorite local semi-sketch bars apparently is involved! I was looking at other bars and didn't see much, not sure why I didn't think of this place, so this was really helpful!

Have you played in them? How does this work? Is there a food & drink minimum? Are they usually self-dealt? Any weird rules? I don't see much posted regarding the tournament itself on the bar web page/FB.

Edit: This answered a lot of my questions: https://www.worldtavernpoker.info/world-tavern-poker-rules-guide
yup, I was gonna send you there. xD No I haven't played in a WTP game before but I was extremely surprised that bars in my neck of the woods ran some of the games. Good luck and have fun!
 
Hello all, this is my first post so please be nice to the newbie!

I have been playing poker with some friends on and off for about a year. I recently went up to AC and had a hell of a time playing with regulars in a 1/2 game and almost doubled up. Now, you gotta understand: I’m a new player. I love watching, reading, playing, and learning everything I can about poker but that doesn’t mean that I’m good. With semi-monthly games for a year I have only about 15-20 games under my belt. Yet, I have still decided to build a 6 seat table (will be finished in ~week) and have purchased chips from Apache.

I hope to create a home cash game with 6-8 handed group. The stakes will be .10/.20 with $20 buyins and probably capped to three but ins. I’ve got 2 guys that would be regulars weekly. The big question/point of this post is this: how do you all pick up new players? How do you vet them? When do you decided a player shouldn’t be invited back? How do I manage my home game properly?

My ideal response is a step-by-step checklist of how you all started and manage your own cash games!

Cheers!View attachment 762280
It may be kinda late but your bank is too short only at 1,600 that just 8 buyin for 6 handed poker, ideally a bank will need to cover at least 3 buyin for person up to 5 buyin per person for micro stake

So at least another barrel or 2 of $25 and another barrel or 2 of $100 will solve the bankroll issue
 
I have a game every other weeks on Friday nights, It starts at 7pm with 8-10 guys. We have about 15 guys who on on the list but, between work and family we get 8-10. We have one guy who always cooks brats for everyone just before the game because loves to contribute. The guys bring what ever they want to drink and if someone has too much fun we don't let the drive, we get them a Uber. The buy-in is $20 and rebuys are $20 until 10pm. The game is casual and everyone has a great time. One thing that we all kinda agreed was not to allow the girls to attend. The reason is, we all are married or have a girlfriend and to stay that way, we can tell our significant other its only guys at the game. There is always one guy who has to bug-out early but, for the most part we play until around midnight. We've have had a guy or two who we didn't call to confirm we were playing and dropped him of the list because he just didn't fit our group. You asked how to find the players, and if you have a couple guy you like to play with they have a friend or two, if they check out, invite them back. I don't invite anyone who I don't have a good time with. I tell the guy who recommended them its his seat to if they turn out to be a jackass. Good luck, remember the home games are all about fun. Don't let one guy ruin it for everyone else and you will have a group the can't wait to play again.
 

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