Cash Game How to set up a new game (UK) (2 Viewers)

[fishandchips]

Looking for ideas on how to establish a game.

I'm in the UK, so home games are fully legal as long as not a business and amongst friends.

My motivation is that a weekly evening of entertainment at home suits my situation. I would like to be a winning player for sake of my ego but that's not strictly necessary, I enjoy the game. I can make a nice table, will buy nice chips. I've previously decided on a 7/8 seater round table.

My old poker gang are a mixture of clever players and gambling degens, I've been working on converting them from £10 pub tourney poker to cash games, it was going OK but then I took a bit of a break due to me being otherwise occupied.

I now want to start again and maybe raise the stakes. For me, a fun game is where everyone is armed with say 5 buyins of £20 and ready to splash it. Alternatively I could say 2/3 buyins of £50. How do you think about buy-ins ? How many BIs do you expect people to have behind them? It's my game so I can lay down the expectation (eg you don't bust after 30min and go home)

£40 or £50 initial buy-in fits nicely with 25p/50p blinds, and 25p/£1/£5 chips.

I've lost track of what I'm even asking! Any comments?

I live in a town of 20,000. Surely there are 6 others who would like a regular sensible poker game. Or should I look for 12 revolving?

How do I find players? I'll probably first try to gather extra people on facebook via a private group.

PS. postcode BS37

 

[Bronson]

I’m not an expert but limiting people on buy-ins in cash games would be counterproductive, also i would increase blinds to 50p/£1 or 1/2 to prevent this game to last ages.

You should have people in your area playing in “red tooth” leagues in local pubs, try to recruit people from those groups.

 

[TheRealStephen12]

25p/25p with £40-50 buy-ins is probably better, since it allows for 160-200BBs which offers better playability. If you think your players are comfortable losing £120-150, then that should probably be the way to go.

160/160/180 is probably good for your game with 20/20/5 buy-ins, rebuys paid in 5s, and £20 notes playing if necessary. If you're limiting each player to 3 £50 buy-ins, you'd only need 5x £20s if everybody is in for the absolute maximum. You could also go for 160/160/160/20 or add a few plaques if you rather not have cash on the table and want to guarantee a large enough bank.

For players, invite your colleagues or friends, potentially having a friends-of-friends invite policy if you're comfortable with that. Having a roster of more than 7 other players is important, since there is almost a guarantee you will not have everybody show up each week.

 

[springbox]

If you want to host an 8 player game regularly, you might need 20+ people available to invite. If it's less frequent or you have dedicated regulars you can get away with fewer. I would guess maybe a 25p/25p with a 25~50ish buy-in range. It's unlikely to rebuy 4+ times in a night unless you're short-stacked, a maniac who loves to go all-in, or are playing for a very extended session.

 

[SteveEH]

I set player expectation to bring 3 buy ins for the night, and expect to win/lose 1 or 2 buy ins on an average night. People rarely get into their 3rd buy in, and if they need to they rarely lose it.

A buy in range will accommodate both the degens and players that want to risk less. I do .25/.25 with a $20-$40 buy in.

If you're core group was used to doing $10 in one night $40, plus 2 rebuys ($120) is a big jump. You can try polling the players on how much they're willing to risk in one night and take the median. At a minimum i'd say $10-$20 buy in with .05/.10 blinds and design my set's breakdown around that (1 rack of .05, lots of .25 and 1 for workhorse chips, and a few 5s for rebuys).

Finally as others have said, you'll need a lot of players to accommodate 8 handed. I do 6 max and have a player pool of 16 or so, and I probably get 5 on average.

 

[Old State]

Is personal try to get a small stakes cash game. People don’t have to leave early if they bust out. I’d recommend .25/.25 above. If you want 6 regulars you need 20+ on the list of interest

 

[FearlessFred]

I'd like to echo the above sentiments. Standard procedure for cash is players should be willing to bring 3 buyins which should total the amount they've happy (ish) to lose each time.

You'll need a good pool of say 10 players to get 5-6 each session. I personally think weekly is a big ask.

You may want to use 20p chips as they are an actual UK coin but it doesn't matter much.

My personal group buy in for £10, 10p/10p blinds with 10p/50p/£2 denoms