Introducing new games to my crew - to limit or not? (1 Viewer)

[Darson]

After All in at the Alamo, I'm keen to introduce some different games so my poker crew. Aside from perhaps one or two, they are all NLHE only players.

My current thinking is to introduce Hold'em variants initially before bringing in Omaha and it's variants later. So I'll start with hold'em, 3-hand hold'em, super hold'em, Pineapple and variants, Scarney, Scrotum and SHESHE. Now these are all no limit players and I'm thinking that introducing limits (either pot or fixed limit) will just serve to confuse even more and add more to the learning and inevitable incorrect play. Since we'll be playing relatively small stakes anyway, (.25/.25 blinds with max $20 initial buy-in) I'm thinking that it may be easier to play no limit. Is this a bad idea?

 

[pltrgyst]

Given the paucity of information available in Scrotum, no-limit might not be much different than just doing flips for stacks...

 

[Klobberer]

I wanted to play limit games so bad that I bought over 3000 $.50 and $1 chips. It was a disaster! Everybody that was a regular NL player hated it, including me. I even hated playing PL and limit circus games with PCF'ers at a mini meetup. Run away!

 

[bsdunbar1]

I am thinking about having a circus cash night for my crew with x10 buy-ins.
$10 gets you $100 in chips or $20 gets you $200 in chips.
That way they can play with bigger stacks without breaking the bank.
If you cash out $500 you get $50, pretty simple.

As far as limit/no limit. After 1 or 2 raises they are pretty much no limit anyways.

 

[Klobberer]

Nothing worse than flopping a straight in PLO and not being able to protect it.

 

[Shaggy]

Consider introducing them by hosting a tournament. I exposed my players to PLO via a 3 hour tourney. Shortly after we started playing PLO for two hours at the start of the regular 8 hour cash game.

After that, I exposed them to a HORSE game in the first two hours of the regular cash game. Once all HORSE games were introduced, I then had an entire night of HORSE. I introduced more games in a similar fashion. Now I will host a 10 game mix a few times a year. We've added PLO8, Badugi, 2-7 Triple Draw, Short Deck Hold'Em, Drawmaha and SOHE. We've only started playing Pineapple (and Crazy) recently.

 

[Highli99]

We did a circus night as a limit night and it was one of the best nights of poker we had all year. Hugely fun and most people ended +\- 1 buy in. This is a great way to introduce these games.

 

[TheBigTater]

Limit is not everybody's cup of tea. Players will either love it or hate it. Degens who are used to playing for stacks every other hand will absolutely cuss and run away from your table. But it is a great way to introduce players to the circus games without losing their shirts.

 

[trever]

Dont be shy about bringing in PLO, people will take to it pretty quickly. Just be sure that you know how to calculate bets correctly and know the pot at all times. Your players will all say "pot" and then wait for you to tell them the amount.

 

[inca911]

Add only a couple games at a time. 3 hand HE is generally very well received, as are Pineapple variants which many already know. After those two, I'd go for double-board HE + Super Hold Em, followed by basic Omaha high so they get a sense of that game. Here's a map to give you some ideas:

I typically host a "microstakes" $0.25/$0.50 introduction game. $10 gets you $100 in play chips. Rebuy as you wish. Lots of fun + low risk = a great learning environment.

 

[One Eyed Dollar]

We usually play NLHE for $5 each for lunchtime poker (LTP!) at work. I brought in my limit chips to try some $0.10/0.20 limit Hold 'em with nickels. That went well, and everybody got used to the betting. Then we took it up a notch and played some variant of Pineapple (I think it was Crazy) with the Limit set. That actually went off the rails more than I expected. With so many outs, nobody was folding when the bet sizes were so small. Every pot just grew and grew higher than they probably would have with No Limit because it was so hard to fold. It was fun, but played really different than I thought it would.

For introducing new games, I think it might work better to do No Limit microstakes and plan for multiple rebuys.

 

[slacker]

Consider introducing them by hosting a tournament. I exposed my players to PLO via a 3 hour tourney. Shortly after we started playing PLO for two hours at the start of the regular 8 hour cash game.

After that, I exposed them to a HORSE game in the first two hours of the regular cash game. Once all HORSE games were introduced, I then had an entire night of HORSE. I introduced more games in a similar fashion. Now I will host a 10 game mix a few times a year. We've added PLO8, Badugi, 2-7 Triple Draw, Short Deck Hold'Em, Drawmaha and SOHE. We've only started playing Pineapple (and Crazy) recently.

I agree that a tournament is a good way to introduce a new game and also make sure everyone gets to play what they are used to. I really like this suggestion as long as you have a second table so folks can start the cash game as soon as enough people are out of the tournament.

I used to play in a league that played 3 tournaments in a night. The first tournament of the night was always a wildcard game (omaha, stud, pineapple, etc.) and the last two were standard NLHE. I thought this was a really fun format.