My high hand pool keeps growing. What to do? (1 Viewer)

[Taghkanic]

My private NLHE home game is unraked. We do set aside $10 from any pot of $150 or bigger toward a high hand bonus, which stays in the box. (100% goes to the players, so still not a rake.)

You have to make quads+ with two cards to win the high hand, and the pool naturaly rolls over from game to game. If you win it, those chips have to go on the table. I have had rare games where people made quads or straight flushes three times, but more usually it takes 3-4 games for someone to hit.

If the pool goes above one full buy-in (200BB), I cap it there and start a second one, so that we are not back to $0 when it hits, and also to give more people a shot at winning it.

Now it’s been a long time since anyone hit, so we have amassed over 450BB in the high hand pool. So now there are two high hand bonuses of 200BB, plus another one running for 50+BB.

This in itself is not a problem, since part of the purpose of a high hand bonus is to attract more gambly players who hope to win it.

However, at some point it becomes a bit ridiculous holding so much money (this is a $2/$5 game, do the math), so I am starting to think about either altering the structure, or not collecting more until it hits, or some other give-back to the game.

Looking for suggestions; I’ll put some of my ideas in the next post.

 

[Taghkanic]

So, some ideas:

(1) Just stop collecting for the high hand pool until it hits twice, then resume from the excess 50+BB.

(2) Slowly bump down the qualifying hand to win each game. So for example, next game a player could win with quads+ or AAAKK. Still doesn't hit, it drops to AAAQQ+. Then AAAJJ+. And so on until it hits.

(3) Variation on #2: It’s still quads+ to win the full amount, but you can win 50% (100BB) with AAAKK, again progressively stepping that down until the pool gets to a more reasonable size.

(4) Chop the pool up into smaller pieces (such as 4x 100BB while still growing the excess) and make it a high hand of the night, rather than quads+. So if the biggest hand anyone made by the end of the night is KKKTT or AAA22 or whatever, they get 100BB. Continue this either until the big pool is depleted, or just change it entirely.

(5) Keep the two 200BB quads+ high hands, and keep collecting, but until those hit use the excess for some other promotion to give back to the players who contributed to it. For example, we play 7-8 double board PLO bomb pots per night, where the high hand isn't in play for obvious reasons. I could use some of the 50BB excess to sweeten each bomb pot by 10BB for a while to knock down the amassed pool to a reasonable size.

(6) High hand pools are stupid, just distribute the accumulated wealth bag to the regs who built the amount and be done with it.

 

[sup_squidy]

I think keep the second high hand jack pot bullet ready (200BB) but now everything after 400BB being collected goes to the current jackpot (250BB) and keep it uncapped. I feel attendance can get pretty hyped about this like how when mega millions crosses 1 billion. The absurdity makes is more alluring to be at the game and not miss a single one until this thing bursts and someone hits it.

 

[tabletalker7]

Take your 10 highest attendance players. Hold a free roll tournament, winner take all, for the first bad beat. Keep the second so you still have a full bad beat, and continue brewing the third. Reward attendance with this, and people will remember.

 

[Felt_Lizard]

Yes, I can see how holding this money could become an unwieldy burden.

Though it is a heavy task, I am world renown for sacrificing for this community.

Therefore, I'll PM you my PPF&F info, and the funds will remain ... in escrow.

No, no. Don't thank me.
I am just a player among players, player.

 

[doublebooyah85]

I think keep the second high hand jack pot bullet ready (200BB) but now everything after 400BB being collected goes to the current jackpot (250BB) and keep it uncapped. I feel attendance can get pretty hyped about this like how when mega millions crosses 1 billion. The absurdity makes is more alluring to be at the game and not miss a single one until this thing bursts and someone hits it.

This

 

[buzzmonkey]

Lower the jackpot requirement by one rank every night until it hits. AAAKK+ the first night, AAAQQ+ the second and so forth. Once it hits. Reset to Quads+

 

[Highli99]

Have a night of splash pots at fixed intervals. Toss 20BBs in the pot every half hour.

 

[MC_CPA]

For what its worth you can put that extra money to use to grow itself haha. Buy some fractional stock of SPY or treasury bonds.

Can you have any excess past 400BB go into a bad beat jackpot or is that overkill (Bad beat jackpot will also trigger high hand)?

 

[Taghkanic]

I’ve also thought about slowing down the rate at which we collect for the high hand… Maybe do $10 from hands $250+ instead of $150. Or $5 from $150+.

 

[ThrowBack]

I like what tabletalker7

 

[Highli99]

Invest the funds in SDONK crypto. Me and @arch3r need more bag holders I mean community members

 

[Joe Harris]

You could try paying out a no-qualifier high hand bonus after each game. The payout could be the "spill over" when the jackpot has grown large enough to be uncomfortable, whatever that number happens to be for the day. So it's kind of an unbalanced "jackpot chop", meaning that if somebody wins a hand that qualifies for the big bonus they likely scoop the whole thing.

 

[Taghkanic]

Still debating the various ideas, but I’m leaning toward the following hybrid approach based on my original idea and some of the suggestions above:

* Keep the 200BB quads+ high hand in place;

* Hold 100BB in reserve for use as the start of the next quad+ high hand once the 200BB one hits, so that it doesn't begin at $0;

* Continuing to collect as usual, but bumping the threshold to $200 pots instead of $150;

* Deploying the remaining reserve as a 50BB highest hand of the evening high hand for each game—full house minimum—for as many games as it takes to deplete it. This will be added to their buy-in at the start of the next game they attend.

So for example, at the moment I have about 450BB in the high hand kitty. 200BB can be won by anyone making quads+ using both cards in the their hand. If that hits, the quads+ bonus starts with the next 100BB held in reserve, and this continues to grow up to 200BB. If we get through an entire evening with no one hitting the quads+ HH, the best full house of the night (which I will have to track all evening) gets 50BB toward their next buy-in.

That gives me three games’ worth of one-night high hands to spread out over several months; and at the rate that we collect for it, the 50BB should get replenished each game.

Note #1: If someone wins the quads+ for 200BB, they don't also get the nightly bonus. That just rolls over to the next game.

Note #2: The 50BB bonus doesn't count toward the winner’s minimum buy-in at the next game but it can be added to a maximum buy-in. My min is 60BB and max is 200BB. So the previous game’s winner could buy in for 60BB then get topped up to 110BB. Or they could buy in for 200BB and get topped up to 250BB.

Sounds complicated when I write it out, but actually pretty simple.

 

[gmunny]

When i was moving my daughter back from Henderson this summer, Sam's Town had a progressive pai gow jackpot table that they wanted to close so they ran a "highest hand" contest to a certain date. After that date, the person that had the highest hand at that time would take the entire jackpot and that would be the end of it. I think normally, it would pay when someone hit a 7-card royal. I thought it was an interesting way to get rid of the jackpot.

 

[thePokerClub]

When i was moving my daughter back from Henderson this summer, Sam's Town had a progressive pai gow jackpot table that they wanted to close so they ran a "highest hand" contest to a certain date. After that date, the person that had the highest hand at that time would take the entire jackpot and that would be the end of it. I think normally, it would pay when someone hit a 7-card royal. I thought it was an interesting way to get rid of the jackpot.

Was going to suggest a time-bound high hand bonus as well. Maybe not something that you can put into effect for the 2 back bonus pools you have, but possibly for the current 50BB one?

A control for you so you are never holding all those bags - if you feel that is a risk.

 

[mickeydoo98]

We have something similar in our game. I throw it in a high-yield savings account (4.5% growth) and use the interest to fund food/beer costs.
I like option 2 and 3. But think you should probably put it to a loose vote with your players, make sure they're okay with it.
You could also take the money and run. After that, the chase it on. ;-)

 

[odorf]

It is just a math: probability to have quads or higher is 1/500
On average you will have winner with 8 players once per ~100 deals (small pairs sometimes folded, one-card quads)
Just count how often you usually have pot of $150 or bigger and if it is more often then each fifth game then high hand pool will keeps growing and you need to adjust rules:
- increase limit $150 -> $250
- decrease $10->$5
- increase max win $200 -> $400

 

[Sal Bandini]

It is just a math: probability to have quads or higher is 1/500
On average you will have winner with 8 players once per ~100 deals (small pairs sometimes folded, one-card quads)
Just count how often you usually have pot of $150 or bigger and if it is more often then each fifth game then high hand pool will keeps growing and you need to adjust rules:
- increase limit $150 -> $250
- decrease $10->$5
- increase max win $200 -> $400

Probability to get high hand quads 8 handed is 0.011747, or once every 8513 hands. That's over 1000 deals.

 

[odorf]

Probability to get high hand quads 8 handed is 0.011747, or once every 8513 hands. That's over 1000 deals.

Disagree
ChatGPT:

Any random starting hand (seeing full board)​

Probability of ending with quads by river:

≈0.168%


But even with your number 0.011747 it should be once every 83 deals

 

[Sal Bandini]

Disagree
ChatGPT:

Any random starting hand (seeing full board)​

Probability of ending with quads by river:

≈0.168%


But even with your number 0.011747 it should be once every 83 deals

Source: https://wizardofodds.com/games/poker/

Looks like I should not have multiplied by 100. Don't know why I assumed percentage.

So it is around once every 83 hands, assuming no one folds.