The house takes $75 from the weekly $50 tournament I play in. There is a $1/$2 Omaha-hi game afterwards that runs for about an hour and a half after the tournament ends. The group has been playing together since 2004. The majority of players are in their mid fifties or older.
I joined the game in the fall of 2015. At that time we had 21 to 23 players each week. Typically, there would be seven or eight re-buys and the PLO game would get quite big. The tournament would run until 12:15 to 12:30 and the cash game would end full stop at 1:00. The house took $100 from the tournament prize pool, which given the number of players and spots paid, was largely inconsequential.
In early 2016, I took a six day/70 to75 hour a week job that ended my involvement in poker. Shortly after my departure, two players, an alcoholic and his opioid addicted girlfriend crashed the game. From conversations with other members in the group, they would often get into arguments with one another or with others at the table. I guess some nights were a real shit-show. The host feared they would report the game if he kicked them out.
When I rejoined the game in the Spring of 2018, the number of players had dropped to seven or eight and the host dropped his take to $50. We lost another player or two when the weather warmed up. Why the host and the players in the group would allow these two to ruin the game without taking any action grated the hell out of me. I hit my breaking point when I showed up two weeks in a row to find we only had six players. I informed the host I was through during the break when the two of them were outside. One player immediately chimed in that he too, was done with the game. The host finally found his balls that evening and kicked the two of them out when the tournament recommenced.
Gradually, players returned to the game. We got up to around 13 to 15 within a couple of months. We even started to get the old camaraderie back when the host, in his infinite wisdom, increased the house's take to $75. Impossible to say for sure whether this was the reason we lost two players right away, except that it did coincide with the host's decision.
The game continued on a slow downward spiral. We were down to eight or nine players when the host ended the game late last October in response to the multiple Covid outbreaks that hit our community. A couple of players had been griping about the tournament ending at 11:30ish when they had to work in the morning. Consensus was slowly building towards re-structuring the blinds/levels of the tournament in favor of making room for the cash game and ending the evening at midnight.
Tonight we had our first game post Covid. Six players. The host has revamped the tournament. The blind structure is more aggressive and the levels are shorter in duration, which effectively brings the tournament to a conclusion an hour sooner. Tonight, the tournament which started at quarter past seven, ended at ten past ten. Only three of the five other players stayed for cash.
Pron from the tournament:
(Disclaimer: Chips are not Paulson's)
Last hand of the tournament. Hero has all of the chippies.
(Gray one-thousands are out in front. Blue one-hundreds are on top of the grays)
My main issue is the $75 the host takes from the prize pool combined with the hour he has cut from the tournament.
A rational person may ask, Why not keep the tournament friendly if it is no longer the main event and take a rake from the cash game? Or get rid of the tournament all together?
Maybe Hero is a grouch. Fact is, neither the tournament nor the cash game is big enough to excite Hero in to looking forward to the game on a weekly basis.
Input welcome.
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Is Hero alone, or has anyone else grown tired or become disenchanted with their home game? What were the reasons?
Remedy?
I joined the game in the fall of 2015. At that time we had 21 to 23 players each week. Typically, there would be seven or eight re-buys and the PLO game would get quite big. The tournament would run until 12:15 to 12:30 and the cash game would end full stop at 1:00. The house took $100 from the tournament prize pool, which given the number of players and spots paid, was largely inconsequential.
In early 2016, I took a six day/70 to75 hour a week job that ended my involvement in poker. Shortly after my departure, two players, an alcoholic and his opioid addicted girlfriend crashed the game. From conversations with other members in the group, they would often get into arguments with one another or with others at the table. I guess some nights were a real shit-show. The host feared they would report the game if he kicked them out.
When I rejoined the game in the Spring of 2018, the number of players had dropped to seven or eight and the host dropped his take to $50. We lost another player or two when the weather warmed up. Why the host and the players in the group would allow these two to ruin the game without taking any action grated the hell out of me. I hit my breaking point when I showed up two weeks in a row to find we only had six players. I informed the host I was through during the break when the two of them were outside. One player immediately chimed in that he too, was done with the game. The host finally found his balls that evening and kicked the two of them out when the tournament recommenced.
Gradually, players returned to the game. We got up to around 13 to 15 within a couple of months. We even started to get the old camaraderie back when the host, in his infinite wisdom, increased the house's take to $75. Impossible to say for sure whether this was the reason we lost two players right away, except that it did coincide with the host's decision.
The game continued on a slow downward spiral. We were down to eight or nine players when the host ended the game late last October in response to the multiple Covid outbreaks that hit our community. A couple of players had been griping about the tournament ending at 11:30ish when they had to work in the morning. Consensus was slowly building towards re-structuring the blinds/levels of the tournament in favor of making room for the cash game and ending the evening at midnight.
Tonight we had our first game post Covid. Six players. The host has revamped the tournament. The blind structure is more aggressive and the levels are shorter in duration, which effectively brings the tournament to a conclusion an hour sooner. Tonight, the tournament which started at quarter past seven, ended at ten past ten. Only three of the five other players stayed for cash.
Pron from the tournament:
(Disclaimer: Chips are not Paulson's)
Last hand of the tournament. Hero has all of the chippies.
(Gray one-thousands are out in front. Blue one-hundreds are on top of the grays)
My main issue is the $75 the host takes from the prize pool combined with the hour he has cut from the tournament.
A rational person may ask, Why not keep the tournament friendly if it is no longer the main event and take a rake from the cash game? Or get rid of the tournament all together?
Maybe Hero is a grouch. Fact is, neither the tournament nor the cash game is big enough to excite Hero in to looking forward to the game on a weekly basis.
Input welcome.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is Hero alone, or has anyone else grown tired or become disenchanted with their home game? What were the reasons?
Remedy?
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