Should there be a buy in range? (1 Viewer)

[Outkicked]

We play a friendly neighborhood.25/.50 usually buy in for $20-$60 question is should there be a “cap” for how much to buy in for, it only come up twice but it’s only an issue late in the game when someone is down a few buy ins, which option do you prefer?

 

[OfficerLovejoy]

Pre covid we used to play 5ct/10ct uncapped. Most would buy in for €10, some for €20 and our whale loves to start with €50 or more.
Since then I've been asking myself the same question, should I limit buyins to a 200bb max or maybe even 100bb?
My plan is to grow the game to 10ct/20ct as soon as the lockdown in germany ends and I'm not sure how well an uncapped game would work when some players are already not used to the higher stakes.

 

[Coyote]

$20-60 is an already wide range (since this is not a casino, trying to attract just everybody).
I 'd make it either $30 to 50 or 60, with further buy-ins up to no more than half of the big stack.

If there are players with very deep pockets in relation to the rest, either maniacs or (even worse) very good players, I 'd establish a total per player per session of 500 or 600BBs, since this is a social game.

 

[tabletalker7]

My house rules states buy in for all games is 40BB min, 200 BB max. Most of my players buy in at 100BB

 

[Sambukan]

Something iam thinking about too, not sure about it. I played in some cashgames where everyone had to buy in for the same amount. I rather play tourney then. But iam leaning towards no cap. Just thinking that in a casghgame there will be different starting stacks so everyone can start with what they are comfortable with..

 

[Bluegrass Poker]

I’m not the financial police for my friends. We (pre-pandemic) played $1/2 NLHE and PLO/8. Buyin was $200. You could do another buy in anytime you get felted or add on up to $200 anytime.

I never set a limit on how many buyins someone could do or try to limit losses. But we had a group of really good friends so money would be borrowed frequently if someone didn’t have enough and always paid back by the next week.

Honestly, if I had friends who couldn’t afford the stakes I wouldn’t invite them. I would feel bad if a friend was gambling his rent money to play with us and lost.

 

[Highli99]

Online I like $100 max. Go too big and there will be huge swings and the game will probably burn out.

In person I would prefer half big stack. People will get more money on the table but these games will be less frequent so less likely to burn players out.

Small blinds deep stacks is my favorite poker so when average stacks in a .25/.50 are $200ish the game gets REALLY fun. My online game has had times when multiple players have +$400 stacks which is wild at .25/.50 and really forces you to turn off auto pilot and hold the stick with both hands!

 

[MikesDad]

We usually play 0.25/0.50 with $100 max, but for some in our group even $100 is too high. That group prefers $20 buy-in.
So bottom line is to limit buy-ins to what your group is comfortable with.
Number of buy-ins is unlimited. A player should be able to limit him/herself

 

[Poker Zombie]

1. Limit to the initial buy-in. Poll your players to find out what they are comfortable with.
2. No limit on the number of rebuys, but initial buy-in up to 50% the big stack is the most common. This will usually be the same as the original buy-in, unless one player is dominating, you go late into the night, or your games play with a high variance.
3. If your players are frequently going all-in, you need to raise your first buy-in in future games.

 

[longflop]

Back in the olden days when I would host poker nights, the post tourney cash game was always $.25/$.50. I limited the buy in to 100BB, but the majority of the guys who stuck around would buy in for 40BB. I would always buy in for $50 and heard "whoa, big spender!" Its a social game.

I guess it depends on your game.

 

[auto]

In my .25/.50 cash game the buy-ins are 80bb to 200bb max. That’s a buy-in range of $40-$100. Rebuys are a max of $100 or half of the big stack.

 

[Moxie Mike]

It depends on the group's motivation. If it's a microstakes game, having a player come in for 500BBs while everyone else is in for 50 or 100 BBs just to donk off a bunch of money - while exploitable - has the potential to make the game less fun.

That said, there have been many posts and threads about maniacs 'ruining the game'. A competent player will welcome the easy money... but not everyone will see it that way.

So capping the buy-in at half the big stack's high water mark is probably the fairest way to handle it.

 

[Coyote]

It depends on the group's motivation. If it's a microstakes game, having a player come in for 500BBs while everyone else is in for 50 or 100 BBs just to donk off a bunch of money - while exploitable - has the potential to make the game less fun.

Exactly

That said, there have been many posts and threads about maniacs 'ruining the game'. A competent player will welcome the easy money... but not everyone will see it that way.

The point I 've always been making is that a "rich" (in relation to the rest of the crew) maniac could crush the game by virtue of his money.
A good / decent player needs liquidity (deep cash flow) to follow the maniac and eventually take the maniac's money; a financial liquidity he may not have (and scared money is doomed to be lost).
A maniac who can afford to play (and loose) in $1/2 games may very well get away unpunished in 25/50c game which represents the other players' financial ceiling.
If such 'rich maniacs" exist in a game, capping the total for the night makes sense.

So capping the buy-in at half the big stack's high water mark is probably the fairest way to handle it.

Agreed.

 

[DrStrange]

The size of the buy-in is the critical factor for how big the game can play. The smaller the buy-in cap, the better for the weakest players.

The host has to decide who's interests are paramount. There isn't a "right" answer.

I host games with high buy-in caps and ones with really low caps. I get different players at each game with minimal cross over.

If in doubt - keep the caps lower than higher -=- DrStrange

 

[cpac54]

This is a great question, and one that I've pondered myself this past year as our local game has slowly grown and solidified.

We play either .25/.50 or .50/1 with a max buy-in of 200BB. The debate has surrounded add-ons and re-buys, which have always been allowed up to the size of the big stack. Depending on the night, the big stack can get pretty big however, especially when playing .5/1

I'd be curious for people's thought's on add-ons/re-buys up to a certain amount. Up to what amount is "standard" and what is the reasoning behind that?

 

[hex]

60bb-200bb is fine, we had people rebuying for the biggest stack that we stopped doing cause the game was getting out of control. So now max rebuy is 200bb.

 

[Sambukan]

60bb-200bb is fine, we had people rebuying for the biggest stack that we stopped doing cause the game was getting out of control. So now max rebuy is 200bb.

I am always wondering when i hear the game got out of control or crazy, doesnt it mean the stakes are too low? Ofc not always, but when standard preflop raise is 10x bb etc i was thinking that you should raise the stake?

 

[hex]

I am always wondering when i hear the game got out of control or crazy, doesnt it mean the stakes are too low? Ofc not always, but when standard preflop raise is 10x bb

Some games play bigger, but we are supposedly playing a friendly home game so I think the cap at 200bb is fine. The stakes are big enough already, if you look at my cash set I posted that is for a single table game, you can figure out the stakes from those racks.

 

[Joe Harris]

For a few years now, I've ran my .25/.5 game with a $20 minimum and no cap. I started doing this mostly to encourage deeper buy-ins and allow the players to manipulate the texture of the game. I also enjoy having large cash sets and am always delighted to break out a new rack.

In practice, the no cap has never really mattered. On the rare occasions when someone bought in super deep (more than 500 big blinds, say) it was after the game had been running for some hours and there were already multiple rebuys. Having a cap encourages a max buy, but no cap sort of levels the field in a "how much do you want to risk tonight" kind of way. From what I've seen, players are generally likely to buy-in for approximately the average stack, regardless of restrictions on buy-in size. There are maybe 3 occasions when someone bought well more than the average stack. Twice, the player bought out around even or up a small amount, and once spent the whole night losing massive pots in a hurry and then slowly working back to even.

How sane this is probably depends a lot on who your players are and the games they are used to playing in. I would definitely add a max if needed, but nobody has ever complained and no problems have developed.

 

[Poker Zombie]

Heck, I ran a shorthanded table for the men that arrived on our last ladies night (guys that drove their wives to the game in the hope we would get a kitchen table game going). 25¢-50¢, with a $20 buy-in.

40 BB is short-stacked play, but we weren't out for blood and profit. Shooting the shit, and filling drink orders for the ladies still makes for a fun night.

 

[stavman]

.50/1 50-200 BB or up to the biggest stack

 

[tabletalker7]

I am always wondering when i hear the game got out of control or crazy, doesnt it mean the stakes are too low? Ofc not always, but when standard preflop raise is 10x bb etc i was thinking that you should raise the stake?

Before I set a min and max on buy in, we played a few nights that started out happy, and people kept reloading to the big stack. It went on like this until I had a few guys start asking me what happened to our friendly game, since it was getting too expensive for them.

I actually built a POS terminal to handle the cash for my room. That terminal tracks buy ins and cash activity, and can give me all that information. I saw that the later a game went on, the bigger the reload got. It got to the point where someone actually bought in for $500 (to match the big stack) on a .25/.50 table and that had occurred on multiple occasions. Not only do I consider that outrageous, but it also showed that the amount of money changing hands in my games was far larger than I really felt comfortable with (I just want fun games, serious games are at the casino). Mix that with players wondering how it got so expensive to play and I had to do something to bring my game back in line with where I wanted it. I set buy ins at 40 BB min and 200 BB max. The games instantly got a lot cheaper and a lot more friendly, and my players are quite happy with it.

 

[Sambukan]

I can totally see that. And iam glad the change made it friendlier again. I guess it depends on the players etc. At a game i was playing the game didnt change with the limitations of the buyin, but with bigger blinds. The raises werent that big anymore but more standard openings (RFI got back down from 8-12bb to 3-4bb). And with that the rebuys didnt happen that often anymore. There were more shoves with smaller blinds

 

[hex]

Before I set a min and max on buy in, we played a few nights that started out happy, and people kept reloading to the big stack. It went on like this until I had a few guys start asking me what happened to our friendly game, since it was getting too expensive for them.

I actually built a POS terminal to handle the cash for my room. That terminal tracks buy ins and cash activity, and can give me all that information. I saw that the later a game went on, the bigger the reload got. It got to the point where someone actually bought in for $500 (to match the big stack) on a .25/.50 table and that had occurred on multiple occasions. Not only do I consider that outrageous, but it also showed that the amount of money changing hands in my games was far larger than I really felt comfortable with (I just want fun games, serious games are at the casino). Mix that with players wondering how it got so expensive to play and I had to do something to bring my game back in line with where I wanted it. I set buy ins at 40 BB min and 200 BB max. The games instantly got a lot cheaper and a lot more friendly, and my players are quite happy with it.

so we capped our game when it just got insane, one player decided he would match the biggest stack which was over 5k, the next day when the game broke the host told us he was capping it to 1k, it’s a 2/5 game. The game goes to different hosts and everyone agreed by those rules and has stayed the same ever since. The game used to be a 1/2 but it was playing deep we actually thought making it 2/5 and remove the straddles would make it smaller, it did work, then one night another host held a 1/3 game and of course was talked into max 10 straddle, and that game got out of hand quickly and that host said never again will I play 1/3 or a straddle

 

[Mr Winberg]

Here's my experience, which I by no means think is "normal", it's just how it was with my crowd.

I used to allow 200 BB buy-ins. The players were playing defensive, and if someone got felted it was usually the end of their night. Mind you, we play kinda low stakes.

So I changed to 100 BB buy-ins, same blinds. The play opened up considerably! Also, the same players who would quit after 1 buy-in of 200 BBs could easily donk off 3 or 4 buy-ins of 100 BBs! Go figure...

I'm gonna increase is gradually, perhaps to 150 BBs, I don't want to scare them back into nits...

 

[tabletalker7]

Here's my experience, which I by no means think is "normal", it's just how it was with my crowd.

I used to allow 200 BB buy-ins. The players were playing defensive, and if someone got felted it was usually the end of their night. Mind you, we play kinda low stakes.

So I changed to 100 BB buy-ins, same blinds. The play opened up considerably! Also, the same players who would quit after 1 buy-in of 200 BBs could easily donk off 3 or 4 buy-ins of 100 BBs! Go figure...

I'm gonna increase is gradually, perhaps to 150 BBs, I don't want to scare them back into nits...

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

 

[Highli99]

If stakes are getting too high for players I think a better model is lowering bounds and keeping buy ins 200bb.

I'd rather play in a deep stack .05/.10 game than a shallow .25/.50.

Short stack poker is rarely as interesting or open as deep stack poker.

 

[Mr Winberg]

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

True. But it's a balance, there have been some requests to increase the buy-ins. The blinds as well, but they're not changing until I'm sure that most are ok with it.

 

[tabletalker7]

True. But it's a balance, there have been some requests to increase the buy-ins. The blinds as well, but they're not changing until I'm sure that most are ok with it.

When I had that problem I expanded my player database and ran two different games. Nickel night was Friday night (.05/.10) for the cheaper players (cheaper my ass they would rather spend their cash on more booze for Friday nights than poker) and .25/.50 on Saturdays. Everybody loved the end result.

 

[Coyote]

If stakes are getting too high for players I think a better model is lowering bounds and keeping buy ins 200bb.

I'd rather play in a deep stack .05/.10 game than a shallow .25/.50.

Short stack poker is rarely as interesting or open as deep stack poker.

The problem with very low blinds is that every pot tends to become a family pot for almost free (All Beggars in St Panteleimon's Church yard, in proverbial Greek), and hence a cheap lottery; not poker.

On the long run, of course, deep stacks favour better players, so you have again the problem of loosing the weaker players.

I 'd say that best (social, home) poker is played when people are comfortable loosing 3 or max 4 100BB buy-ins, but YMMV.