small home game help low cash! (1 Viewer)

[thatguyyouknow]

Hey so me and 7 other people want to start a game of poker. SWe are all new and want to learn and test the waters. The problem is we have only been playing winner takes all. It drags for like 3 hours..... and 1 person wins money. We are only doing $10 dollar buy ins and are still new to the point that we don't have/ want to invest a lot of money until we know that we want to do this. This in hand creates a really hard time for us to set up cash games @10 dollars because we don't know how to distribute $10 dollars in a even denominations that allows buy ins later into the night. Also we have a 3 of us who feel confident in putting $50 in but that causes a large chip gap with 2-4 blinds and pot limit. I really need help as I don't want to scare people away and also want to have a good number of people to invite new players and other friends.

So that in turn what do I do?

Do I raise buy ins?

Do I keep running tournament style winner takes all?

Do I keep $10 and do really inflated chip amounts?


HELP Please Thanks!!

 

[Mrs Poker Zombie]

I'm no expert.... But have you thought about paying out 2 spots? Is your tournament flowing as it should to ensure it doesn't take too long? Can you do micro-stakes cash? What chip denominations do you have now? What is the group temperature for spending more in a night?

 

[wolfpack]

if you wan to play cash and keep it at $10 run a .05/.10 game

that 100 x BB

10 x 5 cent
14 x 25 cent
6 x $1

starting stack per person

in cash game you cash out whatever you have in front of you at the end of the night, it won't be even payouts.

this also allows people to leave as they need to.


If you don't want to play cash then you can pay out a second spot say $70 to 1st place and $10 to 2nd. you can speed up the blinds if you want it to end earlier.

 

[RadicusScout]

Your game sounds like how our crew used to play. Everyone shows up, throws in $10 - $20 and then do some funky math to divvy up the house chips. Everyone ultimately shoves all in until there is a sole winner so you don't have to do the even funkier math of converting the chips back to dollars.

For us, things started to straighten up when the money to chip conversion made (more) sense. Before we made that conversion, we decided what stakes we're going to play. We're micro stakes - like you guys - and everyone wanted to play for $20 a night. Having said that, we landed on .05 / .10 per hand. This then allowed us to follow a good breakdown of chips per denomination (see link below):

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...ut-a-cash-game-chip-set-5c-10c-to-5-10.30897/

I hope this helps clarify some things and points you in the right direction.

*edit - Playing this way will allow everyone to play at their pace and not feel pressured to push all in during the closing hours. Players will be able to to pick up and join back in easily because you can smoothly cash them in / out.

 

[Xlcjw72]

Your game sounds like how our crew used to play. Everyone shows up, throws in $10 - $20 and then do some funky math to divvy up the house chips. Everyone ultimately shoves all in until there is a sole winner so you don't have to do the even funkier math of converting the chips back to dollars.

For us, things started to straighten up when the money to chip conversion made (more) sense. Before we made that conversion, we decided what stakes we're going to play. We're micro stakes - like you guys - and everyone wanted to play for $20 a night. Having said that, we landed on .05 / .10 per hand. This then allowed us to follow a good breakdown of chips per denomination (see link below):

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...ut-a-cash-game-chip-set-5c-10c-to-5-10.30897/

I hope this helps clarify some things and points you in the right direction.

*edit - Playing this way will allow everyone to play at their pace and not feel pressured to push all in during the closing hours. Players will be able to to pick up and join back in easily because you can smoothly cash them in / out.

For what it's worth I dropped the nickels and do a 25 cent ante nlhe and we have a lot of fun.

 

[LeLe]

You guys are playing Tourney now and usually Tourney only pay 20-25% of the player pool in this case you guy could also assign 2nd prize money for 2nd since you have a total of 8 player playing.

But if you guys are more interested in Cash Game, 5c/10c NLH with $10 buyin seem the most suitable for your guys.

A simple 300 Chip breakdown will be 5c/25c/$1/$5 100/100/75/25 this way you will have a bank roll of $230 which will be 23 buy in and rebuyin that almost 3 per person.

Starting stake can be 20/20/4 5c/25c/$1 for the 1st 5 person and 10 $1 for the rest, use the rest of $1 & $5 for rebuy in

 

[Silver_Fiend]

yeah first off you need to figure out what you and your group wants to play. You dont have to stress about chip costs, hell start out with dice chips or super diamonds until you decide what you want to play and what stakes to play for. When youre ready for better chips, you'll find all the help you never knew you needed. But, as others have already said, you need 2 different sets if you want play both tournament or cash games. Is both a security aspect and just plain different chip requirements. When it comes to cash games, you cant be worried about someone buying in for more than someone else.

 

[Poker Zombie]

Hey so me and 7 other people want to start a game of poker. SWe are all new and want to learn and test the waters. The problem is we have only been playing winner takes all. It drags for like 3 hours..... and 1 person wins money. We are only doing $10 dollar buy ins and are still new to the point that we don't have/ want to invest a lot of money until we know that we want to do this. This in hand creates a really hard time for us to set up cash games @10 dollars because we don't know how to distribute $10 dollars in a even denominations that allows buy ins later into the night. Also we have a 3 of us who feel confident in putting $50 in but that causes a large chip gap with 2-4 blinds and pot limit. I really need help as I don't want to scare people away and also want to have a good number of people to invite new players and other friends.

So that in turn what do I do?

Do I raise buy ins?

Do I keep running tournament style winner takes all?

Do I keep $10 and do really inflated chip amounts?


HELP Please Thanks!!

Are you using a blind structure, and if so, what is it?

A well built tournament structure can give you hours of entertainment for a specific number of chips. It doesn't matter how much money you have, everyone starts on even footing. Limiting the number of rebuys available also prevents Mr. Deep Pockets from intimidating the more frugal players.

 

[thatguyyouknow]

thank you all for the response. when i have more time i will respond been very busy since i have posted this

 

[Pocket9s]

Hey so me and 7 other people want to start a game of poker. SWe are all new and want to learn and test the waters. The problem is we have only been playing winner takes all. It drags for like 3 hours..... and 1 person wins money. We are only doing $10 dollar buy ins and are still new to the point that we don't have/ want to invest a lot of money until we know that we want to do this. This in hand creates a really hard time for us to set up cash games @10 dollars because we don't know how to distribute $10 dollars in a even denominations that allows buy ins later into the night. Also we have a 3 of us who feel confident in putting $50 in but that causes a large chip gap with 2-4 blinds and pot limit. I really need help as I don't want to scare people away and also want to have a good number of people to invite new players and other friends.

So that in turn what do I do?

Do I raise buy ins?

Do I keep running tournament style winner takes all?

Do I keep $10 and do really inflated chip amounts?


HELP Please Thanks!!

Hello, One setup we used to use for a $10 dollar Cash Game (Blinds .25/.50) is:
16 x .25 (White)
4 x .50 (Red)
2 x $1 (Blue)
1 x $2 (Black)

The colors are up to you but i find these Denominations work well for 5-7 Players depending on your chip count, but if you run out of white you can always use greens for more .25 cent chips. Good Luck!

 

[LotsOfChips]

I don’t think that they are playing a Tournament. It seems more like they are playing a cash game until someone scoops all the chips (main difference being static blinds instead of increasing blinds).

@thatguyyouknow , I think the first thing you should research is the differences between cash games and Tournaments.

You can certainly run a Tournament for $10 buyin, and structure it so that it ends in a reasonable time frame, and pays out 2-3 players.

Or you can run a cash game that allows every player to play as long as they want, and to top up their stacks or rebuy if they bust out.

.05/.10 is a reasonable blind amount for a $10 initial buyin. If you want to up the buyin to $20, .25/.25 blinds work reasonably well. Note that a $20 buyin with three or four reloads can end up with several hundred dollars on the table, which may be more than some of your players may feel comfortable with.

 

[LotsOfChips]

Hello, One setup we used to use for a $10 dollar Cash Game (Blinds .25/.50) is:
16 x .25 (White)
4 x .50 (Red)
2 x $1 (Blue)
1 x $2 (Black)

The colors are up to you but i find these Denominations work well for 5-7 Players depending on your chip count, but if you run out of white you can always use greens for more .25 cent chips. Good Luck!

With.25/.50 blinds and a $10 buyin, that is only 20BB starting stacks. It seems that would turn into a “Shove Fest” in about the first 30 seconds. Or are you playing Limit?

 

[Pocket9s]

With.25/.50 blinds and a $10 buyin, that is only 20BB starting stacks. It seems that would turn into a “Shove Fest” in about the first 30 seconds. Or are you playing

With.25/.50 blinds and a $10 buyin, that is only 20BB starting stacks. It seems that would turn into a “Shove Fest” in about the first 30 seconds. Or are you playing Limit?

With.25/.50 blinds and a $10 buyin, that is only 20BB starting stacks. It seems that would turn into a “Shove Fest” in about the first 30 seconds. Or are you playing Limit?

No limit. It worked well for the game I played at when I first started, but it could be a flawed system. $10 is the the minimum of course. And if they are all fairly new then they will probably be seeing the flops pretty cheap. But that was my experience.

 

[Poker Zombie]

With.25/.50 blinds and a $10 buyin, that is only 20BB starting stacks. It seems that would turn into a “Shove Fest” in about the first 30 seconds. Or are you playing Limit?

No limit. It worked well for the game I played at when I first started, but it could be a flawed system. $10 is the the minimum of course. And if they are all fairly new then they will probably be seeing the flops pretty cheap. But that was my experience.

This is way more common for a new group of players that you can imagine. It's one of the reasons I think cash games are a terrible way to build a group from the ground up.

New players limp into a lot of pots. Their range is huge. But raises come rarely. Chips are pushed back and forth all night, and the luckiest guy of the night wins the most. It can be fun - but it's not what most of us call poker. You really don't want to invite a better player to this game, because they will destroy the rookies, and your game will die.

With a tournament, the impending doom of ever increasing blinds helps to spur bigger bets. It becomes a learning point. More importantly, bringing in a better player is unlikely to disrupt the game, because they will get caught off guard by the player that plays quads the same exact way he plays middle pair. Paying a deeper field with a flat pay table also benefits the rookies, as some of them will profit while simultaneously learning that there are options to just bet or call.

I know a lot of people will want to defend cash games, but for the rookie, well structured tournaments are safer.

 

[The Nuts]

I wouldn't go any lower than .10/.20 blinds.
That's the stakes I played at when I was learning poker back in 8th grade with my friends, pretty sure adults can handle it too

Best thing about cash games, people can come and go whenever they need to and if you lose your chips you don't have to go home, you can just rebuy.

I suggest using Venmo instead of cash so you can pay out exact amounts easily and people can rebuy even if they don't have any cash left on em. Otherwise you're gonna need to keep a lot of 1s on hand to make sure you can pay folks out, which is fine but kind of a pain.
Before we switched to venmo bank we would just have someone throw their leftover change in the next pot if they left early or if it was the end of the night everybody would through their odd change in the pot and play 1 whacky game for that change pot, like 5 card omaha or something.

As far as chip breakdowns, with a game this low you're going to want dimes, dollars and 5s. You could add quarters as well but it really doesn't add much to the game, I feel it just makes things more confusing.

Get all your dimes on the table to start, say 10 or 20 per person, then the rest in 1s. When people rebuy they just get 1s or 5s depending on what your chip situation is in your bank. They make change off the table from people who have a bunch of dimes.

You should also allow people to buy in for whatever they want up to a point. like min $10 max $40 or something.

 

[CGolf]

Hey so me and 7 other people want to start a game of poker. SWe are all new and want to learn and test the waters. The problem is we have only been playing winner takes all. It drags for like 3 hours..... and 1 person wins money. We are only doing $10 dollar buy ins and are still new to the point that we don't have/ want to invest a lot of money until we know that we want to do this. This in hand creates a really hard time for us to set up cash games @10 dollars because we don't know how to distribute $10 dollars in a even denominations that allows buy ins later into the night. Also we have a 3 of us who feel confident in putting $50 in but that causes a large chip gap with 2-4 blinds and pot limit. I really need help as I don't want to scare people away and also want to have a good number of people to invite new players and other friends.

So that in turn what do I do?

Do I raise buy ins?

Do I keep running tournament style winner takes all?

Do I keep $10 and do really inflated chip amounts?


HELP Please Thanks!!

I think the biggest thing is to make sure everyone is having fun and comfortable with what they are throwing in. If you raise the buy-in and people start getting too stressed about how much they are losing then your game will die off. Can you make it a $15-20 cash game with micro steaks? Even though the buy in is more, most will still walk away with some of their money at the end of the night..

 

[Talrem]

Hey so me and 7 other people want to start a game of poker. SWe are all new and want to learn and test the waters. The problem is we have only been playing winner takes all. It drags for like 3 hours..... and 1 person wins money. We are only doing $10 dollar buy ins and are still new to the point that we don't have/ want to invest a lot of money until we know that we want to do this. This in hand creates a really hard time for us to set up cash games @10 dollars because we don't know how to distribute $10 dollars in a even denominations that allows buy ins later into the night. Also we have a 3 of us who feel confident in putting $50 in but that causes a large chip gap with 2-4 blinds and pot limit. I really need help as I don't want to scare people away and also want to have a good number of people to invite new players and other friends.

So that in turn what do I do?

Do I raise buy ins?

Do I keep running tournament style winner takes all?

Do I keep $10 and do really inflated chip amounts?


HELP Please Thanks!!

I’ve got a solution for you (depending on the type of chips you‘re playing with).
My buddies and I usually buy in for $20-$40 to start. If you’re using cheapo, non-denom chips, the chips we get are only valued at .25 and $1 - red, white, or blue are .25 and green or black is worth $1. You can do lower denoms also.

Denominated chips work too. Make $5 > $.05, $25 > $.25, $1 stays... There are so many ways to do it!

You can limit bets and cap the number of raises if you want, too.

Knowing your options allows you to set up your game for your group’s most beneficial experience.

 

[cpiaaq]

I'll just echo the advice that you need a denomination smaller than a quarter for small buy-in games. With only a quarter there's very little room for raises that also keep the betting small. It's easy to end up with 1/2 your buy-in in the pot for one hand.