Cash Game Stakes too low? (2 Viewers)

[Gojira777]

If someone has like $12.75 left in their stack and they want to top up, I just let them top up for $20 more, I don't make it an exact $17.25.

This is the exact reason I came up with this!
I’m afraid players would maybe find it unfair when I let one player have more than another.

Where do you draw the line when rounding?

 

[QuietMaple]

This is the exact reason I came up with this!
I’m afraid players would maybe find it unfair when I let one player have more than another.

Where do you draw the line when rounding?

I don't have a hard and fast rule, but no one has ever complained. Its usually something like: "oh you have 10x$1 chips in front of you and ~1/2 barrel of $0.25 chips? You can top up for $20 more."

Also remember that if someone is topping up, that necessarily means that the other players at the table have (on average) more chips than their initial buy-in. So when someone tops up in my game, even if its a bit more than $30 total, they aren't suddenly the big stack, they still have a smaller stack than several others at the table.

 

[FestiveKnight]

First of all: Thank you for all of the ideas!

After some time for consideration I decided I want to try a .25/.25 with a 20€ fixed buyin.
Still I am struggling a bit with how I should allow top ups. In my .05/.10 game we were playing relatively deep with usually 200+ bb. I just said you can always top up to 20€ which was also the max buy in. But I don‘t want to do add ons for odd amounts. With 20€ in .25/.25 we will only have 80bbs. I am very fine with addons enabeling you to go a bit above 80bbs without raising the buyins for now.

Would it be reasonable to make a rule that says you can add up to 20€ to your stack once you‘re under 10€? This would allow up to (or close to) 30€ in your stack for 120bb. That way I don‘t have to count out chips and I could just hand out a barrel of 1s. Would this be an unfair advantage since the max buy in is only 20€? What would your alternatives sound like?

Please let me know what you think!

People do this. I personally don’t like any kind of “go above max when below a certain threshold.” It adds a weird incentive to the game and I think buy in rules should facilitate the game but not change it.

Some of my players would read this as: “go super agro early and either I pick up some big wins or if I lose the first half of my stack I can now top up to a 50% larger stack than everyone but who I lost to.”

I just don’t like it but do what you want!

 

[FestiveKnight]

This is the exact reason I came up with this!
I’m afraid players would maybe find it unfair when I let one player have more than another.

Where do you draw the line when rounding?

Either it’s a friendly game and no one should care or it’s an intense game and no one will care you took the extra time to count it out. Either way I think you’re thinking a little too much about the chips (I know this is PCF…) and not enough about how these scenarios will just play out

 

[Gojira777]

People do this. I personally don’t like any kind of “go above max when below a certain threshold.” It adds a weird incentive to the game and I think buy in rules should facilitate the game but not change it.

Some of my players would read this as: “go super agro early and either I pick up some big wins or if I lose the first half of my stack I can now top up to a 50% larger stack than everyone but who I lost to.”

I just don’t like it but do what you want!

That makes sense! That is the reason why I‘m asking, so that you can point out to me what I‘m missing.
QuietMaple suggested a nice alternative!

Either it’s a friendly game and no one should care or it’s an intense game and no one will care you took the extra time to count it out. Either way I think you’re thinking a little too much about the chips (I know this is PCF…) and not enough about how these scenarios will just play out

it‘s definitely a friendly game, and you two are right. Probably no one will complain about this.

I understand why you don‘t like my initial idea.

 

[TheYeti]

People do this. I personally don’t like any kind of “go above max when below a certain threshold.” It adds a weird incentive to the game and I think buy in rules should facilitate the game but not change it.

Some of my players would read this as: “go super agro early and either I pick up some big wins or if I lose the first half of my stack I can now top up to a 50% larger stack than everyone but who I lost to.”

I just don’t like it but do what you want!

Agree, and this is exactly why I recently moved away from the "add-on for 1.5x if less than .5x" rule at my game.

For about a year, we did "match half the big stack", and as you can probably guess, that didn't work out well for my less experienced and lesser bankrolled players. So I changed it to the 1.5x add-on and after about a year I can tell that a few of players still aren't that comfortable with how big the game is playing. I've even seen 2 or 3 semi-regs slow in attendance, and then eventually just stop coming altogether.

In hopes of getting those players (and new players) back into the fold I have just recently reduced it back to 1x. We'll see how it goes, first game is next week.

 

[4SUMERZ]

First of all: Thank you for all of the ideas!

After some time for consideration I decided I want to try a .25/.25 with a 20€ fixed buyin.
Still I am struggling a bit with how I should allow top ups. In my .05/.10 game we were playing relatively deep with usually 200+ bb. I just said you can always top up to 20€ which was also the max buy in. But I don‘t want to do add ons for odd amounts. With 20€ in .25/.25 we will only have 80bbs. I am very fine with addons enabeling you to go a bit above 80bbs without raising the buyins for now.

Would it be reasonable to make a rule that says you can add up to 20€ to your stack once you‘re under 10€? This would allow up to (or close to) 30€ in your stack for 120bb. That way I don‘t have to count out chips and I could just hand out a barrel of 1s. Would this be an unfair advantage since the max buy in is only 20€? What would your alternatives sound like?

Please let me know what you think!

At my $0.25/$0.25 blind $25 buy in. once a person's stack is below approx 75% of starting stack (approx $7), then they can buy another buy in of $25 to add on to the $7 for a total of $32 in this example.
I also allow buy in of $10-$15 or $20 when stack is $7 or below, if they don't want the entire $25. Most of my players buy the $25 unless they have bought in a few times and our session is near the end of the 4.5 hours.
It's your house, your rules as to buy in rulings as long as everyone knows the rules.

 

[Gojira777]

Agree, and this is exactly why I recently moved away from the "add-on for 1.5x if less than .5x" rule at my game.

For about a year, we did "match half the big stack", and as you can probably guess, that didn't work out well for my less experienced and lesser bankrolled players. So I changed it to the 1.5x add-on and after about a year I can tell that a few of players still aren't that comfortable with how big the game is playing. I've even seen 2 or 3 semi-regs slow in attendance, and then eventually just stop coming altogether.

In hopes of getting those players (and new players) back into the fold I have just recently reduced it back to 1x. We'll see how it goes, first game is next week.

So how exactly do you do addons? By counting out chips to match the max exactly?

 

[TheYeti]

So how exactly do you do addons? By counting out chips to match the max exactly?

We mostly just eyeball it. "You have about $33 left? Go ahead and add $70." (Our max is $100)

 

[Tonystark137]

We mostly just eyeball it. "You have about $33 left? Go ahead and add $70." (Our max is $100)

This is what we do. oh the biggest stack is about $250; rebuy up to $125~$140.

 

[Tonystark137]

This is what we do. oh the biggest stack is about $250; rebuy up to $125~$140.

Most of my players make stacks of 20x so it's just an glance at the $5s and $1 for a rough count of stack value.

 

[Gojira777]

Most of my players make stacks of 20x so it's just an glance at the $5s and $1 for a rough count of stack value.

Ohh I‘m still dreaming of the day my players make stacks of 20…

 

[Gojira777]

Sounds like that‘s the way to go then. I think I will stick to around max buyin.

 

[4SUMERZ]

Ohh I‘m still dreaming of the day my players make stacks of 20…

I'd be thrilled if mine did stacks of 10, but it's just random for most..its easier to guess when their stacks are only a few chips high.

 

[Gojira777]

I'd be thrilled if mine did stacks of 10, but it's just random for most..its easier to guess when their stacks are only a few chips high.

I have some dudes that make stacks of 10 sometimes, but mostly it‘s random. Last game one of the guys put all of his quarters in stacks of 4…. He ended up winning big and had like 15 of those mini stacks in the end. One big tower of nickels in the middle and random amounts of 1s. It was hard to watch.

 

[Gojira777]

We played .25/.25 today and it was perfect! We did fixed buyins for 20€ and we agreed to adjust to 20€-40€ or 20€-50€ next game.

We had about 340€ on the table (6-handed) for a total of 17 buyins and 1360 bbs. We played for 7 hours. The stakes felt perfect and everybody felt this way. We had some very big pots, in PLO double board bomb pots especially.

I bought in for 75€ total after being down all night but climbed back up to 101€ in the last hour.

 

[QuietMaple]

Glad it went so well! Wow, I wish I could get my crew to play for 7 hours