The Poker Lab Home Game & Chipping Journey - Personal Thread (1 Viewer)

mr11

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Welcome to my personal thread! Currently, I’ve been a part of PCF for a year now. I wanted to create this thread to track my journey and also allow anyone who is interested to follow along.

I wanted to start this thread off by reflecting on all that I’ve done in my first year. Let’s start off with the origin of my card room name - The Poker Lab. The card room name carries two meanings. The first is to spotlight by black lab named Coby. He’s always right by our side when we’re playing and always gives everyone an energetic greeting when they walk in the door. The other meaning is that the card room is a place for our players and myself to learn and grow in the game of poker. I’m an engineer by trade so I felt the scientific meaning was quite fitting.
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First project that I took on for the card room was acquiring two tables and refelting them.

Before photos (not actual photos but very close the condition they were in)
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After photos (wood table has been cleaned up since last photo)
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I try to host every other month as this makes it so our players are ready to play again and it’s not such a strain on me. I became a father last summer so I’ve been only able to host three times. Our tournaments have all been $40 buy-in NLTH with one re-buy allowed and have followed the structure laid out by Chris Manzoli’s YouTube videos. I’ll also do a $0.25/$0.50 cash game for anyone who is knocked out early or whoever wants to still play when the tournament is done. We also try to do a bottle share for our whiskey enthusiasts and I always put up something allocated to treat my guests.

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I had to learn how to use Tournament Director and I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it. Maybe later on I’ll post some templates. I’ve also learned how to use Adobe Illustrator and have created dealer buttons and Bounty chips for The Poker Lab.
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CPC design is in the works too
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/the-poker-lab-mockup.131610/

I’ve been able to acquire 2 sets of chips (1 tournament and 1 cash) that I don’t plan on ever getting rid of. I’ve got a few other sets that I’m working on but don’t want to post those in case I go in a different direction.

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Here is the card collection (shout out to @Bacon Dad for providing a lot of recommendations)
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I also redid the bathroom used for poker nights.
Before
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After
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I’ve got a more upgrades in mind and will provide updates as things get completed. Thanks for checking out the thread and feel free to ask any questions or provide any recommendations.
 

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This is very cool for a first year. Solid table re-ups and your setup looks great!

Love the theme and the attention to detail. Easy to see you are a good host. Congrats on becoming a Dad!

Can't wait for my son to be old enough to play with us in my league.
 
What a great setup! You are quite a lucky guy, congrats on the kid.

If I may ask, where did you get your speed felt for your tables?
 
What a great setup! You are quite a lucky guy, congrats on the kid.
Thank you!
If I may ask, where did you get your speed felt for your tables?
I went cheap and just got it off Amazon.
https://a.co/d/00aiMoEG

There is definitely better fabric out there and it’s quite a rabbit hole to choose from. General consensus I got from research is that it’s not going to matter too much. People are going to spill drinks, eat food, get their dirty hands all over the table so just go cheap. The speed cloth is 1000x better than the shitty felt that was on there before. Down the road, I’d like to upgrade the table and do a custom build where I’ll go with nicer fabric.
 

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