Cash Game Thoughts on raising stakes? (1 Viewer)

[mconn116]

Next game is a couple weeks out and I have been thinking of our last game and I’m considering raising the stakes… it’s a $50 max buy in game where most people buy in for $30-$40, last game we played mostly nlhe and crazy pineapple .10/.25. My issue is the last game seemed to play bigger than a .10/.25 game (average pre flop raise was around $2). This is a friendly game where we play just to have a fun night, no one comes with the intention of winning big but I get the feeling the lower stakes aren’t respected and it’s playing more like a .25/.50 game. Am I overthinking it and should just stick with the .10/.25 or should I up it to .25/.50? Of note, this next game I’ll be introducing double board bomb pots (probably crazy pineapple) and playing mixed games: nlhe, crazy pineapple, plo, and low Chicago.

 

[Taghkanic]

How long have you been playing at these stakes?

If only a little while, I’d wait a bit to see if the patterns change or stay the same. Shifting around too much can be bad for the player pool.

If you’ve been playing these steaks, a long time, then, sure, ask the players if they be comfortable with bumping the blinds up a bit since the game seems to be playing that way anyhow.

 

[mconn116]

So I started hosting my own game last summer and we started at .25/.50 nlhe only and everyone just bought in at $20, after finding PCF and reading here (and getting a set with nickels) we all agreed to drop the stakes to .10/.25 so we can start with deeper stacks and try to encourage more action for the appropriate stakes. That seemed to work (maybe too well) as the games have gotten more splashy and instead of it’s doing a set $20 buy in I set it as the $50 max. Maybe I’ll keep it at the .10/.25 since we all enjoy our current game even if it is slowly growing in the sense of higher average buy ins and bring it up to everyone if more people start approaching the max buy in regularly.

 

[upNdown]

I dunno. People don’t exactly
respect the stakes in my home game either. But I’d much rather buy in for 100-200 big blinds and splash it around like idiots, and not care if I need to rebuy one or two or three times, than raise the stakes and play scared money with fewer blinds. And I think my guests feel the same way. Anyway, we all seem to have fun.

If you raise the stakes to .25/.50, will everybody be comfortable with buying in for at least $50 more than once?

 

[Moxie Mike]

So I started hosting my own game last summer and we started at .25/.50 nlhe only and everyone just bought in at $20, after finding PCF and reading here (and getting a set with nickels) we all agreed to drop the stakes to .10/.25 so we can start with deeper stacks and try to encourage more action for the appropriate stakes. That seemed to work (maybe too well) as the games have gotten more splashy and instead of it’s doing a set $20 buy in I set it as the $50 max. Maybe I’ll keep it at the .10/.25 since we all enjoy our current game even if it is slowly growing in the sense of higher average buy ins and bring it up to everyone if more people start approaching the max buy in regularly.

Start by uncapping the buy in. It shouldn't affect the action too much until multiple players start coming in with $100 plus. That will be the true test to see how players respond to a game playing bigger than the blinds. If they go with it and adapt, then consider increasing the stakes.

Of note, this next game I’ll be introducing double board bomb pots (probably crazy pineapple) and playing mixed games: nlhe, crazy pineapple, plo, and low Chicago.

Chicago is a stud variant - difficult to play NL or PL without significant modifications to the betting structure i.e. Mississippi Stud.

 

[Highli99]

Don’t raise your stakes until people are routinely in for a lot of buy ins. Small blind deep stack poker is fun anyways. Dont kill the action enjoy it!

 

[Labrat]

This is a friendly game where we play just to have a fun night,

Right there tells me you have the correct stakes. The only thing I could add is maybe just make it .25/.25. It'll play the same. Unless you want to use the nickels, which I completely understand.

If it's a friendly game, it's not about the cash, it's about the friends and the game.

And the sustainability.

 

[mconn116]

Good points here, I’ll keep it at .10/.25 for now. I like the idea of not capping the buy in so maybe I’ll start doing that. The buy ins have slowly been increasing from our original “everyone buys for 20”, maybe I’ll consider raising the stakes once the buy ins start increasing to closer to $100 if it gets to that point. For the most part all the guys are pretty much “down for whatever” when it comes to buy ins at this point, like I said average buy in lately tends to be around 30-40 with the exception of one guy who’s still learning (he’s a great guy and a good addition to the group he doesn’t shy away from the action now and we’ve been slowly teaching him the basics but he still is only comfortable with 20 at a time buy in). Regarding low Chicago we will play it limit .50/1, .05 ante .25 bring in which seems about on par stakes wise with the nl games.

Another thought I had is bringing up the idea to the guys of hosting a “high stakes” party night where we play .50/1 or 1/2 (not truly high stakes I know but it is in comparison) and see if anyone is actually down. Maybe get the wives/girlfriends involved and class it up a bit, serve martinis and champagne and the like as opposed to are usual beer and bourbon . Make it feel a little casino like… Who knows probably just overthinking it, overall I’m just very happy to have gotten to the point where we have a regular game that everyone enjoys and I have never have a problem getting 6-8 handed game together.

TLDR:
.10/.25 it is (with the exception of stud games) for now at least

 

[Larold]

Good points here, I’ll keep it at .10/.25 for now. I like the idea of not capping the buy in so maybe I’ll start doing that. The buy ins have slowly been increasing from our original “everyone buys for 20”, maybe I’ll consider raising the stakes once the buy ins start increasing to closer to $100 if it gets to that point. For the most part all the guys are pretty much “down for whatever” when it comes to buy ins at this point, like I said average buy in lately tends to be around 30-40 with the exception of one guy who’s still learning (he’s a great guy and a good addition to the group he doesn’t shy away from the action now and we’ve been slowly teaching him the basics but he still is only comfortable with 20 at a time buy in). Regarding low Chicago we will play it limit .50/1, .05 ante .25 bring in which seems about on par stakes wise with the nl games.

Another thought I had is bringing up the idea to the guys of hosting a “high stakes” party night where we play .50/1 or 1/2 (not truly high stakes I know but it is in comparison) and see if anyone is actually down. Maybe get the wives/girlfriends involved and class it up a bit, serve martinis and champagne and the like as opposed to are usual beer and bourbon . Make it feel a little casino like… Who knows probably just overthinking it, overall I’m just very happy to have gotten to the point where we have a regular game that everyone enjoys and I have never have a problem getting 6-8 handed game together.

TLDR:
.10/.25 it is (with the exception of stud games) for now at least

When the booze is flowing and the women are playing, try introducing some bomb pots. I would love to be a fly on the wall to see that action.

Something I'm curious of - was it just 1-2 players sticking in the $2 raises, or was it done at various points by most / all players? If it was just 1-2, those folks tend not to respect the stakes and are probably more interested in higher stakes.

I don't know if it adds any value, but you could experiment with kill pots to give folks a taste of higher stakes one hand at a time. If you're not aware, kill pots work like this:

When someone wins a hand, they are passed the kill token. (So you all remember who won the last hand.) You decide ahead of time if taking it down before the flop counts as a win. When the person with the kill token wins a hand (meaning they've won 2 or more in a row), you announce 'kill pot', and two things happen: 1) The blinds go to .25 / .50, and 2) (often, depends on the house) the player with the kill token is required to post a BB at the new stakes, regardless of where the current SB / BB are. It's possible the kill player wins a 3rd (or more) pots in a row; in this case they keep the kill token and the stakes stay higher, and the kill player keeps posting that extra forced BB, until they fold or lose a hand.

Good luck - sounds like a fun night!

 

[mconn116]

The kill pot sounds like a fun idea, I may try and sneak that in at some point, I don’t want to introduce too much new stuff to the group too fast, I’m just starting to get everyone open to new games and I’ll be introducing double board bomb pots this next game. I’ll keep the .10/.25 for now but once everyone feels comfortable with what we have now I like the idea of doing kill pots.

For the pre flip raising, I’d say $2 is a fairly good average, there’s definitely hands when the majority limp in (usually when a few guys get distracted talking and what not) but there’s plenty of $1-$3 raises and re raises pre flop I wouldn’t say it’s just 1-2 players. I’m pretty guilty of it too, gotta drive with the flow of traffic and all and it’s definitely fun when we get splashy like that.

I’ve been trying to get the girls more involved and the handful of times they’ve either played or just hung around the table with us it’s a blast, definitely adds a fun element to the table

 

[upNdown]

Another thought I had is bringing up the idea to the guys of hosting a “high stakes” party night where we play .50/1 or 1/2 (not truly high stakes I know but it is in comparison) and see if anyone is actually down. Maybe get the wives/girlfriends involved and class it up a bit, serve martinis and champagne and the like as opposed to are usual beer and bourbon . Make it feel a little casino like…

At the risk of making assumptions about gender and relationships, do you really want the girlfriends and wives there to witness the only night where people are blowing large amounts of cash?

 

[Tonystark137]

Having some similar thoughts recently. We been playing 5c/10c with standard raise to 40c/60c/80c pre flop. Very splashy table. Thinking of going up to 10c/25c or 25c/25c.

 

[bmacpoker]

After one game I'll advocate for .25/.25 as a good middle ground.

We have played .05/.10 for years now. We started with very low buy in tournament style, using dice chips. Once people got better sets, I made the suggestion to do a cash game since you could join late, reload, etc. Too often someone would bust and it sucks to sit out.

I hadn't even looked into it when I started those stakes, I just figured we would treat it like a 5/10 game and just recalculate during cash out.

Well, at least with our core group, it started playing bigger. We'd sometimes have 3-5 handed .25/.50 because our stacks made more sense for it. Recently we did .25/.25 to keep it accessible for newer or infrequent players, and man it played so well. Some of us stacked up nicely, big pots happened. But a smaller stack could still get involved and still willing to reload. I think all of our games will be this going forward, and it's nice because I don't want to bother with nickel stacks.

 

[JustinInMN]

10/.25 or should I up it to .25/.50?

This would actually be a pretty massive jump.

Don’t raise your stakes until people are routinely in for a lot of buy ins. Small blind deep stack poker is fun anyways. Dont kill the action enjoy it!

I agree. I think players should be willing to go 2-3 buy-ins deep in no-limit play, that's the butter zone.

I like the idea of not capping the buy in so maybe I’ll start doing that.

I really would advise against this or else the game will quickly earn the perception (true or not) that the deeper pockets are at an advantage. I think a buy-in cap is an important governor of the stakes and important to communicate the expectation of risk to the players. And again reiterate the idea that they should be in the habit of being willing to 2-3 buy-ins a night in a cash game. The fact you have some players still going less than max is a red flag about raising the stakes. (Though you say that the buy-ins are getting bigger at least.)

My issue is the last game seemed to play bigger than a .10/.25 game (average pre flop raise was around $2).

Agreed that seems a bit on the high side, and I get the temptation to go to 0.25-0.50, but the big question becomes will these players continue to open for $2 or will they adjust and start opening for $4? if it ends up being the latter, then I think you might have an issue that could eventually run players out the game.

If this preflop sizing is the main concern, you could instead consider a pot-limit pre-flop rule. That gets discussed somewhat frequently here, but I am not sure if anyone practices this regularly But it would have the effect of putting a governor on sizing on an opening round raise to being 3x the BB (if you use the SB counts as complete rule.)

 

[bmacpoker]

I think all of this depends on knowing your crowd. We used to do .05/.10 with $10-$20 buy in, though everyone just does $20. Early on there was a thought that if someone chipped up to like $60+, they'd bully too much and it was hard to play against. Mostly novice calling stations. We'd often to a reset by consensus, so if you're at 60, set aside 40 and only 20 is in play so we are all back on even ground.

We've moved on to match the stack with the same buy in limits, and it works out well but often whittles down to a core 4 or 5 players that don't mind playing bigger stacks or raising stakes.

But we'll still play with some caps depending in who is playing with us. We just want it to be fun, don't want anyone feeling bullied or overwhelmed. Uncapped would be wild for us. Really would only benefit myself and my buddy that always match the largest stack with add ons. I know we'd each start 2000 bb deep, most would prefer 100-200.

Expanding our player group a bit, we're doing a bit of a hybrid stack matching. We'll allow it up to a point, just so a .25/.50 doesn't turn into a 2/3 (which I've taken part in a few times).

 

[Labrat]

Maybe get the wives/girlfriends involved and class it up a bit, serve martinis and champagne and the like as opposed to are usual beer and bourbon .

Saywhatnow?

 

[Larold]

The kill pot sounds like a fun idea, I may try and sneak that in at some point, I don’t want to introduce too much new stuff to the group too fast, I’m just starting to get everyone open to new games and I’ll be introducing double board bomb pots this next game. I’ll keep the .10/.25 for now but once everyone feels comfortable with what we have now I like the idea of doing kill pots.

For the pre flip raising, I’d say $2 is a fairly good average, there’s definitely hands when the majority limp in (usually when a few guys get distracted talking and what not) but there’s plenty of $1-$3 raises and re raises pre flop I wouldn’t say it’s just 1-2 players. I’m pretty guilty of it too, gotta drive with the flow of traffic and all and it’s definitely fun when we get splashy like that.

I’ve been trying to get the girls more involved and the handful of times they’ve either played or just hung around the table with us it’s a blast, definitely adds a fun element to the table

Although boring to some, I've found a great way to get many women introduced and comfortable with poker is a limit structure. Like limit hold'em 25 cent / 50 cent blinds with 50 cent bets/raises on first two rounds and $1 bets / raises on last two rounds.

 

[mconn116]

Getting the girls involved is just an idea, we’ve had them around here and there before during the games and it’s fun… but not something I think they would be up for regularly.

My thoughts on raising the stakes weren’t as much out of concern as much as it was just me thinking if it would be more appropriate at .25/.50. I have thought of just running them at .25/.25 and may give that a shot.

I may not totally remove the max buy in but won’t put as much as an emphasis on it and if more guys start buying for $50 I can bring it back up and possibly discuss with them about raising them to .25/.50 though at those stakes I’d prefer buy ins to be in the 50-100 range instead of the 20-50 range.

 

[bmacpoker]

Getting the girls involved is just an idea, we’ve had them around here and there before during the games and it’s fun… but not something I think they would be up for regularly.

My thoughts on raising the stakes weren’t as much out of concern as much as it was just me thinking if it would be more appropriate at .25/.50. I have thought of just running them at .25/.25 and may give that a shot.

I may not totally remove the max buy in but won’t put as much as an emphasis on it and if more guys start buying for $50 I can bring it back up and possibly discuss with them about raising them to .25/.50 though at those stakes I’d prefer buy ins to be in the 50-100 range instead of the 20-50 range.

I highly recommend giving .25/.25 a shot.

As for getting girls involved, that's an interesting one. We have a mix in our game, our core five players we build around has two women. One of them has a legit poker room and it's our best venue. While still predominantly guys, the game we have is completely inclusive.

My wife and another's wife are more hesitant to jump in, but they play and understand how to play. I don't recommend trying limit games to involve novices or those who aren't as keen to participate. It does not simplify the game unless they've literally never even seen a poker hand before, if anything it gets complicated. I love introducing different games, but that's definitely for people either more experienced or more on board/quick learners.

 

[Workless]

I've run a game for a few years now. It started as a 5c/10c game but eventually we settled on 10c/20c because it was just easier with chips and what not. Our games have been really popular. The closest casino to us is 4.5 hrs away so there's really only home games. We built an awesome player pool where we would get 2 tables almost every week with an occasional 3rd table popping up. The games just started getting bigger and bigger and people weren't "respecting" the stakes which started to push away some of our regs who really enjoy the $20 chill game.

What we decided to do for our game was host a table that is .5/$1 and a table that is .10/.20. It has been wildly popular. I just make people reserve a seat before hand for what they want to play. So far it's worked well. Surprisingly, the .5/$1 game fills up the same day i send the text out. Towards the end of the night it plays bigger probably like a 1/2 or even 1/3 game but that's what they want.

All in all, poker has to sting a little bit. I think for most people, <$50 doesn't quite sting enough for them to really take the stakes seriously. I've found that my small game .10/.20 discourages a large group of people from coming because they don't really wanna play for only $20. For whatever reason, if you call it a 1/2 game people wont show up bc its too big. Even though my .5/1 plays like 1/2, the line is out the door. I think most home games just play bigger than what the stakes are. I cant explain it, but every game i've run plays bigger than what i call it. My experience with tournaments is similar too. <$50 you get a few, >$100 you get a few, but between $50-$100 I run out of seats.

 

[bmacpoker]

I've run a game for a few years now. It started as a 5c/10c game but eventually we settled on 10c/20c because it was just easier with chips and what not. Our games have been really popular. The closest casino to us is 4.5 hrs away so there's really only home games. We built an awesome player pool where we would get 2 tables almost every week with an occasional 3rd table popping up. The games just started getting bigger and bigger and people weren't "respecting" the stakes which started to push away some of our regs who really enjoy the $20 chill game.

What we decided to do for our game was host a table that is .5/$1 and a table that is .10/.20. It has been wildly popular. I just make people reserve a seat before hand for what they want to play. So far it's worked well. Surprisingly, the .5/$1 game fills up the same day i send the text out. Towards the end of the night it plays bigger probably like a 1/2 or even 1/3 game but that's what they want.

All in all, poker has to sting a little bit. I think for most people, <$50 doesn't quite sting enough for them to really take the stakes seriously. I've found that my small game .10/.20 discourages a large group of people from coming because they don't really wanna play for only $20. For whatever reason, if you call it a 1/2 game people wont show up bc its too big. Even though my .5/1 plays like 1/2, the line is out the door. I think most home games just play bigger than what the stakes are. I cant explain it, but every game i've run plays bigger than what i call it. My experience with tournaments is similar too. <$50 you get a few, >$100 you get a few, but between $50-$100 I run out of seats.

Oh for sure they play bigger. At a local casino, I might be in for $100, out for $400-500 in a 1/3 (LA area typically caps buy ins pretty low). But at a .25/.50 match the stack game, in for $50 and out for $900.

 

[Workless]

Oh for sure they play bigger. At a local casino, I might be in for $100, out for $400-500 in a 1/3 (LA area typically caps buy ins pretty low). But at a .25/.50 match the stack game, in for $50 and out for $900.

Its crazy sometimes! I was invited to a game recently and i was asking questions about it. They call it a 1/2 game but its uncapped and typical buy in is between 500-1000. preflop raises are 50-75. I was like uhhh that sounds more like a 5-10 game lol

 

[JustinInMN]

Oh for sure they play bigger. At a local casino, I might be in for $100, out for $400-500 in a 1/3 (LA area typically caps buy ins pretty low). But at a .25/.50 match the stack game, in for $50 and out for $900.

I did notice the low cap the one time I was at the Bike about 2 years ago. I found myself playing 1-2 NLHE with a 60 cap, very surprised at that. (I also had the delight of playing 12/24 mix with Barry Greenstein on that trip.)

 

[bmacpoker]

I did notice the low cap the one time I was at the Bike about 2 years ago. I found myself playing 1-2 NLHE with a 60 cap, very surprised at that. (I also had the delight of playing 12/24 mix with Barry Greenstein on that trip.)

I don't think they do the 1/2 anymore, last time I was there the lowest stakes were 80-120, 1/3 blinds. It's up a tad.

Lucky Lady might be the best. It's still a $100 cap for initial buy in 1/2, but you can reload for 200.

 

[JustinInMN]

I don't think they do the 1/2 anymore, last time I was there the lowest stakes were 80-120, 1/3 blinds. It's up a tad.

Lucky Lady might be the best. It's still a $100 cap for initial buy in 1/2, but you can reload for 200.

Maybe it was $80, like I said it was about two years ago, my one and only trip to southern California. I don't get out there often.

But I think the Bike was an oustanding room.

 

[bmacpoker]

Yep, the Bike is my preferred. Plenty of good ones. Which I think actually hurts the home game scene, it's so difficult to find one that isn't trying to be overly extravagant, I just want a chill low stakes game.

 

[mconn116]

I've run a game for a few years now. It started as a 5c/10c game but eventually we settled on 10c/20c because it was just easier with chips and what not. Our games have been really popular. The closest casino to us is 4.5 hrs away so there's really only home games. We built an awesome player pool where we would get 2 tables almost every week with an occasional 3rd table popping up. The games just started getting bigger and bigger and people weren't "respecting" the stakes which started to push away some of our regs who really enjoy the $20 chill game.

What we decided to do for our game was host a table that is .5/$1 and a table that is .10/.20. It has been wildly popular. I just make people reserve a seat before hand for what they want to play. So far it's worked well. Surprisingly, the .5/$1 game fills up the same day i send the text out. Towards the end of the night it plays bigger probably like a 1/2 or even 1/3 game but that's what they want.

All in all, poker has to sting a little bit. I think for most people, <$50 doesn't quite sting enough for them to really take the stakes seriously. I've found that my small game .10/.20 discourages a large group of people from coming because they don't really wanna play for only $20. For whatever reason, if you call it a 1/2 game people wont show up bc its too big. Even though my .5/1 plays like 1/2, the line is out the door. I think most home games just play bigger than what the stakes are. I cant explain it, but every game i've run plays bigger than what i call it. My experience with tournaments is similar too. <$50 you get a few, >$100 you get a few, but between $50-$100 I run out of seats.

I could definitely see how 50-100 would be a good sweet spot for many people. If I were to guess, within 6 months or so we’ll probably end up averaging around there for buy ins. I’ve had this game going around 6 months and we went from everyone buying at 20 for the first couple games to now bring up to around 30-40 average and everyone seems to be getting more comfortable as a whole with multiple rebuys. None of us are extremely well off but we all have good jobs and live comfortably which is why I think the buy ins are increasing as we get more comfortable playing a regular game.

 

[MichaelBubly]

We play .25/.50 usually with average opens around $2.50-$3.50

Then we did a mixed games night and went to .05/.10 and somehow had a dude opening to $5 every hand. With a $50 cap.

The blinds haven't really changed the size of our game very much and really seems like at the end of the day, if two people have big hands, all the money is going in by the river regardless of if you starting 500BB deep or 100bb. Theoretically it should, but I think when people are use to a certain sizing, blinds won't change it for smaller home games.

I played a 1/1 game with some of the same crowd before and it was similar preflop sizings ironically with more 3-betting and predictable play so it might just be people are just kinda sending it in microstake games because it's only $30-50.

 

[drdr]

Although boring to some, I've found a great way to get many women introduced and comfortable with poker is a limit structure. Like limit hold'em 25 cent / 50 cent blinds with 50 cent bets/raises on first two rounds and $1 bets / raises on last two rounds.

I've found that works well with anyone who hasn't played poker. Is a good intro. Limits the chance of someone feeling devastated. Useful for kids learning too.

 

[allforcharity]

The women in the home cash and tourney games I play in are GOOD. I find they are constantly underestimated and they are winning at a higher frequency than their seat percentage indicates.