Hmm... that would motivate me to fart just to see if I could get the guy next to me blamed.
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What are your "home rules" at your home game ? (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter 1A25R
- Start date
Hmm... that would motivate me to fart just to see if I could get the guy next to me blamed.
Rhodeman77
Straight Flush
The game raked $3 per hand if the pot hit $30 for the bad beat. All the other money was extra to build it faster. It was usually about $2k.
No big business in the upstairs bathroom.
Followed by singing “Kumbaya”
Poker Zombie
Royal Flush
Unusual rules we implement:
- Rebuys net the player 110% the starting stack. Players do not need to be "felted", but they forfeit all chips they have remaining before the rebuy.
- Eliminated players may wait up to one orbit to decide if they wish to rebuy. They will be responsible for any missed blinds.
OP
OP
1A25R
Flush
You could also do a high hand jack pot without the rakes if you want. You could have everyone pitch in 5 to 10 bucks. The high hand of the evening collects it at the end of the night. I enjoyed it. I didn't feel like my group cared for it. I even have a cool HHJP plaque that I believe @Quicksilver-75 did.
B
B
RichMahogany
Straight Flush
We do the same thing. Depending on the stakes, we take $1 for every $20/$25 in the pot, then pay out the high hand every 2 hours. If we have an all-in and run it twice, only the first board counts towards the high hand. A ceramic “show em” chip is what we use to denote who has the high hand
We had a $10 optional "Bad Beat" jackpot awarded at the end of the night. The highest losing hand wins the jackpot. Players who opt in get a bounty chip, all of which are held by the player with the current highest losing hand. Players (including me) prefer this to a HH jackpot.
I prefer the HHJP. However, occasionally @Marc Hedrick will do it the way your suggesting. Both ways are fun. The more gamble the better
I’m not crazy about it, but we do a splash pot. A $1 is taken from each pot and when it reaches $40, every player that wants to participate puts $5 up. Then a hand gets dealt out, followed by a flop, turn and river. No betting. The winner will win the $40 + $5 from each player that participated. The nice part about it is if you got felted and are out of the game, you can still participate in the splash pot. The house puts up their $5
RichMahogany
Straight Flush
I prefer the HHJP. However, occasionally @Marc Hedrick will do it the way your suggesting. Both ways are fun. The more gamble the better
Add in some bomb pots, flips, 7-2 game, and a small blind jackpot for even more gambol!
I don't care for any of those honestly. Also, our home game doesn't need anything to juice it up. There is never a lack of "action" in our games lol.
RichMahogany
Straight Flush
Nice! At our last game, I suggested a bomb pot on the next hand and was dealt pocket 4s. Flopped a set and got it all in on the flop vs a pair of Kings. Ran it twice and it held up!
Not sure if they’ll listen next time I suggest a bomb pot lol
What’s a bomb pot?
RichMahogany
Straight Flush
Everyone throws a predetermined amount into the pot and then all players immediately see a flop. Play continues normally from there. We usually do $5 per bomb pot, and $5 per flip
Our tournament includes an add-on at the break which is about 1/3 of a starting stack. There are no rebuys, but if you bust early you can take the add-on as kind of a “short” rebuy.
Lately we made it that if your stack fell below a certain level (roughly 1/5 of your starting stack) you could also take the add-on early—i.e., that you didn’t have to bust to take it before the break. This appealed to people because it’s much better to still have 50% of a starting stack in a tourney than just 30%.
Both have the effect of not sending players home too early, while still discouraging the type of BINGO play which occurred when we tried full and sometimes unlimited rebuys. This is good both for the health of the game overall—people get more hours of entertainment from their poker night and also for our cash game after, which suffers if someone busts in the first hour and goes home early, not wanting to wait a long time for cash to begin.
Lately we made it that if your stack fell below a certain level (roughly 1/5 of your starting stack) you could also take the add-on early—i.e., that you didn’t have to bust to take it before the break. This appealed to people because it’s much better to still have 50% of a starting stack in a tourney than just 30%.
Both have the effect of not sending players home too early, while still discouraging the type of BINGO play which occurred when we tried full and sometimes unlimited rebuys. This is good both for the health of the game overall—people get more hours of entertainment from their poker night and also for our cash game after, which suffers if someone busts in the first hour and goes home early, not wanting to wait a long time for cash to begin.
Poker Zombie
Royal Flush
Our tournaments also have a nightly bonus. It will vary from month to month, but they have included...
- Bad Beat - highest losing hand of the night. This one is the most common, around 40% of the games.
- Bounty - If a player wins in 2 consecutive appearances, they get a bounty put on their last chip. If they win a 3rd time, they also collect their own bounty.
- Hot Streak - be the first player to win 3 consecutive hands.
- Lucky Hand - The first hand of each level gets a special octagon-shaped "Bonus" chip added to the pot. The player with the most "Bonus" chips at the end of the night wins the bonus.
- Valentines Day - Best hearts flush of the night.
- Sack! - a bounty tournament, but we used mini-footballs as the tokens. Sadly, someone took all but 2 of the mini-footballs home, so we could not replicate this for the next year (a Super Bowl weekend game).
Venturalvn
Full House
Only hard and fast rule at my place is all money stays on the table. To me it almost seems like a commandment of the game of poker itself, but for some reason I've had to battle this before.
Back in the day my uncle, who used to play at casinos regularly, ran a 2- to 3-table tourney bi-weekly with cash game afterwards and was one of the biggest violators of this. Granted it was his own game so be it, but as the night wore on people would rebuy cash, and instead of getting up and getting chips for cash, he would take the cash and chip from his own stack...k fine. But then POCKET the cash. I never understood why he had this is in his head as normal, but even with me being 18-21 years old it would cause some serious arguments.
Now that I run my game, it seems weird to me that I would ever have to enforce it. I haven't had to yet, because I actively run my game.
Although soon I'm about to add another. After covering $85 in pizza, a case of beer, soda, and water, and bags of chips and pretzels, and only getting $15 donations in from 2 tables of players, next time I might take a more mandatory donation for pizza. I pride myself in being a good host. I have never asked for donations, nor do I particularly care since I can Costco most things at a fair price. But being stuck 3 buy-ins in a $40-60 .50/.50 game before the night even begins is kind of annoying.
Back in the day my uncle, who used to play at casinos regularly, ran a 2- to 3-table tourney bi-weekly with cash game afterwards and was one of the biggest violators of this. Granted it was his own game so be it, but as the night wore on people would rebuy cash, and instead of getting up and getting chips for cash, he would take the cash and chip from his own stack...k fine. But then POCKET the cash. I never understood why he had this is in his head as normal, but even with me being 18-21 years old it would cause some serious arguments.
Now that I run my game, it seems weird to me that I would ever have to enforce it. I haven't had to yet, because I actively run my game.
Although soon I'm about to add another. After covering $85 in pizza, a case of beer, soda, and water, and bags of chips and pretzels, and only getting $15 donations in from 2 tables of players, next time I might take a more mandatory donation for pizza. I pride myself in being a good host. I have never asked for donations, nor do I particularly care since I can Costco most things at a fair price. But being stuck 3 buy-ins in a $40-60 .50/.50 game before the night even begins is kind of annoying.
Poker Zombie
Royal Flush
I think ^^this is often overlooked by tournament hosts. If you drive 30 minutes to get to a game, and you have 30 minutes to go home, your players deserve at least an hour of poker. This can be managed to some degree via rebuys (though unlimited is also bad for limited bankrolls), and blinds. The earliest I've had someone ever knocked out after they had a rebuy was at around the 1 hour 15 minutes mark. It happened twice, both times using the blind structures from Las Vegas casinos.
Your idea sounds like it works too.
Thank you for sharing this doc. It’s a very good, succinct collection of reminders and rules.
My one question was about this rule:
- Verbal actions are binding regardless of physical actions.
(Presumably, if someone has made a small bet, it’s not OK to shove your whole stack in and then just say “call,” and have the verbalization negate the shove... Or, conversely, if you put calling chips in but then say “all in,” that would be just a call, no?)
I must be missing something.
I ran my game for 2.5 years on a 'donation only' basis. It started off just fine, but eventually ended up being 6-8 guys short each week. Two months ago I added $20 to the buy-in, and $10 to the prize pool, for a $80 total entry cost. I was transparent, got some grumbling, but it hasn't stopped anyone from coming and now the beer and food are covered. It costs me $300 to $350 a month to host.
Poker Zombie
Royal Flush
A tough spot to be in. Will you also chip in gas money for players that have to drive to get to your place, and share the Uber costs with players that drink a little too much?
As a host, I spend some serious outlay in food. Usually $50 a night, but once a year a do a prime rib and that soars into the $200 ballpark. I pitch a $20 tournament ($30 for prime rib). I wouldn't dream of going mandatory. However, my players now bring pot-luck items. This has saved me the effort of cooking around dietary restrictions and doing sides for 30 people.
Venturalvn
Full House
Once I start hosting tournaments I might make this a thing. We have only played cash for a number of years, and weirdly enough when there's only 6-8 handed, everyone pitches in. I usually break even on pizza, and I'm fine paying for snacks and I always have drink around and people often bring a 6'er with them. Finally got 2 tables going, and all of a sudden all the regs forgot at the same time on the same night. Groupthink in action.
The disparity in players’ bankrolls led to the elimination of full/unlimited rebuys, and this alternative solution.
I’d say about half the players in our tourney want to invest only the buy-in plus the small add-on; a quarter would do one rebuy, tops; and a quarter would happily rebuy all night.
And the latter is what happened when we tried unlimited rebuys. Several of the best-rolled players just kept taking wild chances and peeling repeatedly, until they doubled or tripled up. It meant a lot more money in the pool, but it also caused real resentment among those players on a tighter budget. They didn’t think it was fair that to get in the money, they might have to beat the same player 3-5 times.
(That actually happened to me in someone else’s tournament recently... I knocked a BINGO player out three times. He was pretty short each time, so I did not amass that huge a stack from it. After the third bust-out, he waited until the break, then took a fourth re-entry “because he didn’t want to go home.” Later, at the final table, he knocked me out on a coinflip hand—my JhTh vs. his 99 on a 7h8h2s board... actually I was a 56% favorite at that point. It felt kind of lousy to have a guy I’d outplayed repeatedly bust me because he was willing to just keep rebuying.)
Venturalvn
Full House
Of course I understand the situation, and I pride myself in being a good host. The fridge is always full of beer, soda, and water. Preztels, chips, snacks, and booze are provided without any ask. But the odd part was that on the same night where the hosting was the most expensive, even the regulars didn't hand over their usual pizza money.
I would never invite people into my house while asking for things. It always struck me as odd. But in this case there's 2 outcomes - either I stop supplying mains and I deal with people who either complain about being hungry or leave the game early to go eat, or I eat the cost.
The ONLY thing I have an issue with is the cost to host vs the buy in amount. If I had enough action for $1/1 or $1/3 game I'd spend even more on hosting. But if I'm paying $150 just to have people over to try to take even more of my money, and when an average win doesn't even break me even on the food costs, then I'd just as soon not provide mains.
You could suggest that (say) $5 per buy-in is an appropriate amount to be donated toward game expenses, not to exceed a total from all players of more than you actually spend on food/drink/etc...
So if someone buys for $60 in chips, they should either hand $65 over, or take $55 in chips (the former being preferable). If there are so many buy-ins that there is a surplus, either the donations are suspended for the night, or that goes to the food/drink pool for future games. Or to buying fresh decks when needed, or the like.
If someone shirks repeatedly, disinvite them for a while. They’ll either get the message or should find a different game, IMHO.
While this could be construed as a rake, I suppose, at those stakes it doesn’t sound like a bust is going to happen. And to the extent that you can document the communal expenses, you would be able to show that you were not profiting from the game.
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I always fill the hot dog roller with hot dogs and a variety of taquitos, mini egg rolls and corn dogs, buy a 30 of miller lite and put my bar out. Everyone has their own way of doing things, but I just don't like requiring my friends to pay for food and drink when they come to my house. I always tell people if you feel like bringing something to eat or drink, feel free, its is appreciated but it is not required. A lot of people in the group are at each others houses for parties and social events through the year, so it evens out. I guess if it costs me $30-$50 a month to show my friends a good time, I'm ok with that.
Venturalvn
Full House
I agree that $30-50 a month is fine. I would say even more than that is fine. But $150 a game with a $40 buy in seems excessive to cover.
Not to say that this is anyone's fault! Or that I expect or demand more! But I either will change what I provide, or take a collection at the time that the delivery order is placed.
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