tips on a home game

Can anyone give me any tips for how to throw a good home game because im only 14 and me and my friends are having one this friday. And i know you guys have all been to dozens. Like suggestions on food and games and limits and stuff

well kid, it depends on how much money your friends have, lol. most of the games i play, we rotate dealers everyhand and play dealers choice. hold'em, omaha, stud, hi-low, im sure you know the games if you are having a card game friday. if your playing with the blinds, probably play .50 and 1.00, or whatever you think is sufficiant. and if your friends dont like that idea, just ante the same amount everyhand. If you dont like strategy/skill games, there are alot of other games out there ie: guts, 3-5-7, old man, between the sheets, the list goes on, if you haven played them i am sure you will enjoy, unless your are just really into hole'em or stud.. As far as food, your on you own, we always have beer and pizza, but i know your only 14. anyother questions feel free to email me..

email: ubet2many@aol.com

You have to have beer and strippers. Since you probably will be too young to procure either, ask your mother if she would mind picking up a few cases...and then she can get the money she spent on beer back in table dances. You'll be the coolest kid in school.

Make sure your friends keep their mouths shut about the game. The last thing you want is the cops raiding the place, confiscating your money, and maybe arresting your parents.

1) Games: Holdem may be a little advanced for new players, you might try 5-card draw with everyone putting in an ante. You can always have the dealer call whatever wild cards he wants. If you wanna play like the big boys, though, you'll need to play a game without antes or wild cards and use blinds instead ... but this may be extremely foreign to your group. Texas Holdem and 7-card stud are fairly easy to learn and require great skill to play well. I say forget all those silly made-up games like "Dr. Pepper" with a zillion wild cards.


2) Wild cards greatly increase the luck factor, and limit the impact of skill. This can be good or bad depending on your motivation, but wild cards will do little to teach you about the real poker games discussed on this site.


3) You should use chips instead of coins/bills for a more realistic experience, but if you do the person who "banks" needs to be very careful with the counting and money.


4) As for limits, you should play high enough limits so that the game is meaningful, but low enough that people can afford at least 20 bets. If you have a $25 per week allowance and you play for a penny a bet then the game will not be real, as everyone will stay in with every hand. That is not poker. The guiding principle is to gamble enough money so if you loose it hurts a little, and if you win it's pretty cool.


5) You might consider a tournament, for example everyone buys in for $10 and everyone gets 100 chips. You play the same game every hand (i.e. Texas Holdem), and you increase the ante or blinds by double every 30 minutes or whatever timeframe you decide such as 15 minutes. So, blinds would start at SB=1, BB=2 and every 30 minutes they double. You keep playing until one person has all the chips, and you might pay 1st place 60%, 2nd place gets 30% and 3rd place gets 10%.


6) Food: salty snacks go great with poker like chips, dips and nuts. Cokes, near beer and coffee are good drinks. You will want stuff that is not too messy or takes up much space on the playing table. I like Totinos Pizza Rolls personally.


Have fun and let us know how it goes. Poker is a nice way to kill time with buddies, and if you're gifted at cards you can actually expect to be able to consistently beat the game over time. It's a damn good feeling to study and practice the game enough to be able to go to Vegas and EXPECT to win money, but it does take discipline.

First, if you're anywhere near Georgia, and you're playing above 2 dollar limit stakes, you have to tell me where the game is. I'd love to play with a bunch of kids. Email savgames@hotmail.com Guess it's just one thing.

Gee, Jen, I think you're taking the concept of game selection to new lows here. I hope for your sake the email address you posted was fake ... if I was the kid's guardian I'd be pretty steamed that he was getting propositioned to gamble by an adult on the Internet.


Give the kid a break, we were all new to this at one time and if this kid is starting at age 14 then he's got a big jump on many of us!

thanks for the suggestions go-off gomez

My friends and I have a home game every wednesday night. We play Hold'em all the time at the $.25/.50 limits. We take it rather seriously so it's not a cap every betting round event. Also, we're poor college students. We use those plastic poker chips that come in a plastic carousel with a $20 buy-in with unlimited rebuys /images/smile.gif. Make sure you have a decent table. It can get pretty cramped at a small table and big tables suck, trust me. We play on a beer pong table (ping pong sized) with about 9-11 people. Dealing the cards is a pain because you have to stand up while doing so. We penalize misdeals too.

Isn't poker about making money? Hell, if I were at a game with my grandma, I'd clean her out and think nothing of it. I once won a 13 year-old's soul playing ping-pong!


I would have loved to play with a more experienced player, at my limit, when I was first starting out. You'll never learn a thing if you don't lose atleast once in life /images/smile.gif

I agree that chips are the way to go. Even cheap plastic inter-locking chips are better than playing with someone's "ass-pennies". You can get 100 chips for $2 at Walmart in the toy section. Speaking of, I have about 1000 plastic chips (red, white and blue), half in unopened packages, that I need to get rid of. Send me a few bucks for shipping and they're yours /images/smile.gif.

Funny how you are a law abiding citizen when it comes to Jen, but have no problem aiding and abetting a minor to engage in illegal gambling activities. You should have referred him to JOEYBITCH whose posts are in other areas of this forum who would have him avoid become a "pathetic degenerate loser."

and I've found a couple friends that I play Texas Hold'em with. It's a great game considering two years ago all we played was draw poker with deuces AND jokers wild which was just silly. But usually if some players that live near me want to join for a game, I'm up for it /images/smile.gif


Hopefully, I get this "head start" you're talking about. I'm in a $10 buy-in no limit tourny tomorrow.

You need to play with good players to get good. At least players at the next level. You will always lose at first when going up levels though...

They're not all that terrible, but they will not teach you a whole lot about "real" poker.


A few years back my buddies and I used to play an evil game involving wild cards, a split and matching the pot:

- deals like 7-card stud

- low spade down takes half the pot (if someone has a spade in the hole)

- low card down is wild for each player (i.e. you have 2-2-5 down atthe river, hence 2s are wild for you)

- if you stay in at the river and don't get part of the pot by best hand or lowest spade you match the pot


We cleaned out many a person playing that game for one reason: wild cards make much larger hands and many people did not realize this in time. With this game 2 wild cards are common, thus 4-of-a-kind and straight flushes came up a lot. People would stay in with stuff like flushes and boats, and I'd scoop a monster pot and watch the poor hump match it and put it back in the center of the table for us to take a stab at again.


Basically, wild cards are not a game-killer if you understand how to adjust. They also make for bigger pots as people will stay in to try to catch that miracle card.

john vorhaus has some really great articles one of which is how to do a great home game.


dont miss the article on asian games (pan 9, pai gow, etc) either. it's hysterically funny

Gomez - match the pot if you don't get a piece of it?


That's brutal man.


Uh, how often do they keep calling the river bets without the nuts?


You're opening up new horizons for me here. Thanks.

These games are called "burn" games in other parts of the country. A typical burn game will be a variety of "Chicago" whereby a hole spade will get 1/2 the pot, with that spade being the high or low depending on the game you call. We played it with the low spade.


So, best hand wins 1/2 and the spade gets the other 1/2. How often do people call without the nuts? Well, you kind of have to try on occasion IMHO. For example, if you're playing with low spade gets 1/2 the 3 of spades is worth a river call at times. Yes, I have had to match large pots at times.


If you only play the nuts you're gonna lose money over time. Additionally, you need to protect against the button, namely that at the river people without the nuts will fold to the dealer who will scoop the whole pot. Actually, since it's not really a button the person to the right of the high hand showing goes last. This is an enormous advantage.


Of course, idiots will bet the river with stuff like fll houses but that's their problem.


Anecdote: I pretty much gave the game up after this hand - royal flush with the nut spade for a $500 pot my buddy had to match. We were playing low hold wild, where the lowest down card was wild for each player. My 2 was wild, and I had another one up for 2 wild cards in my hand. My hapless buddy had a pair in the hole and a matching card up for 3 wild cards. We both made our royals so we bet it up real big. Unfortunately for him, he made his royal with 3 wilds as opposed to my 2, and with our rules my hand was the winner. After watching him match a $500 pot playing a royal flush (and the second-nut spade as I recall), I decided then and there this game was a little too evil for my tastes!


If you wanna get this evil game going I suggest playing low spade takes 1/2, high hand gets 1/2 and playing low hole wild, match the pot if you don't muck at the river or win a piece of the pot. Look for big quads or straight flushes to win, and try playing the second-nut spade on occasion. Feel your heart pound as you ponder a call wiith quad aces and the 3 of spades on the river with a $500 pot. Grumble when you get paid with a marker. Thank my 300lb friend Cornell who introduced me to the game he called Big Bitch. "Low spade takes 1/2, aces high and match the pot if you don't get a piece, ain't that a bitch!"


Thanks, Cornell...