Advice for Introducing all new players

With no luck finding an established game to join, I'm trying to set up a new game and have had positive results from about 8 people in the same boat. Of course, none of us knows each other.


We all want to play the same limits and games, so that's no problem...


Should I worry about introducing people to each other (and making everyone more comfortable) by having just a small tourney the first night? Or slightly lower limits to put people at ease?


Or should I not worry about it.


TIA,


Doc.

Doc - I don't know the answers to yur questions. I think it's a matter of personal style. When I host any event in my home, I always make sure the people who have been invited are introduced to each other. When a new player comes to our weekly (rotating) home game, everybody is introduced to the new player and we make an effort to make the new player feel welcome.


You wrote, "With no luck finding an established game to join, I'm trying to set up a new game and have had positive results from about 8 people in the same boat. Of course, none of us knows each other."


I'm wondering how you went about contacting eight strangers to play poker.


Buzz

I'm wondering how you went about contacting eight strangers to play poker.


It took 200 pages of the Rochester-area phone book to find 'em, but I got 'em.


No, actually, posting on PokerPages.com Home Games Forum, plus a little active recruiting at the card room that's about two hours away from here.


I posted that I was looking for an established game (1-2 to 3-6, 7CS/HE) and got a bunch of responses of "me, too."


Doc.

Absolutely yes, make everybody comfortable and do worry about them being happy if you want the game to endure.


Going in cold to a home game where you know nobody is a lot like answering an "I'm single and looking for someone who likes pets and mahjong" add in the classifieds. At the top of their minds is the simple question: Who's going to screw whom?


Since the answer is dangerously unknown you've got to make them enjoy the results, however it turns out. Or no second date.

In our regular home game I deal most of the time for the entire night with breaks from a buddy. I look at it as my job as the host/dealer to make sure new players are intro'd to everyone, I use their name all night, that they understand the rule variations we may have and that the action is made clear to them if they are at all new to poker. Of course this is all done in the most friendly way without pressure.

The world of poker has to compete with soooo much these days that we need all the new players we can get (a Rounders II movie would help also) and we need then to have a great time (win or lose).

I find that more in a home game than a casino the lasting power of the game is based on a good time more than any thing else.

1 Leg Lance