Trying to limit the amount of money on the table?

[whodaman]

I play in a few different home games.
Last night we played .25, .25 blinds and there were five of us playing. Most people bought in for 10-15$ and quickly rebought two or even three times. Soon there is over 140$ on the table and no one wants to raise the blinds or buy chips off eachother.
Most of the time having lots of money on the table is good for me, but when im having a bad night it can lead to huge downswings which my bankroll really doesn't like.
My question is how to get my friends to limit the amount each of us is buying in for?
1. Buy the chips off each other or buy some % of the chips?
Problem is that the guys like being deepstacked.
2. Adjust the blinds somehow?
Reason is people start playing ridiculoousy tight by the end and the game gets boring when we have 2 guys who have 4 $ in chips and 2 guys with 60+
3. Don't let people rebuy more than x number of times?
Problem: There my friends and if they want to play(and give me there money) I'm not going to kick them out etc..
4. In hellmuth's book he says to have people cash out chips above a certain amount... I dont see how this would help tho?
Any suggestions as to how I can keep my 10$ buyin game with 5 friends from turning into friends losing 50$ a night?

Thanks
Mike

[Young Gun]

First off, losing a lot of money everynow and then is part of playing any NO LIMIT game. If you want to limit how much money is flying around I would suggest introducing fixed limit play and/or tourneys. Tourneys are just as fun as cash games and usually more exciting than limit play.
As for your own apparent disinterest in the fact that there is a lot of money on the table I would ask you why. If the problem is that you go broke and buyin for $10 again while everyone else has more, raise your max buy-in. That way the people that go bust can buy back in for whatever they want. This should also liven up the action for yourself. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[whodaman]

The reason i dont want as much money flying around the table is that these guys are my friends.

Limit is never gonna work with these guys.

Tournys are great and we play them half the time but the other half of the time the guys want cash games that way they can play for five hours and not risk getting busted in the first hour and having nothing to do for 4 hours.

Maybe i should try to recruit more guys(fish) to come play with us and that way we could start up sidegames after the guys get busted out of the tourney.

I will push tournys more.

Thanks Mike

[Young Gun]

[ QUOTE ]
The reason i dont want as much money flying around the table is that these guys are my friends.

[/ QUOTE ]


That sounds reasonable. Your stakes are going to rise the longer you play; it's that simple. I can understand that you don't want to take money from your friends. There is a remedy for that however. If you educate all your friends in how the game is properly played you will find that winning gets spread around more, there will be less bad beats, and you will have more fun. The solution to this entire problem is not to try to limit the money on the table but to improve the level of play in your game.

[Wesley N]

Also,
Don't listen to 1 thing Helmuth says in his book... he's an idiot and his words are worthless, his play only worked for him, & really he got more lucky draws than anything

[reubenf]

If you're just worried about your friends losing too much money, would it work to simply change the blinds to .05/.10 or .10/.10? Now you can buy in for $5-$10 instead of $10-$15 and still have deep stacks. I doubt they'll mind playing for lower stakes since you're using chips, and they probably just like having a bunch of chips to play with.

[smoore]

Hellmuth didn't win 9 HE bracelets on luck man.

Some things in his book are good advice, the LHE section is poop. I have used his "cash down" rule at my home game with limited success. I feel cheated when I see $20 bills go into people's pockets. Maybe it's just me.

What's the problem with deep stacks? Is it that the guys with $4 don't want to lose any more money? One thing you might do is make the buy-in/blinds change over the course of the night, almost like a tourney.

2hrs = $10 max, .05/.10 blinds
2hrs = $20 max, .10/.25 blinds
till dawn = no max, .25/.50 blinds

I haven't tried this but it would seem to alleviate at least a few problems. It also may introduce 12310987142104 more /images/graemlins/wink.gif

And yes, newbies definitely spice up the ol' weekly game.

[Accident]

I can add that Helmuth's DVD's on holdem are totally worthless. I got suckered into them. As for the home games.
Tourneys will eliminate your problems w/the cash problem. I don't really understand it that well, but the tourney should fix that.
At my house, only chips play. When it's No Limit. It's NO LIMIT!! Table stakes. I've had guys buy in with as little as $7 after busting out. I always buy in for more than anyone else too. Nice to have a black chip in your stack. As for losing your whole stack, just fold. You dont have to raise all-in or call the all-in. May be bad advice but if you are worried about losing $20, then the stakes are too high. Stay in your comfort zone.
Accident /images/graemlins/club.gif

[bingledork]

Hellmuth's cash-out suggestion is one of the few good things from his book. It works well for my group. Yes, it sucks when people cash out some of their winnings, but it sucks worse when those same people cash out completely and go home because the stacks get too deep for their comfort level. We make everyone keep the minimum buy-in amount at the table (100 BB).

If you want to keep people from losing $50 in a night, you need to drop you big blinds to about $0.10. We have a $0.20 big blind with $20 buy-ins and $60 losses are fairly common.

[unloaded]

Have a set buy-in and allow rebuys only if somebody goes broke. This will limit the chips on the table somewhat and also force some action. The guys with short stacks will play looser trying to go broke so they can reload.

peace.
unloaded

[whodaman]

thats a really good idea.