Buy-in limits relative to blinds for NL Holdem

[LSW]

I currently play in a Holdem home game that is NL with $0.25/$0.50 blinds and a max buy-in of $25. We have found that the blinds are not too small that people are in every hand and the max buy-in does not scare off any of my friends that do not have a lot of scratch. One friend (who I feel is pretty knowledgable about poker) said that the max buy-in should be bigger, more like 100x the big blind ($50 in this case). I just played at the Aladdin last week and they had $1/$2 with $100 max buy-in which is equivalent to 50x big blind like our game. Any thoughts?

[Diggslick]

Your friend's recommendation is standard with conventional wisdom that I've heard. IMHO however, I find that smaller games with inexperienced players, the higher blinds relative to the buy-in works better.

[Fins]

Some do a 50BB min & 100BB max... you could lower your blinds to relfect that (e.g. 10¢/20¢) but I'd just leave it as is. Some don't like playing under 100BB because it leaves you too short-stacked to bet appropriately in certain situations.

- Fins

[PokerChamp22]

Stick with what works. It seems like 90% of the players enjoy the game as is. Your friend has a point with the blinds, but if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

[jojobinks]

in my home game we play 100bb. if people want to limp every hand, they can do so; decreasing stack size won't help that anyhow. the large stacks allow you to play poker after the flop. 50bb isn't terrible; but i find 100bb preferable.

[PokerChamp22]

No disagreement here at all, but it seems like his particular game likes this setup and may be against higher buyins.

[jtr]

[ QUOTE ]
I just played at the Aladdin last week and they had $1/$2 with $100 max buy-in which is equivalent to 50x big blind like our game. Any thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

A quick thought: the Aladdin's motives in choosing this structure may be a bit different to yours. For a given buy-in amount, the larger blinds will generate larger pots and thus more rake.

As others have said, many people like 100 big blinds in a starting stack, but 50 is certainly playable. (Fifty was Party Poker's structure until very recently.)

Go with what works for your game.

(If you'd posted here and said you were buying in for $25 and had blinds of 0.50/1 or even 1/2 then I think you'd get some criticisms that your structure doesn't allow for much in the way of postflop play. But 50 is close enough, although it will mean that in well played hands the last decision you have to make is whether to raise a flop bet.)

[el_grande]

Home game I play in was $.25/$.50 blinds with a $20 buyin for the longest time. A lot of novices. After about 10 poker nights, players got better and it got way too tight. Nobody was interested in winning blinds that small. Everybody was limping before so small blinds were ok, but as players learned preflop play the pots were too small.

So now it is $.50/$1 with $40 buyin. Some (weak) players still buyin for $20. Much better now. Usually the big winner of the night wins $150+ which is pretty nice for a friendly game.