great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

so my girlfriend thought it would be a good idea to host a small friendly poker tournament after finding out a few of her friends have played before. i thought it was a good idea. she has never played before. she has just watched me so i figured she would be by far the worst one. since this was suppose to be friendly, i thought no big deal. there were 7 people and we all decided that the buy-in should be $10, with $50 going to 1st place and $20 going to second. so far so good. then things got quite intersting. as i was dividing out the chips, EVERYONE tried to tell me that we should have $10 in chips because thats what the buy-in was. and the blinds should be .25/.50. as hard as i tried, and as friendly as possible, i could not get anyone to understand that having that few chips wouldn't be any fun at all because you wouldn't have any room to bet. i mean that is only 20 times the blinds. no matter how hard i tried, they did not get it. i tried to explain that the buy-in has nothing to do with the chips and that we could have $1,000 in chips and it still wouldn't matter. nobody got it. so after several minutes of this, they finally agreed to starting with $20 in chips to "make me happy". well, it didn't stop there. i think it was the first hand that i saw someone bet $1 into a $15 pot only to have someone else raise it up to $1.25. huh? i thought these people had played before??? needless to say, since these were my girlfriend's friends, i didn't say another word all night. i just let it go and tried to have fun and keep the game as friendly as possible. however, apparently one of her friend's called her the next day and said i was a total [censored] about the starting chips. i couldn't believe it. oh well, next time they can play however they want.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

This is the wrong forum.

It really sounds like you tried to get them all to convert to what you thought was right. Even though it's clearly correct, being the one vs. everyone else is an a-hole thing to do. Period.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

really? so if everyone tried to argue that 2-pair beat 3 of a kind, you would just give in?
as far as the wrong forum. i'm not sure this even falls into one of the forums. i was just wondering if any who plays full-time has had problems explaining basic rules in a friendly game. i did feel bad afterwards which i guess is why it's still on my mind. even though the girl who complained showed up with $5 and someone else covered for her and she didn't even know what beats what and one of the other girls came with her husband and 2 kids and her husband got so drunk he quit in the middle of the game and someone had to drive him home and then come back.
everyone agreed after that it worked better the way we did it. it was just the one friend who complained. but it was enough to make me feel bad about it.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

My advice would be to stay the hell away from "friendly" games. The money you could win or the "fun" you could have isn't going to make up for having to deal with people that have either played the game once, twice or never before.

If you do find yourself in this situation, just keep your mouth shut and wait for the pain to end.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
as far as the wrong forum. i'm not sure this even falls into one of the forums.

[/ QUOTE ]

Try posting it in the Home Poker Forum. There is a lot of talk of home tourneys and the like there.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

WTF does this have to do with the internet?

Go back to Home Poker homey.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

sorry, didn't notice the home poker forum before.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

Link Watch out for [censored] and * though.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
Link Watch out for [censored] and * though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Worst advise in this thread.
Don't post Poker in Other, other topics. quick way to get your post moved and in trouble.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Link Watch out for [censored] and * though.

[/ QUOTE ]


Worst advise in this thread.
Don't post Poker in Other, other topics. quick way to get your post moved and in trouble.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that was the idea. If only we could have convinced Mr. McVicker and his reincarnations to post in OOT. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
really? so if everyone tried to argue that 2-pair beat 3 of a kind, you would just give in?
as far as the wrong forum. i'm not sure this even falls into one of the forums. i was just wondering if any who plays full-time has had problems explaining basic rules in a friendly game. i did feel bad afterwards which i guess is why it's still on my mind. even though the girl who complained showed up with $5 and someone else covered for her and she didn't even know what beats what and one of the other girls came with her husband and 2 kids and her husband got so drunk he quit in the middle of the game and someone had to drive him home and then come back.
everyone agreed after that it worked better the way we did it. it was just the one friend who complained. but it was enough to make me feel bad about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

People are idiots, expect nothing, never be disappointed. They managed to [censored] up a perfectly simple game and then somehow blame you, if I was you I would pass on playing with these fools next time, you are the only one who has a clue and they should have taken your advice in good faith.

Mack

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

Next time go to the movies and let the girls play however they want. If you were married this problem wouldn't have come up, you would have known to be long gone before the guests arrived.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

I agree. I live with my brother and he has friendly games at our house every so often. I go down and drink a few beers with the guys but I cant honestly checkraise one of my buddies 3 streets in a row just cause I know he'll go for it and then go to the bar with him the next night. I cant bring myself to soft play these guys either so I just sit out and socialize. I dont really need to spend my liesure time playing cards anyway.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]

It really sounds like you tried to get them all to convert to what you thought was right. Even though it's clearly correct, being the one vs. everyone else is an a-hole thing to do. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

No it's not. He obviously knows more about poker than some random dicks off the street and thus they should understand what he is doing is for the best, rather than give opinions they know nothing about.

The person who called to complain to your girlfriend was a dick.

FWIW, playing for money against her friends while they know you play a fair amount of poker is just going to go awfully. You spend all your night screaming 'you can't check!!' and if you win you seem like a dick. I usually just agree to play everyone of my hands bt then try to play somewhat decent after that.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
It really sounds like you tried to get them all to convert to what you thought was right. Even though it's clearly correct, being the one vs. everyone else is an a-hole thing to do. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong. He didn't think he was right, he was right.

Don't let anyone's opinion of you color your objective opinion. If you are right, then stick to it.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
i didn't say another word all night.

[/ QUOTE ]

Best move of the night.

Also, I hope you won!? I hope you knocked out the complainer.

Hey - you tried, if "people" want to play a game that makes little sense, so be it.

As for the betting $1 into a $15 pot - better for you!

Dude, did you win?
 

n/m

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

Why not just let them play the way they want to? They won't notice the difference between structures anyway.

You have to pick your fights and the issue of a girlfriends home game should start with 20 or 10 in chips should be auto-muck from you. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

You are a total ass. She should leave you.
 

Why don't you go play in a real game as opposed to annoying some young ladies who just want to have a good time and don't really care about your little technicalities.

Step up and play with people your own size, big shot.

TSP

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

With poker becoming so popular, pretty much everyone is playing it. Most of these people have NO idea how the game is actually set up or played. A lot of people buy into the $10 buy in, $10 in chips theory. Sure, it makes no sense to us but it makes perfect sense to them. Try to casually tell them that this is a bad structure and why it's a bad structure.

I'd say one of the worst parts of dealing with other people's home games is dealing with other's blinds strucutures. Trying to convince people that doubling the blinds every 10 minutes is not a fun way to play is like trying to pull teeth. As people start to learn the game though, they begin to understand why it's not such a good idea. I've just learned to deal with it. I won't play for anything more than $10 with a poor blind structure/starting chips and luckily most of the people I play with know that a good structure makes the game more fun.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

All I can say is wow just WOW.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

Send them a link to www.homepokertourney.com and maybe they will see that THEY are the idiots.

FWIW, my tourney is a $10 buy-in, blinds also start at .25/.50, and I give $50 in tournament chips.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

I had a similar situation. My employer decided to run a NL HE tourney. I told the organizer that I had experience doing tourneys and wanted to help run it. They kept refusing. The tourney started. I started explaining to the people on my end of the room the standard chip colors (red = 5, green = 25, etc.) and that we should probably start with T1000 chips. The organizers didn't care, and thought T1000 was way too many chips. So they just randomly selected a starting amount of chips and started randomly raising blinds.

They started breaking all sorts of rules. Someone couldn't be there for the first hour. Instead of blinding him off, they let him come in the second hour with a full stack of chips. When we got down to the final 7, I said we have to start the final table with the number of chips we had when at 2-tables. The people at the other table said they were dipping into the chip bank the whole time, so we had to start over with the same chip stacks we started with.

Would have been frustrating as hell if I didn't win the tourney.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

Sometimes it is hard to separate 'fun, with girlfriend' poker from 'fun, make money' poker.

I usually try to appeal to a higher authority in these situations. Tell them it is the 'Raymer WSOP structure' or that 'limit cash' is the new 'NL tourney'. If it is a fun game that won't go on very often, try your best to keep it fun for you and balance it with their fun. Try to get them to play funky wild card games that you don't get to play every day. It sounds like you were reasonable in this situation so I would let it go this time and be prepared to let it go next time or not play.

Here's how it works for me: I try to convince them to play with less than their total bankroll and play limit, spread limit, or, worst case, something that resembles pot limit. "That's not how they do it on TV!" Ok, keep pushing your big stack all-in on those little pots since every one folded to you the last three times. Guess what, bud, not this time. My set is good--YouGetToSitOutAndWatchTheRestOfUsPlay. A $1 bet into a $15 pot, followed by a $0.25 raise, guess what, I drew out--YGTSOAWTROUP. Consistently call my raises with any two--YGTSOAWTROUP, then bitch to your boyfriend about how you aren't playing anymore. Show your girlfriend every time you hit your hand--YGTSOAWTROUP. Who's next? Oh, it is you, Miss "How much are the red chips again?" They are $5, just like they've been all night. You know, if you look close, you might just see the [censored] number 5 right there on the chip! You might as well just give it to me, since a flush really, really, really does beat a straight. No, I'm not kidding, it does beat a straight. Really.

As I'm collecting the cash I always tell them: I've bluffed with more money on Jack high today than all the money you guys have combined! I am the greatest poker player in all the land!

I don't know why I never get invited back.

Or, I show them that dealer's choice with a quarter limit is fun. I enjoy playing every hand and trying to calculate my outs in single draw crazy pinapple with 2's wild.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

the $1 bet into the $15 was bad enough but my main point there was the 25 cent raise that came next. seriously, 5 people in and someone bet $1, the next person calls, the next person raises a quarter. i just tried not to laugh and then called.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

you're right that i should have just let them play the way they wanted. the funny thing is that i was just trying to make it so that someone didn't come all the way over, throw in $10 bucks and then be done in 2 hands. i wasn't even thinking about myself. i didn't care if i won or not.

Re: You are a total ass. She should leave you.
 

what are you talking about?? this wasn't even my idea. i live with my girlfriend so all of her friends know that i play full-time. my girlfriend has never played. her friends claimed they play all the time and they wanted to play. also, they wanted to have the buy in $25. i was the one who suggested $10 to make it more "friendly" and because her other friend only came with $5. and it wasn't all girls playing. it was 3 couples and 1 girl came solo. like i said previously, i didn't care if i won or not. thats not why i was trying to explain the starting chips. i was concerned that one of her friends would come all the way over, throw in $10 and be done in 2 hands. ironically, the friend i was mainly concerned about was the one who complained the next day.

Re: You are a total ass. She should leave you.
 

[ QUOTE ]
what are you talking about?? this wasn't even my idea. i live with my girlfriend so all of her friends know that i play full-time. my girlfriend has never played. her friends claimed they play all the time and they wanted to play. also, they wanted to have the buy in $25. i was the one who suggested $10 to make it more "friendly" and because her other friend only came with $5. and it wasn't all girls playing. it was 3 couples and 1 girl came solo. like i said previously, i didn't care if i won or not. thats not why i was trying to explain the starting chips. i was concerned that one of her friends would come all the way over, throw in $10 and be done in 2 hands. ironically, the friend i was mainly concerned about was the one who complained the next day.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I were you I just wouldnt play this "friendly" game anymore.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It really sounds like you tried to get them all to convert to what you thought was right. Even though it's clearly correct, being the one vs. everyone else is an a-hole thing to do. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong. He didn't think he was right, he was right.

Don't let anyone's opinion of you color your objective opinion. If you are right, then stick to it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Notice I said "Even though it's clearly correct". I am NOT SAYING HE THOUGHT HE WAS RIGHT, I'm saying HE WAS RIGHT.

My point was that these people are clearly liesurely players, and it's not worth a lot to argue with them. When it comes to an activity/game that you take very seriously and others do not, it is often hopeless to try to explain the details to people unless they are willing to listen. Clearly they were not.

Also the "If you are right, then stick to it" is the worst advice I have seen in this thread. It's a homegame for crying outloud. Is it worth not getting any from your gf to showing them that you're correct? It's childish.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]

No it's not. He obviously knows more about poker than some random dicks off the street and thus they should understand what he is doing is for the best, rather than give opinions they know nothing about.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would not expect people to cater to my decisions to a poker game simply because I am knowledgable. People are stubborn and aren't ready to listen to ideas that are new to them.

[ QUOTE ]
The person who called to complain to your girlfriend was a dick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it seemed unecessary.

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, playing for money against her friends while they know you play a fair amount of poker is just going to go awfully. You spend all your night screaming 'you can't check!!' and if you win you seem like a dick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, the 'check' comment gets it. Homegames should only be taken as seriously as others make it. This is key. 2+2ers really have to lighten up when playing against fish who are friends of SOs.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

again i wasn't trying to convince them what was technically "right". notice, i didn't say anything about the people who were raising a quarter when the original bet was $1 which is clearly against the rules. i let all that stuff go. the only reason i argued about the starting chips was because i was concerned for THEIR interest, not my own. i didn't want someone to be out after 2 hands. also, we were hosting it in case that was missed. it wasn't like i went to someone else's house and tried to tell them how to run their tournament.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
the $1 bet into the $15 was bad enough but my main point there was the 25 cent raise that came next. seriously, 5 people in and someone bet $1, the next person calls, the next person raises a quarter. i just tried not to laugh and then called.

[/ QUOTE ]

I love this. In the home game I play in they're actually very thorough about just about all the rules except this one. It gets very strange...

"I'll raise to $30."
"OK, I reraise to $40."
"I reraise to $43."

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
Homegames should only be taken as seriously as others make it. This is key. 2+2ers really have to lighten up when playing against fish who are friends of SOs.

[/ QUOTE ]
This has been key to the success of our home game. There are a couple of us who play thousands of hands a week, both online and live but we are able to lighten up enough that everyone's having fun and pick little things to get a little more strict about as people get the hang of things and start getting more serious.

Even though things will bug the hell out of you, let them be dumb. Don't try to force them into a serious (in terms of etiqutte and structure) player. Points things out here and there and let them happen.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

[ QUOTE ]
...the girl who complained showed up with $5 and someone else covered for her and she didn't even know what beats what and one of the other girls came with her husband and 2 kids and her husband got so drunk he quit in the middle of the game and someone had to drive him home and then come back.

[/ QUOTE ]

Trailer park tournies rule!

link

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

It's frustrating trying to explain something to an idiot, let alone a group of idiots. I'd let them play without my help, and eventually they will realize their tourney structure sucks and come to you for help, if you don't pressure them into doing so yourself.

One guy I know that runs home games used to give players such a small amount of starting chips that everyone was making change for the first two hours. I told him to give more chips but he didn't listen. I "voted" by not showing up until he changed this. Not much more that can be done.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

We have hosted and played in a number of these home tournaments. They were really bad until we printed out rules (buy in, blind structure, etc..) set a timer by each table and gave out hand rank charts (no lie). There were no more arguments just questions for clarification. Everyone had a great time and asked us when we were hosting again after our memorial day party. I won the first game and my wife won the second. Our friends still wanted us to do it all again. Of course in the end we barely won enough to cover the liquor store bill. Still, everone had a blast for a $10 buy in. Just give everyone a little more structure, you are hosting the thing after all. You should not get much flack except from the jerk that called your girlfriend...

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

Many people don't take poker NEARLY as serious as some of us do. You can't BLAME them for that, thats the nature of it becoming mainstream.

Imagine you're a college NCAA basketball star, and you're playing pick up with some of your girl's friends...would you argue over the rules? Or just accept the game as an opportunity to screw around

I'm not saying you are wrong, but in times like these its best to be diplomatic and go along with the crowd, or simply not participate.

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

The best bit about this is when they come to your house to play your game, complain about your rules and then call you a dick. I thought you handled the situation well. Got unlucky I guess. The key is to slowly introduce correct rules. Problem is of course that these people "already know" how to play. I find it much easier to play with people who have never played before because they listen to what you are saying.

CHeers

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

It is laughable when someone who knows NOTHING about poker insists the game be run a specific way. Another example of this might be a kicker breaking a tie when two players have the same best five card hand (playing four cards from the board).

Re: great, now i\'m the a-hole boyfriend
 

I was scouting a new bar tourney location on Monday and saw an entire pot left to ride on the next hand because two players had the same hand. WTF is that?