Advice on home poker game structure please
 

We are going to have a poker game, I am expecting between 10 & 20 players.

We intend to have 2 tables of NL HE ring games. A decent percentage of the players will be novices (hence I want to stick to just one game), and most will be adverse to losing more than $50.

I'm thinking of:
Table 1: $50 buy in blinds of $2/$1 no ante
Table 2: $20 buy in blinds of $1/$0.5 no ante

Does this sound like a reasonable structure? Any other advice or appropriate links?

Re: Advice on home poker game structure please
 

50 dollar buy in should have blinds of .25-.5, maybe .5-1 if you feel like playing with only 50bb.

make the other game 25 dollar buy in with .1-.25 blinds, or again, .25-.5 if you feel like having a short buy in. Standard cash game structure is 100bbs

Re: Advice on home poker game structure please
 

Blinds are too high

Re: Advice on home poker game structure please
 

For good poker the buyin should be 100 times the BB. If you have it only 50x it becomes a preflop move in fest.

My home game is NLHE with a $25 buy in and .25/.25 blinds. It is easy to lose $25, a little tougher to lose $50 if you're tight.

I would keep it small to test the waters. NLHE can get ugly with amateurs who are also your friends.

Many people who are used to the old school home games think a $25 buyin means 'pay $25 for an evenings entertainment'. When they stack off in hand 7 they will be miffed to say the least and may feel mislead.

Rob

Re: Advice on home poker game structure please
 

I'd go with wdeadwyler--.25/.50 on the $50 table and .10/.20 on the $20 table.

Re: Advice on home poker game structure please
 

It's going to be hard no matter what you do. Like it was stated, too few BB's and it's an all in fest. With novices you're going to have them overbetting the pot all the time with blinds as low as .1/.25 or .1/.2. When someone raises to 3 dollars from a 20 cent blind it gets a little wild.

Playing with novices is never easy...well, it may be easy...but, nevermind, you know what I mean.

Re: Advice on home poker game structure please
 

.25/.50 table - $10 to $50 buyin
.10/.25 table - $5 to $25 buyin

Re: Advice on home poker game structure please
 

I keep it simple. No limit and you can rebuy (up to original buy-in amount) anytime your chips fall at/below 1/2 of original buy in.

buy-in = $20, blinds = .25/.50
buy-in = $25, blinds = .25/.50
buy-in = $40, blinds = .50/1.00
buy-in = $50, blinds = .50/1.00

We start out with no lower than 40 big bets. Others may post that prefer to start out with more than 40 big bets, but this has worked out very well in our games.

Re: Advice on home poker game structure please
 

[ QUOTE ]
A decent percentage of the players will be novices (hence I want to stick to just one game), and most will be adverse to losing more than $50.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, this here's the key, ain't it?

A lot depends on how long you're gonna play, and what your players are like. With novices, the swings will be larger. I'd stick to $0.10/$0.25 blinds at most.

In our home game, we play a mix of limit, PL, and NL for around 6-7 hours. On an average night, the big winner for the night is up around 250 big NL blinds and the big losers are down around 200 big blinds. At $0.10/$0.25, 200 big blinds is your $50.