[Hedge Henderson]

I like poker. I have fun playing NLHE, and I have fun playing crazy stud with umpteen wild cards. What'd be most fun for your game depends on you and your players, Beekeeper. Some players will bitch when there aren't any wild cards, and others will give you the "it's not real poker" crap about something as ordinary as 5-card draw.

I host a weekly ring game. We treat tournaments as special events and we hold them a few times a year. In our ring game, players take turn calling orbits. Not everyone has the same favorite game, so it helps to mix it up a bit. Our ring games end up being about 60% NLHE, but the other big games usually get at least one orbit per night.

For some reason, the ladies seem to like Omaha/8. We've also found PLO8 to be a very effective way to separate a table bully from his chips, so we'll call it a little more often when a new hotshot know-it-all sits in.

I'd suggest at least attempting a ring game one night. You have fewer worries about when (or if) players show up or leave, and no one gets the tough choice of leaving or just sitting and watching when they bust out early.

If the stakes are too high for some players vs a low-buy-in tourney, start out small, and increase the stakes at a pre-determined time, say at midnight.