What makes a good home game?

[djhjf21]

Hey just looking for some opinions here. I'm in Atlanta and run one of the larger home games out here. Just curious what's going on in other regions and what types of ideas and such have made for successful homegames.

Here's a little info on my game and some of the things we do and some of things players have said that set us apart from other local games.

First off a run a game twice a week, I've been running games for about a year now and been playing locally for about a year and a half. I'm pretty well versed in running a game, and seem to have a very organized and professional game in comparison to others out there. We run a 3/6 limit game with 6/12 and/or No Limit overs on Mondays and on Fridays we do a 3/6 limit, 1/2 NL, 5/10 limit and a $50.00 tournament.

Top 3 responses to my players interview on what they like about my game are...
1) Social, Friendly atmospher: We have a great group of regulars that are really friendly and a very entertaining yet professional and experienced dealer that helps set the tone
2) Our dealers are top quality: they keep the flow of the game going and keep it organized and efficient and the rulings consistent
3) Comfortable seating: We ditched the folding metal chairs and upgraded to some nice quality office chairs. I got most of mine used in the 20-40$ range but I had a few good hookups. Most will cost you in the 40-60$ range and it's a big investment, but your players that play 10 hour stretches will love you for it.

Changes we've made to benefit the game...
1) High hand of the night jackpot instead of bad beat jackpot... people are familiar with bad beat jackpots, but if you do the classic A full of 10 beat using 2 cards from each hand, it may never hit in a home game. This can lead to the house hanging on to a lot of money before their game dissolves. Players have been much happier with a high hand jackpot (usually pull 1$ out of every pot over $50.00) that pays out each night. Only one card from the hand must play, and hand does not need to be shown down or completed. You flop a straight flush and everyone folds you're probably going to get the high hand. The high hand will more often go to a looser player giving them a little extra bankroll to keep coming back to the game.
2)Good food, I used to play 6 nights a week at various games. I swear after 3 months I didn't want to have another slice of pizza for the rest of my life. If you can try cooking sometime, we grill shiskabab and polish sausages and burgers, we also do Stouffers lasanga which is real easy and pretty cheap, still have the pizza and chinese on occasion, but it's nice to have the variety.
3)Beer Fridge- we offer wider selections of drinks than some bars. I don't keep any hard liquor tho you are welcome to bring you own, however we do have over 20 different choices of soft drinks and beer available.
4)Consistently having a game... being consistent is important, if you have to cancel a home poker game because of participation it's a horrible sign. A good game consists of a solid player base, we have between 20-40 players throughout the night and I have a mailing list of over 600 players I e-mail each week with game announcements. I constantly try and get new players into the game along with offering promotions for bringing a friend and bonuses for our long term regulars or players that havne't been back in a while.
5) Rake: Most players don't really notice the rake or how it affects the game. I've played games where more than 1/2 the money is raked off the table in a course of 10 hours. That's ridiculous, these games come and go so fast, players don't keep coming back to games where they don't win. I keep my rake lower than most other games around and lower than most casinos would be just so more of my players can win and keep coming back. Just from adjusting my rake from a 10% to a 7.5% max it added about $25.00 an hour to the table for players to win. It means less profit for the night, but with out players coming back your game won't last.

Other things important to a game in my opinion:
Friendly, safe area
Organized, professionally run game
Game hosts available to take care of things and not busy dealing/playing
Easy to find location, close to main road, easy to get to
Variety of games offered to appease the social and serious gamblers
Overs - allowing the game to change to a higher stakes game when only certain players are left in the pot
NL increased buyins - Our max buy in is $200.00 to start, but after 12am we allow players to buy in for up to $300.00 to have a more reasonable stack size versus the table average.

Now tell me what you do in your games that your players enjoy or that you feel makes your game stand above the rest...

[SossMan]

sounds like a well run game

[ncskiier]

Your game sounds like da bomb. I might make a trip down there from Asheville. Send me a pm.

[smartalecc5]

no joke, sounds like poker heaven!!

WEll, me and my friends we sit around my kitchen table. We deal for ourselves. No pizza, no over, and our buyin is 5 dollars. hehe [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Ogre]

How do you go about taking rake at a "home game"?

[Eihli]

most of the "home" games i play at just ask you to tip the dealer a dollar or 2 a pot.

[bconway6]

Sounds like youre running a small card room and not a home game to me. It sounds like that is a great place to play though.

[Yawkey]

Sounds like a great game to go to. I'm in college so we have to run things on a much tighter budget, but we have one of the most popular games on campus now and certainly the best run game. Here are some of the things we learned about putting a college game together.

The game started as a ring game, but we quickly found that it was not fun on the small budgets we had. Too many people either over extended themselves or would win a big hand and leave as soon as they could. The easy fix for these two problems is of course a tournament, so we now run a $10 tourny every Thursday night.

Originally the blind structure raised whenever someone was kicked out of the game. This led to guys grinding it out until 2 or 3 AM, which was bad because most of the time we all had homework that still needed to be done that night. Now we raise the blinds every half hour regardless of the number of people left in the game. This still gives us a good four hour game for the final guys.

One of the major things that distinguishes our game from many of the other games on campus is our payout at the end. First place is not given an overly absurd payout like 70%-100%, if we have a small week and have 10 people 1st place takes 50%. One of our goals is to always have the lowest paying place at least double the buyin, as hockey fans we know that ending with a tie leaves a worse feeling than loosing. Having good payouts for the top couple spots, and not just the first is very important. There is nothing worse than finishing 2nd and winning just your buyin back after beating a dozen other guys.

The most important thing is having consistant regulars who are generally pretty good guys/girls. It keeps the fish coming and helps disguise the sharks pretty well. Things as simple as making sure new players are introduced to everyone, and then that they learn the names of the people they are playing with. Then hand shakes and "good game" when people bust out, it makes for a very friendly atmosphere. Because of this we do not have quiet games that feel tense and serious. People are telling stories and jokes, all-ins are loudly announced so everyone can watch. People leave feeling they just spent $10 on a fun night or won some money and had a great night.

I'm not sure if this helps you dj, but hopefully there are some college students out there who are struggling to get their games going good who can take something from this.

[Lottery Larry]

This sounds as if you have a nice underground club, but this is NOT a home game.

[djhjf21]

Thanks for the input and posts, it may seem like a card room to some of you because of what we offer, however, if you ever sit in the game you'd see it's just a home game, our players create an extremely friendly playing environment that makes up the difference.