Home game dilemma - sort of

[bolgenmod]

Instead of tournaments, what about limit? Crappy players still overvalue their hands, but they don't lose as much on each hand when they do. And when they suck out on you (which they will), you haven't lost as much as you might in no-limit either.

In almost 2 years of playing a regular limit game, we average having one person who loses his/her whole buy-in about every game (a little less than that on average). (And, no surprise, 70% of the time it's the same player!) The most anyone has ever won, on the other hand, is about three times the buy-in (and as the banker believe me I know!). Even though the same two or three players keep winning or losing slightly more than average, no one gets upset.

Of course, it's upsetting to get donked. And it would be much nicer to win big every week. But it's a friendly game -- I make a little money, and everyone else thinks it's all luck!

Tournaments can be fun, but they also guarantee that many of the players will not win anything. If they're already upset with your winning ways, why take away their hope that they'll win anything at all?