Need advice for a micro stakes home game

[somapopper]

Playing with a bunch of my friends tomorrow in either a fixed limit or spread limit game with an expected 5 dollar buyin. Some folks might rebuy for another 5 if they get down to the felt.

I have no interest in trying to make out well in this game. This is just a chance for a bunch of my friends to get together and gamble it up at stakes they feel comfortable with while getting drunk, eating pizza, and playing with my new Paulsons. Many players have never played poker of any sort before. It's likely to be a full game.

So, my question is, what's the best way to structure the game to keep people in, but still give them the impression that they can double up and make some "poker moves." Right now I'm leaning towards .5, .10 blinds with a .10-.50 spread limit, but I think if everyone bets .50 a lot this will wipe folks out far too quickly. Maybe we could use a bizarre structure like .5 .5 blinds with a .5-.25 spread limit? OR, .5, .10 blinds .5-.25 spread pf and flop, .10-.50 turn and river? If it's fixed limit, I'm inclined to make it a standard .10/.20. Anyway, thoughts are appreciated.

[jzpiano14]

5 dollars is better for NL, since you will be playing like .05/.1 limit, and for most ppl this isn't enough to keep a game seroius. Plus the fact that a lot of ppl like being able to say ALL IN! I would go for a .05/.1 blind NL game

[Hedge Henderson]

It really depends on your players and how long you plan to play. Our game started with $0.05 ante and $0.05-$0.25 spread limit, and five bucks usually lasted the sober players 5-6 hours. Of course, in those days, a bet of a quarter usually meant you had the goods. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

You don't mention whether you want this to become a regular thing. If you do, and unless your players abolutely won't bother to understand limit poker, I'd recommend starting with it. Once they get comfortable with fixed limits, then you can mix it up.

The players in our game who were there early on have no problem switching between limit and NL. Those who came in after we started favoring NL constantly complain about limit. One player has even referred to limit as like "being in jail".

For a 4-5 hour game with a small number of re-buys, I suggest $0.05/$0.10 blinds for NL and perhaps $0.10/$0.20 blinds for a $0.20/$0.40 limit game.

In the 3 years since we've introduced NL play, the average pot size is about the same for limit and NL when limit blinds are close to 2x the NL blinds. Naturally, our big pots are always larger in NL, but they're offset by the fact that we see the turn and river much more often in limit. YMMV

You've been here a while so I'm sure you know, but I can't stress enough that you want to have rules in place before play begins. Our first six months we only made rules when problems arose. There was a lot of playing time lost to arguments until I started looking online to see how things were supposed to be.

[Runner Runner]

Here are some ideas:

Start off 0.10-0.20 limit and then go to no limit with 0.05-0.10 blinds when people start getting tired of playing limit.

You could have the no limit portion with a cap, where the most anyone can lose in any given hand is XXX$ no matter how deep they are.

Play a low buyin no limit holdem tournament at the end, with fast escalating blinds.

[jafager]

I bought 2000 gray faux clay chips for a micro game that I play with a certain crowd. They were uncomfortable with limit games as low as .25/.50, but I sold a lot of $5 racks in a .02/.05 no-limit game. I actually caught people reminding themselves out loud that they were playing with nickels.

jafager

[somapopper]

Crap, good point. I'm now aware the local nit is showing up to the game, so this definately needs to be taken care of, and the game is in like 2 hours so... help!

Ok, here's what I can think of off the top of my head

cards talk on the end. I'm not gonna let anyone muck on the river unless players raise a stink, cause this could be more headache then it's worth with a bunch of new players.

action is verbally binding, even out of turn.

no string bets.

Don't talk about the hand in progress including "3 to a flush on the board" , hey you should call, let's check it down, etc.

hi/lo games are always played without a declare.

Did I miss anything really important?