Forming a Suitable Home Game

Posted on February 1, 2010 
Filed Under General

I can definitely appreciate the concept of the poker home game, as that is the way that innumerable players are introduced to poker for the first time. Personally however, I can barely tolerate them unless the conditions are absolutely perfect. The reason I play more online poker than I do live poker is because live poker moves too slow for my tastes. Players often take too long to make decisions and human dealers just can’t calculate things like side pots with the speed and accuracy of a computer. Now look at a home game, where dealing is normally handled in a community format where everyone takes a turn, including the people that don’t know to burn a card in-between each street. Ugh.

The next headache is the quality of players at these home games. I played in a few where some participants have needed to keep a hand ranking cheat sheet with them so that they can remember that a flush beats a straight. As a byproduct of their lack of information, you can count on them never making a smart call or betting the right amount depending on the situation. Sure it can be looked at as easy money as long as your patient, but I’m not patient, I need a certain amount of hands per hour and to have everyone at my table filled with at least a general understanding of how games like Texas Hold’em work.

So if you’re reading this and considering yourself a fairly informed poker player and are considering throwing a home game or helping a buddy throw one, take my advice. If you’re looking to keep the game competition and moving along, don’t invite beginners, you’ll be sitting there for 5min per hand while they’re deciding to make a call with third pair. Next, when it comes to dealing, always have two decks in play, unless everyone at the table is really adapt at shuffling quickly. The reason for two decks is that way you always have a deck shuffled and ready to go for the next hand, with one player shuffling the deck that’s not in use for that particular hand so that it’s prepared for the next round. Employ a card-shuffling machine if you like, just make sure there’s always a freshly shuffled deck ready to go.

The next suggestion is pretty hardcore and should only be used by those running a really strict home game, maybe even a home game tournament, and that’s to turn off any extrasensory devices like a television while the game is going. If you put a major boxing/UFC fight on the tube during your home game, the entire match is going to be slowed down due to everyone paying attention to the TV, which is fine as long as you don’t care about having a tightly run game.

Lastly, if you don’t already own some of the standard poker accessories like a dealer button, chip racks or nice cards, you may want to invest $50 to pick all that stuff up. It adds another level of professionalism to your games and will assist in speeding up things. Again, only take these tips to heart if want a home game to closely emulate the type of experience provided at a live card room. If you’re looking to just have a get together with friends, then play it as loosely as you want, just don’t invite me.

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