Cash Game First time hosting cash game (2 Viewers)

[JScott]

This is exactly what it was like when I started hosting, I had the same type of group, $10 buy in tourny's, had only used dice chips, and now we've stepped it up quite a bit, and that credit goes to me.

This is how we play:

$20 min/$50 max buy in at a time (ie you can always top up to $50, but your initial buy in has to be at least $20)
You can buy in as late as you want and it's unlimited.
25/25c or 25/50c blinds (the latter leads to a different game, but it's fun)

I give 12/12/1 with .25c/$1/$5 chips, tried 8/8/2 the other day and found it really drove the $5 bets, so was more money on the table, but I'll adjust based on the group.
We start at 7:30-8 and frown on cashouts before 10:30 unless stated at the start of the game.
No limit holdem is the primary game, but we play crazy pineapple and bomb pots on timers, and I'll drop the odd PLO game into the mix

It's also a social game and I had a smaller 36x72" dining table with a topper in the past so I'd limit it to 6 and it was booked within 10 minutes 90% of the time.

For chips I have:
160 x 25c
200 x $1
100 x $5
12 x $20 plaques

It's only a $1000 bank, but we've never even gotten close. For example last night we only had maybe $350 on the table.

Enjoy hosting, make sure you know the rules well, and have a great time!

 

[ekricket]

Agree. IMHO cash = more skill. Tournament = more luck. On Thursday I played a tournament online. Made it past the first break and was 226 of 450 with over 2000 entering. I am in +1 with AA and UTG jams for 2300. I over jam for 6200 and get two callers. UTG shows Q3s, and immediately to my left +2 shows QsJs. I forget what BN had. It goes runner runner flush and QsJs wins. I had As. Just luck ...

I think everything I suck at sucks too. Play better poker. If you are only relying on cards for tournaments then you are missing 9/10’s of the play. It’s like saying there is absolutely no luck in cash games only limitless skill.

 

[boltonguy]

Get a "bank" meaning $100 - $150 in $1, $5, $10 and a roll of quarters to cash people out. I keep this bank in a zippered vinyl bank deposit bag:
https://www.staples.com/PM-Company-...ity-Zipper-Bag-Blue-6-H-x-11-W/product_912096

When you take the buyins put them in the bag. Cash out from the bag. At the end of the night count your bank. Should be exactly what you started with. Keep it with the chips and noone touches the bank or the chips except you.

 

[Justin Olson]

Get a "bank" meaning $100 - $150 in $1, $5, $10 and a roll of quarters to cash people out. I keep this bank in a zippered vinyl bank deposit bag:
https://www.staples.com/PM-Company-...ity-Zipper-Bag-Blue-6-H-x-11-W/product_912096

When you take the buyins put them in the bag. Cash out from the bag. At the end of the night count your bank. Should be exactly what you started with. Keep it with the chips and noone touches the bank or the chips except you.

Great idea on getting a bunch of small bills before.
I think my bag came from amazon

 

[CraigT78]

Cash games are a grind and are much more boring than tournaments

are ya serious Clark?

 

[wolfpack]

When you take the buyins put them in the bag. Cash out from the bag. At the end of the night count your bank. Should be exactly what you started with. Keep it with the chips and noone touches the bank or the chips except you.

This
Especially if your game grows or your friends buddies start coming. No on touches bank, cards, or chips but you

 

[warma]

@cgpilot Coastie at ATC?

 

[boltonguy]

I also like to give players their starting stacks in chip racks. Makes it easy to get them to the table and having the empty chip racks on the drink carts make racking up later easy.

I do generally give barrels and let later players make change (e.g. first five buyins get a barrel of .25, next three buyings get no quarters but they make change at the table.) That is super easy with chip racks.

So for a $60 buyin:
1 barrel .25 = $5
2 barrel $1 = $40
3 x $5 chips = $15

After the fracs are gone I start with the barrels of $1s:
2 barrels $1 = $40
4 x $5 chips = $20

We play .25/.50 and $60 buyin is easy as the ATMs spit out $20s.

 

[CrazyEddie]

"Cashing out early is impolite" is not a rule, it's a norm. If no one in your group thinks it's impolite, then guess what, it's not.

You're the host, so you get to decide what norms to propagate. If you think it's impolite then make sure everyone else knows your view so that they can respect your norms when at your games. And likewise, if you don't think it's impolite then you should make sure everyone knows it.

People should respect the host's wishes, and the host should make those wishes known.

This thread discusses the question in quite some detail; my own views are different from most PCF members' and are in this post.

 

[Justin Olson]

Cashing out early with warning no big deal.
Warning can be as simple as “Hey guys I’m leaving in 20”. “One more orbit for me” or “I’m leaving at 9:30”
All fun and games until someone hit n runs my game and they get no more invites.

 

[tele_pathic]

Have fun hosting a new game! We played tourneys for.e.VER, but when it would get late, people would shove, or if people went out early, they would hound us to end/split and start a new game. OR even worse, people would show up late, like the third or fourth level, and want to get in.

SO, I told my players that we would try a cash game. Buy-in for whatever you want and get x amount of .25's, NJ Skulls in my case. They loved that they could come late, leave early, buy in whenever, play as long as they wanted, so many things to love about cash vs tourney HOME games. Oh, not battling the blinds.

Speaking of which, we played .25/.25 and everyone loved that. As others have mentioned, you don't need the .50's, just slows things down. We use .25's, 1.00, and 5.00. Works great.

The next time we get together, I'm hosting a .05/.10 game first, which should lead to some crazy action as everyone will have an obscene amount of chips in front of them and not really consider the cost of each bet.

 

[Taghkanic]

I wouldn’t set an ending time unless you have to. It could make for a very dull last 30-40 minutes as big stacks realize they can nit up without the more awkward “Well, I gotta get up early” dash...

 

[Coyote]

Losing players should be able to leave anytime.
Winning players should be able to leave only after the minimum pre-set time.
If hosting "maniacs" with very deep pockets (in relation to the majority of players), it would be useful to also designate a maximum cap per player for a given session.

 

[Rhodeman77]

Once you find the right crew of players you will be having to kick them out at 4:30am as the say “one more orbit of Drawmaha please” lol. I don’t have a set end time but we have been pushing 5am now for a while. Around midnight most of are saying we aren’t going to stay as long as last time. We are all addicts trying to tell ourselves this is the last drink, I can stop whenever I want!

 

[Jeevansluck]

Once you find the right crew of players you will be having to kick them out at 4:30am as the say “one more orbit of Drawmaha please” lol. I don’t have a set end time but we have been pushing 5am now for a while. Around midnight most of are saying we aren’t going to stay as long as last time. We are all addicts trying to tell ourselves this is the last drink, I can stop whenever I want!

^^^This is my f#$king dream man! Seriously!^^^

 

[Rhodeman77]

^^^This is my f#$king dream man! Seriously!^^^

all it would take is a move to the Cleveland area!

 

[CHP TD]

Just my two cents,

Do not worry about all the rules to begin with. Each home game evolves as time goes on. There will be initial growing pains of hosting.

Read up on most common errors that come up If you haven’t already so you can address them in game quickly and efficiently. The most important thing is to keep things light and friendly or else you won’t have player retention. Second to that is to keep the game moving. Think of yourself as your own floor supervisor.

As you continue to play, your players will get better at dealing and addressing errors on their own. Sounds like the group is knowledgeable but something to think about.

Don’t forget snacks and beverages

With no disrespect to italianjoe i strongly disagree with the advice.

all i see in this post is the mechanics of the game. That's the easy part.

When an argument breaks out what are you going to do? there are lots of differing rules in poker. And the loud ones usually know the rules because they saw the movie Maverick 10 years ago.

Without rules you setting yourself up for real problems. Ive been hosting for 14 years. Ask anyone who has been hosting for years if they have rules. If you can find one who doesn't have rules i will show you 10 who do. Any long time hosts want to chime in here?

Every game has rules. When learning any game you need to know the rules before you start. Why is poker different? To me its MORE important to have rules in poker than in any other game! Poker can get very heated because money is involved. Ive had a friend twice my size stand over me cause he had a few and thought he was right. He thought something different to the rules. he hasnt read them and he was wrong. That is a one way trip out of my life. He was told under the rules of the game GTFO. in fact i have a rule for arguements, threats of violence or anything resembling threats will get you expelled. No friend of mine stands over me. Theres no comming back from that.

Search this forum for posts with the term "Ruling". This will bring up 9 pages of links with 20 links on every page. Save yourself the trouble of adding to this search.

You are the Poker director but without rules the loudest voice wins. You need to have control of the game. without rules - You don't.

Use this as a guide https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/hosting-resources-posted-rules-etiquette.36508/

Good luck and host a great game.

​

 

[wolfpack]

I agree you have to have rules and stick to them.

here is s link that shows and example using robert's rules of poker, you can create a handout to pass around and post

https://www.homepokergames.com/roberts-rules-poker.php

 

[Italianjoe157]

Keeping the game moving and establishing yourself as the “floor supervisor” encompasses knowledge of the rules of the game. I never said nor encouraged a game to turn into the Wild Wild West. You need rules and an enforcer of said rules.

I’d just hate to see the new host study up on rules/procedures that would rarely or never come up in the game. Don’t worry about ALL the rules, just SOME

I second the printable house rules. They are used in most of my regular games I play in. Usually one sheet stuck up on the wall or on a table nearby.

 

[CHP TD]

Keeping the game moving and establishing yourself as the “floor supervisor” encompasses knowledge of the rules of the game. I never said nor encouraged a game to turn into the Wild Wild West. You need rules and an enforcer of said rules.

I’d just hate to see the new host study up on rules/procedures that would rarely or never come up in the game. Don’t worry about ALL the rules, just SOME

I second the printable house rules. They are used in most of my regular games I play in. Usually one sheet stuck up on the wall or on a table nearby.

agreed thanks for the clarification.

 

[Natskule]

Have fun hosting a new game! We played tourneys for.e.VER, but when it would get late, people would shove, or if people went out early, they would hound us to end/split and start a new game. OR even worse, people would show up late, like the third or fourth level, and want to get in.

SO, I told my players that we would try a cash game. Buy-in for whatever you want and get x amount of .25's, NJ Skulls in my case. They loved that they could come late, leave early, buy in whenever, play as long as they wanted, so many things to love about cash vs tourney HOME games. Oh, not battling the blinds.

Speaking of which, we played .25/.25 and everyone loved that. As others have mentioned, you don't need the .50's, just slows things down. We use .25's, 1.00, and 5.00. Works great.

The next time we get together, I'm hosting a .05/.10 game first, which should lead to some crazy action as everyone will have an obscene amount of chips in front of them and not really consider the cost of each bet.

That's what I love about a good cash game. Times are flexible, you can still play when you get knocked out. I like tournaments too, but I prefer cash games.

Always sucks when folks carpool, 1 gets knocked out early and sits around for an hour waiting for his ride.

Plus the blinds in a tournament, unless it's a pretty deep stacked tournament, it seems like you are always against a wall and ready to shove, whereas in a cash game, you're just playing poker.