bergs
Royal Flush
Starting a thread so people can contribute ideas to meetup boaters (new and long-timers alike).
Some tips to start us off (general stuff)....
1) Have a conversation with your significant other and put all of your proverbial cards on the table - how many people will be coming (max), how many have you not met before, how late will you be playing, which bathroom can people use, can people stay over and if so whom, and if so which rooms, how to handle people that drink too much (obviously not driving but where will they sleep it off), and budget....and I'm probably forgetting 10 things here.
2) Food and Beverage - I usually plan on Saturday being the marquis food day (so BBQ here in the Northeast). Get your order in very early (~2 months early) if hosting more than 20 people. I usually make up the food cost from an extra $20 charge when people buy in for the tourney on Saturday. Thursday and Friday is everyone pays their own way (either cash or just give me chips and I put pizzas or grinders on my credit card).
Players drink beer, and players drink water. A ton of water. It's a long event and hydration is necessary. I usually get the smaller waters (they're the size of hand grenades) instead of the fill 16.9 ounce water bottles that you normally see - if you get the bigger ones people end up leaving 2/3 drank water bottles all over the place. Another alternative is a bunch of red Solo cups and bottled waters.
I usually get 3 waters per person per day. Can't have too much really.
For beer, decide up front of its BYOB or you provide. If you provide, consider a couple different kinds (like IPA and pale ale for instance). Some people get kegs - I used to but you're left with a lot of beer that you can't drink before it goes bad at the end of the event. I invested in a kegerator for a while but you're really locking people into one type of beer. I get bottles and cans of assorted stuff now and it seems to be the best solution.
3) Paperware and Drink Storage - either get yourself a large cooler or two and a ton of ice, or a fridge. I used to do the cooler thing but it SUCKS when you're getting up early to get ice and you played until 4am and cleaned up for an hour after that and people are showing up at noon sharp. Fridge is best but if that doesn't work, task someone with getting ice daily of they're local or just stock up for 2-3 days in your freezer and pull out as needed. Keep some water at room temp and some cold - people prefer both.
Paperware - you cannot possibly get enough paper plates, plastic silverware, solo cups, and paper towels. Sweet Jesus and Ed get as many paper towels as you can. We be a messy lot, us band of degens.
4) Logistics - there will be a lot of discussion around this topic, but suffice to say that you're not going to sleep much for 3-4 nights. Normally the ebb and flow is a warmup night Wednesday or Thursday that you'll want to shut down around 2-3a, Friday night goes till whenever (4am or later), and Saturday is no sleep.
Get a lot of sleep the first part of the week or you will be hating life. Toughest part of a meet up is needing to be awake and active for long stretches of time and getting 3-4 hrs of sleep per night.
5) Bank - I prefer to keep the bank if it's my event. There have been plenty of discussions before about how to keep the bank secure and how to sell and buy chips to avoid shortages and all that sort of thing so I'll skip that here.
You're going to need lots of change. Figure the smallest payout Denom is $1. I usually get 40 $1s, 8 $5s, and 2 $10s for each day (so this times 3 with standard Thurs - Sat meatup) and use this as my first buyin to seed the bank.
$50s are popular with banks but look like $20s and after being tired and putting back some beers you may inadvertently pay them out and the players may not notice. Consider putting the $50s somewhere in your bank where they can't be mingled with the $20s.
6) Schedule - don't go overboard here but have the big events planned. In mine, we have the World SOHE Championship planned for Friday night and the Main Event NLHE tourney planned for Saturday. I also usually plan a limit cash game for Thursday night or Friday during the day - people will want to lock up seats for this and it uses a different chipset than your normal PL/NL set so it's worth scheduling.
Plenty of discussion already regarding circus vs NLHE/PLO tables so I'll defer to that thread with one caveat - it doesn't matter what you plan here - the table makeup is going to pick whatever is best for them so just go with it.
7) Poker stuff - you need dealer buttons, cards, cut cards, seating chips, kill button for limit game (if playing with a kill), one hi/lo button per table, and preferably some all in buttons if using a dealer. And chips. But you all already knew that.
I have a ton of other things but I'm taking a dump and the wife just came into the house and asked to go to dinner so more later (Getting Help, Getting Pictures, Travel Logistics, etc....a lot to go over here).
Some tips to start us off (general stuff)....
1) Have a conversation with your significant other and put all of your proverbial cards on the table - how many people will be coming (max), how many have you not met before, how late will you be playing, which bathroom can people use, can people stay over and if so whom, and if so which rooms, how to handle people that drink too much (obviously not driving but where will they sleep it off), and budget....and I'm probably forgetting 10 things here.
2) Food and Beverage - I usually plan on Saturday being the marquis food day (so BBQ here in the Northeast). Get your order in very early (~2 months early) if hosting more than 20 people. I usually make up the food cost from an extra $20 charge when people buy in for the tourney on Saturday. Thursday and Friday is everyone pays their own way (either cash or just give me chips and I put pizzas or grinders on my credit card).
Players drink beer, and players drink water. A ton of water. It's a long event and hydration is necessary. I usually get the smaller waters (they're the size of hand grenades) instead of the fill 16.9 ounce water bottles that you normally see - if you get the bigger ones people end up leaving 2/3 drank water bottles all over the place. Another alternative is a bunch of red Solo cups and bottled waters.
I usually get 3 waters per person per day. Can't have too much really.
For beer, decide up front of its BYOB or you provide. If you provide, consider a couple different kinds (like IPA and pale ale for instance). Some people get kegs - I used to but you're left with a lot of beer that you can't drink before it goes bad at the end of the event. I invested in a kegerator for a while but you're really locking people into one type of beer. I get bottles and cans of assorted stuff now and it seems to be the best solution.
3) Paperware and Drink Storage - either get yourself a large cooler or two and a ton of ice, or a fridge. I used to do the cooler thing but it SUCKS when you're getting up early to get ice and you played until 4am and cleaned up for an hour after that and people are showing up at noon sharp. Fridge is best but if that doesn't work, task someone with getting ice daily of they're local or just stock up for 2-3 days in your freezer and pull out as needed. Keep some water at room temp and some cold - people prefer both.
Paperware - you cannot possibly get enough paper plates, plastic silverware, solo cups, and paper towels. Sweet Jesus and Ed get as many paper towels as you can. We be a messy lot, us band of degens.
4) Logistics - there will be a lot of discussion around this topic, but suffice to say that you're not going to sleep much for 3-4 nights. Normally the ebb and flow is a warmup night Wednesday or Thursday that you'll want to shut down around 2-3a, Friday night goes till whenever (4am or later), and Saturday is no sleep.
Get a lot of sleep the first part of the week or you will be hating life. Toughest part of a meet up is needing to be awake and active for long stretches of time and getting 3-4 hrs of sleep per night.
5) Bank - I prefer to keep the bank if it's my event. There have been plenty of discussions before about how to keep the bank secure and how to sell and buy chips to avoid shortages and all that sort of thing so I'll skip that here.
You're going to need lots of change. Figure the smallest payout Denom is $1. I usually get 40 $1s, 8 $5s, and 2 $10s for each day (so this times 3 with standard Thurs - Sat meatup) and use this as my first buyin to seed the bank.
$50s are popular with banks but look like $20s and after being tired and putting back some beers you may inadvertently pay them out and the players may not notice. Consider putting the $50s somewhere in your bank where they can't be mingled with the $20s.
6) Schedule - don't go overboard here but have the big events planned. In mine, we have the World SOHE Championship planned for Friday night and the Main Event NLHE tourney planned for Saturday. I also usually plan a limit cash game for Thursday night or Friday during the day - people will want to lock up seats for this and it uses a different chipset than your normal PL/NL set so it's worth scheduling.
Plenty of discussion already regarding circus vs NLHE/PLO tables so I'll defer to that thread with one caveat - it doesn't matter what you plan here - the table makeup is going to pick whatever is best for them so just go with it.
7) Poker stuff - you need dealer buttons, cards, cut cards, seating chips, kill button for limit game (if playing with a kill), one hi/lo button per table, and preferably some all in buttons if using a dealer. And chips. But you all already knew that.
I have a ton of other things but I'm taking a dump and the wife just came into the house and asked to go to dinner so more later (Getting Help, Getting Pictures, Travel Logistics, etc....a lot to go over here).
