Home Game; Finding Players
The most difficult part of starting a home game can be getting enough interested players to come out regularily. I can guarantee you will get plenty of people saying they would be interested, even some geniunely excited about it, but come game time, their seats are empty. Nothing is more frustrating than planning a poker game expecting all your players to attend, and few if any actually show up.
In this final segment on building your own Home Game, I’ll try to give you some helpful hints on where you can find players who are regular participants, and hopefully keep your frustration levels down to a point where your blood pressure medication can control it easily.
Before that however, you have to be aware that some players are going to be very hesitant if your buyin is too high and/or your payouts are too small. Of course, you can’t please everyone, so when you consider your buyin level, give some thought to who you have in mind to invite. Are they tight fisted when it comes to money? If so, planning a $100 tournament will not get you anything but headaches. You would be better off offering three $20 games vs one $60 game. They believe they get more value for their buyin money this way. Are they regular players in other games? If so, you need to make sure your payouts, blind structure, and basic house rules reflect those they are more accustomed to. Having a select group in mind will make your invitations much easier to accept so consider them when starting out.
So now you have your target audience in mind, you have created a decent blind structure and acceptable buyin, you’ve decided on a format to play, and a schedule to play. Now where can find the players to fill those empty chairs?
- Family & Friends
- Free bar leagues & games
- Local clubs and other home games
- Internet
- Word of mouth
FAMILY & FRIENDS
If you’re lucky enough to have family and friends interested in playing poker, you’re half way there in filling your tables. With poker being so abundant on television these days, almost everyone has seen at least one show on how to play, and would be interested in playing a live game because it looks like fun on TV. If you do plan on inviting family and friends only, keep the game fun as much as possible. Keep the buyin low and the payouts wide spread (that way more people feel rewarded for playing). While the rules are still important, be more of an educator than a disciplinarian and teach them the right way to play the game. Explain why one hand beats another if they look confused and try to keep it lively and entertaining at the same time. The one thing you don’t want to do is start alienating your family and close friends by being too strict, too controlling, or too harsh to deal with. When I play a game with family and friends that don’t regularily play, I don’t play to win anything. I’m there for the social aspect of the game more than anything. All my family and friends know I play regularily, and all want to bust me up during a fun $2 tournament. Thats fine by me, as I’m really not going to break a sweat playing my A game for a $10 prize pool. Still, I enjoy playing with them, and at the same time, I can teach them more about the game, and share stories with them. My father and brothers played last Christmas time, and it was for nothing but bragging rights. Dad never played the game before, one brother plays regularily, and the other plays occasionally, but never for anything big. Dad beat us all! I never saw a man more proud of being able to beat what he called ’seasoned’ players. I got the pic of him with all his chips on my cell phone and everytime I see it, I can’t help but smile.
FREE BAR LEAGUES/GAMES:
If you look around your city or town, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of drinking establishments offering ‘freeroll’ poker nights regularily. These are great places to not only find players interested in coming to your home game, but also to practise. Many people playing in these games have virtually no poker experience whatsoever other than what they’ve seen watching a WPT event on television, but many others take it VERY seriously. Most if not all are free, and if there IS a charge, its minimal. Often, prizes are awarded instead of cash, and some will even have a point structure for regular attendants for a much larger prize (like a seat to a major poker tournament) for the high points earner or however they determine the best player. Just show up, register, start mingling with the other players, and then casually introduce your own home game to some of them. You can picky on who you invite as well, by talking to them first and finding out more about each one of them. Some you won’t at your game for one reason or another (not experienced enough, drunk, loud, abusive, maybe even too experienced) but you will find a few players that would be interested in coming out to your game.
LOCAL CLUBS & OTHER HOME GAMES:
Many underground poker clubs will host a small buyin tournament prior to starting the nightly cash tables. Its a way for them to get players in their door and hopefully stay to play the cash games after the tournament is over. This can be another great resource in finding more experienced players to your game, but make sure you actually WANT them to come. The players in these games tend to be more educated in the world of poker, and some will no doubt be better than you. I for one, don’t mind having better players at my game because I learn more from them, but you may not want to invite a semi professional to your game where most of the players are family and friends, so use your better judgement. Remember, keep your target player base in mind when choosing who to invite. Also, you may get invited to someone else’s home game as well, and here is yet another great oppurtunity to find players, as well as make new friends. I’ve made many friends in my poker career, and we are all good friends. But when we sit down to play poker, its deadly serious, and that’s the best part of it for me.
A word of warning though for attending underground games. Normally the club will charge a rake (a portion of the buyin goes to expenses for the club and NOT awarded out in prize money), and in many areas this makes it illegal. If you’re worried about getting busted in a club, you might want to avoid them, but I’ll be honest with you, the chances of this happening are extremely small. Still, it IS possible you could end up on the wrong side of a judges bench.
INTERNET:
The internet is truly a wonderful thing. Not long ago, poker was only played in remote places, far from prying eyes…in back rooms under poor lighting with old smelly men smoking 5cent cigars for days without any rest. Then came the internet, and look what happen! Poker is EVERYWHERE, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, right in your own living room. Not only can you PLAY poker anytime, you can join poker groups online and share thoughts and ideas as well as get to know other players in your area. Do a google search for ‘poker forums’ and you’ll get hundreds if not thousands of suggestions. The hardest part is finding one close to you, and active. Once you find one or two though, with a good active membership and centered in your area, you’ve found more players than you will ever be able to house in your home. Post an announcement on these sites ( I suggest you introduce yourself first though and roam through their offerings, just to be sure its the type of player you’re looking for) and then watch how many people you get interested in coming out to your game. When posting, a word of advise…know EXACTLY how many people you can host for, and make sure everyone knows that the limit is 10 or 12 or 16 or 100 or whatever you can manage. Once you’re full, start a Waiting List just in case some players drop out on you.
The one thing about the internet is you don’t get to meet people first prior to inviting them into your home. I remember my very first home game, my wife was scared to death of inviting complete strangers into my house to play poker. I understand her concern, but felt I could handle anything if it should be needed. Luckily, the first group of players to arrive were all excellent people, trustworthy (at least away from the poker table), and very geninuely appreciative of me being able to host and open my home up to strangers. Most still come out regularily as well, and all are still welcome to join in anytime I host a game.
Some excellent sites I recommend you join are (just to name a few):
- pokerforum.ca (Canadian based)
- 2plus2.com (possibly the most active poker community online)
- homepokertourney.com (excellent overall poker resource site)
- meetup.com
WORD OF MOUTH:
Once you get a game or two under your belt, you’re going to find that the players who attended are going to talk about it to their poker friends. Being a great host and keep a good game flowing will be all you really need to spark interest in your game, and it won’t be long before you have all the players you need to attend coming out regularily. Nothing makes a host prouder than knowing their game was recommended to another player by someone who has played at your home game. It says a lot about your ability to host a good solid honest and fun game of poker.
There will be times when attendance fades though, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were you. People do have other activities outside of poker that may keep them from your game from time to time, but don’t stress too much about it. If your game does drop off abit, all you have to do is one or all of the above again and get people interested in coming out once more.
In conclusion to my series on building your own Home Game, I just want to remind you to have fun with it. Poker is just a game afterall, and its meant to be fun as well as profitable. And if you have any questions you would like me to personally address, just go to pokerforum.ca and look up STR82ACE. You’ll also find my home league CHINGUACOUSY HILL POKER LEAGUE.
Good luck!
