Home Game; Rules

25 Jun, 2009 Fun, Poker, Poker Tournaments

In this installment of organizing your home game, I’m going to discuss the need for having set rules and guidelines for your home game. I’m going to assume that you know the basic games rules and how to play whatever game you choose, but as the host, you need to understand the OFFICIAL rules and guidelines as any and all issues will be your responsibility to resolve, and do so in a manner that is acceptable to all players. There will be times when you will have to refer to the official rulebook for clarification and resolution, so I urge that you not only know the rules, but have a printed copy handy at all times during game play.

Roberts Rules of Poker:

Roberts Rules of Poker is a collection that not only has become the standard rule book for most venues to use, it is the most complete set of guidelines in an easy to understand manner that doesn’t weigh a metric tonne. Its also becoming the standard rule book for most, if not all major tournaments, so even if you don’t host a game, its a good idea to go through it and understand the different concepts.

RROP includes rules for playing for all kinds of different games, including Limit, No Limit, Razz, Omaha, and Stud games and all their variants, as well as a section dedicated to Tournament play. You can find a printable copy of it here

http://www.homepokertourney.com/roberts-rules-of-poker.htm

At the time of this post, its currently on Version 11 (which means I’ll need to print off a fresh copy of it myself), and I recommend that you ensure you are using the most current version, especially if your home game is to include players from outside your immediate circle of friends. Its a great reference for you as a host, as well as the best way to quiet any heated disputes during your game.

Print it off. Review it yourself to ensure that you at least know where to find the sections pertaining to your game. And most importantly, have it available during all games. You may not need it every time, but it will be there for those occasions that you will.

House Rules:

Its also a good idea to create a set of House Rules for game. These you can customize in any way you desire pertaining to the way you want your game to run. It can include any number of issues like;

Drinking and Smoking permitted or not
Age to play
Tolerance of foul language
Strict game time start and end
Who supplies snacks/drinks for future games
Buyin, format, and blind structure
Payout structure (highly recommend adding this to the rules)
reference to a point system if you have one
specific rules you want to enforce (like showing of cards during a hand)

My personal House Rules for my home game include one rule stating that any player exposing a card in their hand during a live hand, will have his hand immediately declared dead. Early on, this was an issue that was getting a little bit out of hand, so we decided on adding it to the House Rules so that everyone understood it was frowned upon. Since then, we have not had any reoccurring issues. The idea is that once its a House Rule, it will be enforced. You can include anything you wish really, but try to keep it to one page long, and font size is easy to read. You don’t want to have a 100 pages of House Rules as it would be much too complicated to enforce and you’ll find that often, one rule will contradict another. Keep it simple, and keep it short.

Notice above where I said WE decided to add a rule? This is very important…your players will make or break your game, so listen to them if they have any ongoing issues or concerns about your game. Be open to positive feedback and don’t be afraid to change or add to the House Rules as required. It also gives your players a sense of ownership of the game and they’ll tend to come out more often if they feel they participated in making it a great game.

Once you create your House Rules, make sure you send out copies to all your regular players. A good player will always request a copy anyway, just to know what is and is not permitted during your game, but it also prevents anyone from using the old ‘I Didn’t Get the Rules’ excuse. Just remember, they’re YOUR rules, and YOU will be one enforcing them. If a player truly didn’t get the rules because of an error you made however, give them a warning and immediately supply them with a copy. Also, post a copy of the House Rules where everyone can read them during the game.

One thing I do suggest is adding this last line to your House Rules:

“ALL DISPUTES ARISING DURING A GAME THAT ARE NOT COVERED BY THE HOUSE RULES WILL BE REFERRED TO ROBERTS RULES OF POKER FOR RESOLUTION. ALL PLAYERS MUST ADHERE TO THE DECISION OF THE HOST AFTER REFERRING TO ROBERTS RULES OF POKER.”

This allows you to keep your own House Rules short and sweet and personalized, yet give you a solid reference for any and all disputes arising from time to time. And they WILL arise too. It also gives YOU the host the final say in the decision.

One word of warning though. If YOU happen to be one of the parties involved in the issue, its not a bad idea to succumb to the decision of the table to resolve the issue. Avoid at all times if possible to appear that you are making or changing the rules to favour YOUR desires. Its much better to let the table decision in this matter, even if you know its the wrong decision.

Once you get a copy of RROP printed off and have created and distributed your House Rules to all your players, you’re ready to start hosting your game. All you need are the players themselves.

And that will be the subject of the next post.

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