Sometimes, Poker Is Just About This Kind Of Thing

[hblask 1]

First of all, to all of you who are bitter and cynical, and have nothing but flames for most posts, stop reading. This post is not worth your time.Tonight, I hosted my first home game. I'd bought a new set of chips, and I'd been wanting to do it, but with the three weekends of MN summer fast approaching, I figured I had to do it now, before everyone is "up nord, at da lake". So on short notice I tried to organize a NL tournament for between six to twenty people. The start time came and went, and I had, yes, one person show up. Fortunately, people started to trickle in, and we got a small tournament started with six people. About the fourth hand I hit the nut straight, A-high, on the turn, and take an early chip lead. Alas, it was not to last, and I'm out on the bubble (2nd gets their money back, third gets nothing).In the meantime, a few more people had showed up, and we were able to start a nine person tournament. $1300 starting stack, $10 buy-in, 5/10 blinds going up each time around the table, first three to bust get an optional rebuy for $15. Two of the latecomers had never played before, everyone else was Serious. The one guy who had never played before printed out a sheet to show what order the hands were ranked. About three hands in he checked his chart, and loudly declared "my hand's not on this list." Whaaaaa? Yeah he won it with three kings. And again and again until he had at least a 3-1 chip lead, maybe 4-1. Every time checking his chart. No, he wasn't just playing dumb. He really was. His flush on the river beat the nut straight. Everything he touched, no matter how unlikely, turned to gold. But he had to work early the next day and just turned his chips in and left. Question for home gamers: what do you do in that situation -- a huge chip leader has to leave for legitimate personal reasons?Personally, my second tournament comes down to two hands. First, you should know, nobody knew what "fold" meant. It was 6-8 people on every flop. So when I raise my AA preflop, three or four people stay in. The flop comes queen + junk, I raise and am called. Turn comes more junk, I raise, am pushed almost all in, I call, guy turns over a pair of queens. I'm 90% to win on the river. Yeah, you guessed it. I'm down to just a few chips, so next hand I push all-in blind, and miss completely, and claim the final rebuy.In the meantime, the drinking is going full force, and the group, who is basically three groups of strangers, is getting along GREAT.The second key hand I was involved with was great fun. Basically, I flopped top pair with a gutshot straight draw. Because the competition was weak, I ended up all in after the flop. My opponent was the short stack, so I've got some leeway. Turn comes pairing me up, but giving my opponent the straight. So on the river I need another of my cards to pair up for the boat to beat his straight. (He also had the flush draw.) I hit my full house, I'm dancing around the kitchen, everyone is stunned, and one person says, wait, isn't that a straight flush? Yep, it was, my boat loses to a straight flush in the second key hand of my first home game. More yelling and celebrating, only this time I'm down to just a few chips.After that I fought and scrapped and remembered my HoH enough to fight my way back into third (top three paid) to get my original buy-in back, only to be rivered again, and I"m done. But you know what? I didn't care. This was a great night. I was hoping for better poker results, but I played as well as I could and got bad breaks. The most important thing, though, was it was a great group of guys who had a lot of fun and were good sports. Yeah, this was what poker is supposed to be about. Tonight, the money didn't make a dime's worth of difference.(By the way, anyone in MN who wants to be invited to my next home game, let me know, I'll add you to my list.)

[EStormOk 0]

Congrats on having a good time playing poker. I don't know what we would do at our home game if someone had to leave and was the huge chip leader. If it was our normal group and he was that big of a lead, we would probably let him have his buy-in back and remove the chips from play maybe, haven't really thought about it.

[cu in 4years Dan 1]

we dont let them. they have to stay till the end, but if they have to go i guess we'd just take the chips out of play

[DLinc 0]

I also host a home game with a mixed group of player experience.I suggest you spend some time on www.homepokertourney.com, lots of tips there.Their rulebook, which I print out and use as the final authority if there are questions during the game, says to split the chips evenly among the remaining players at the table.

[sixhands 0]

First of all, to all of you who are bitter and cynical, and have nothing but flames for most posts, stop reading. This post is not worth your time.Tonight, I hosted my first home game. I'd bought a new set of chips, and I'd been wanting to do it, but with the three weekends of MN summer fast approaching, I figured I had to do it now, before everyone is "up nord, at da lake". So on short notice I tried to organize a NL tournament for between six to twenty people. The start time came and went, and I had, yes, one person show up. Fortunately, people started to trickle in, and we got a small tournament started with six people. About the fourth hand I hit the nut straight, A-high, on the turn, and take an early chip lead. Alas, it was not to last, and I'm out on the bubble (2nd gets their money back, third gets nothing).In the meantime, a few more people had showed up, and we were able to start a nine person tournament. $1300 starting stack, $10 buy-in, 5/10 blinds going up each time around the table, first three to bust get an optional rebuy for $15. Two of the latecomers had never played before, everyone else was Serious. The one guy who had never played before printed out a sheet to show what order the hands were ranked. About three hands in he checked his chart, and loudly declared "my hand's not on this list." Whaaaaa? Yeah he won it with three kings. And again and again until he had at least a 3-1 chip lead, maybe 4-1. Every time checking his chart. No, he wasn't just playing dumb. He really was. His flush on the river beat the nut straight. Everything he touched, no matter how unlikely, turned to gold. But he had to work early the next day and just turned his chips in and left. Question for home gamers: what do you do in that situation -- a huge chip leader has to leave for legitimate personal reasons?Personally, my second tournament comes down to two hands. First, you should know, nobody knew what "fold" meant. It was 6-8 people on every flop. So when I raise my AA preflop, three or four people stay in. The flop comes queen + junk, I raise and am called. Turn comes more junk, I raise, am pushed almost all in, I call, guy turns over a pair of queens. I'm 90% to win on the river. Yeah, you guessed it. I'm down to just a few chips, so next hand I push all-in blind, and miss completely, and claim the final rebuy.In the meantime, the drinking is going full force, and the group, who is basically three groups of strangers, is getting along GREAT.The second key hand I was involved with was great fun. Basically, I flopped top pair with a gutshot straight draw. Because the competition was weak, I ended up all in after the flop. My opponent was the short stack, so I've got some leeway. Turn comes pairing me up, but giving my opponent the straight. So on the river I need another of my cards to pair up for the boat to beat his straight. (He also had the flush draw.) I hit my full house, I'm dancing around the kitchen, everyone is stunned, and one person says, wait, isn't that a straight flush? Yep, it was, my boat loses to a straight flush in the second key hand of my first home game. More yelling and celebrating, only this time I'm down to just a few chips.After that I fought and scrapped and remembered my HoH enough to fight my way back into third (top three paid) to get my original buy-in back, only to be rivered again, and I"m done. But you know what? I didn't care. This was a great night. I was hoping for better poker results, but I played as well as I could and got bad breaks. The most important thing, though, was it was a great group of guys who had a lot of fun and were good sports. Yeah, this was what poker is supposed to be about. Tonight, the money didn't make a dime's worth of difference.(By the way, anyone in MN who wants to be invited to my next home game, let me know, I'll add you to my list.)

awesome read hblask.Yup home games are fun if you have the right mix of people.Glad your first one went well for you.No idea what to do if someone has to leave, I have never had that happen.Good luck with future games.Six

[Demonde 0]

whatever

[Randy Reed 0]

First of all, to all of you who are bitter and cynical, and have nothing but flames for most posts, stop reading. This post is not worth your time.