There’s been talk among a couple of my friends about starting a home game. Of course, nobody ever does it, so I’m going to take it on. None of these guys are big players or anything, so it would be more of a social event, yet I want to make it “real” in the hopes of it getting more serious as time goes on (a la Ferrari’s or something like that). So to get the ball rolling, I’m starting to do a little research and would like to solicit all 5 of your opinions.
First off, I need chips. I’m thinking of a one table setup, so 8-10 people. I think I’d potentially like to have enough to do a small tourney (same number of people), but that’s not essential at this point, but keep it in mind. I’m envisioning low limit play, with the potential tourney being NL. From what I’ve been able to gather, getting a set of 500 chips should serve me well for the limit part. I would just want to get a majority of them in one color. I also don’t want denominations on them. I’ll also wait to get customized ones until I know this thing can keep going. So, chip related questions are:
- 9g or 11.5g? - People seem to like the 11.5g, but it appears that a lot of casinos actually use the 9g ones. Some people also don’t like the “feel” of the 11.g ones due to the metal slug in the middle. Thoughts?
- Number of chips and color makeup - For this type of setup, people seem to recommend 3 colors. Many sets come with 5 or 6, but 2 of those would tend to go unused (ie. the “black” ones). I’m looking for a decent value and don’t want to lug around chips that never get used. Is 500 enough for one table playing limit HE (assuming no denominations on the chips, so we can make them whatever)?
I’m also going to need a table at some point. BG and his brother (see this one too) kind of made me think that I could do this myself. The issue is I have zero ability to make this, and nothing anybody can say will make me believe otherwise. Trust me. I am not handy at all. Not at all. Thoughts?
Anything else I should be aware of? Any “gotchas” or unexpected things that can pop up? This is aimed at people that I know. I’m sure they all start out that way, but at least at first it will definitely be a handful of people from work and a couple of friends, so it should be a friendly game.
Of course, any of you guys that make it to flyover country will be invited (ha! I know I’ll never have to collect on that 
), just give me a heads up.
I’m hardly a homegame guru, but here’s what I’ve got going on….
For chips:
* I went cheap and got the thick plastic diamond pattern chips. Each roll of 50 costs about $4 (less if you buy them two at a time at GameStation [see: http://store.yahoo.com/gsonline/thplchbl1.html).
I figure I’ll get clay chips when I’m ready to get customized ones.
* If you really want clay, I personally like the 11.5g.
* My chip stock consists of the following quantities:
— 150 each White and Orange
— 100 each Red and Blue
— 50 each Black
With creative stacking and demonination assignment, I can make this comfortably server up to 10 players in our bi-weekly NLHE games. Depending on the buy-in I give the players stacks work 500 or 1000 (that literally translates to cents, but whatever).
For our usual $10 freeze-out game I give players 10 each of white(5), orange(10), and red(25) plus 8 blue (50) and 2 black(100).
Can’t really help you with the table. We play on my dining room set (though I’m thinking about making an oval that would fit on top.
One thing you didn’t mention is cards. I highly recommend KEM if you don’t already have them. One site had a WPT set of two casino-style decks plus a WPT dealer button. Fun for the kids, y’know.
Hope this helps.
Nice, I’ll have to road trip to the Land of a thousand lakes and sit in
Come on, if you’re going to come here, you have to at least get the slogan right: Land of 10,000 Lakes
I know you NY’ers have no idea that MN even exists, but come on over! If, however, you see me outside my house with a chipper/shredder, you may want to keep moving. Yeah sure you betcha!
I recommend the 8.5-gram; we got the 11.5-gram and they are, indeed, bigger than the casino chips. Casino chips seem classier to me.
For colors, I’d recommend $1 (White), $5 (Red), $25 (Green), and $100 (Black). We got 300 white, 300 red, 200 green, and 200 black, for 1000 total.
Understand, that you won’t necessarily BE those denominations, unless your game goes high-roller all of a sudden, but it makes sense to stick to the color scheme that the casino uses. And, in tournaments, those colors might make sense.
For a smaller game, you might even end up with “White and Red are $1, and green and black are $5″, or “Red is 5¢, Green is 25¢, White is $1, Black is $5.” Something that’s sort-of still the way the casino uses the chips.
Most of this is my preference rather than really the way I do it; I’m still looking for a regular home game.
Chris - I have in the last six months or so put a home game together. Here was what we use and do:
Chips - I hoppend on Ebay and “won” an auction from 5stardeal.com for 500 11.5gm Suited chips. These are pretty decent. The comment above about them being larger than casino chips is true - they are about 1mm larger in diameter. That being said, I can still shuffle them into a stack of casino chips pretty easily. The weight is fine. Unless you want to invest $$$ in real casino chips (e.g. by buying them for cash from the cage), then these are as good as it gets. In the set of 500 I got 150 white, 150 red, 100 green, 100 black. See [Game] below for details on how we use them.
Table - We rotate from house to house, so a poker table is not yet a necessity. If I had the space for it I would definitely buy/build a table, but for now, the dining table is fine. A key addition is a large piece of felt to cover the table (purchased for $3 from local fabric store). Unless you are putting together a table, pool-table felt is not necessary, buy the grade-school project crap - it works just as well. I think Jeremy from Love&Casino War suggested getting automobile headliner padding for underneath the felt - again, not necessary unless building a table.
Cards - Originally we used Bicycle (20-30pack from CostCo), but these were getting beat up. So I invested in two decks of KEMs. These are very nice - take abuse easily, don’t crease, and you can order single-card replacements if they are damaged. Having the felt is key though, because otherwise they are so slick that they slide away.
Game - We started out playing a $20 buy-in NL tournament, starting with T500 in chips, blinds of 10/25, doubling every thirty minutes. The only problem was people busting out early and wanting to go home. We then changed to a multiple rebuy tournament but this resulted in really long tournaments and way too much all-in action in the rebuy period. We have finally settled on a $40 buy-in NL ring game with .5/1 blinds and re-buys up to the original $40 allowed. This works pretty well, there are usually at least one or two re-buys, and occasionally somebody tilts and re-buys four or five times. We set a stopping time in advance where you can cash out without people getting pissed, but the game can continue after that for those that want to stay. We use the blacks for .5, white $1, red $5, green $25. Works pretty well.
Location - Like I said, we rotate houses and the host provides beer and chips/nuts. I usually take a six-pack with me. One guy drinks wine, so he brings a bottle.
Jake/Ash, good thinking about the cards. I knew I was forgetting about something. I suppose if I go through the trouble of getting cards and a table, I should get the decent cards. Where’s a decent place to get those?
WRT the table…Technically I don’t need one, but the table that would be suitable is upstairs by the master bedroom and I have a feeling my wife wouldn’t like it.
Therefore, I need something. I could just get a long fold up table, get the felt, etc., but if I can get enough interest I think I’d like to go for the whole thing.
Thanks again!!
The WPT set of KEM cards I mentioned is here:
http://store.casinofunzone.com/reinca.html
I just did all of this recently, only to have my own home game dry up completely. There’s always talk of getting together, but with stupid stipulations about everything involved, so until I get a format set up, I won’t have another one. Anyhow…
Chips: I bought 9g chips from http://www.pokerchipmart.com, and I like them better than the 11.5g chips that have the metal slug in the metal, as they tend to sound “odd” when you splash them. As far as color breakdown goes, I think the others that replied can give a better explanation.
Table: Believe me, I’m the least inclined person when it comes to building ANYTHING, and I built my own table. It works, and it’s super cheap. The only problem is getting everything together and taking the time to do it. I busted it out in about 3-4 hours, and that’s even considering that I had to buy 3 pieces of plywood and dowel them together because I didn’t have a truck to bring the big sheet of plywood home.
Hope that helps.
OMG CHRIS!!! JUST BUILD THE TABLE!!! LOL!!! It’d be a hella fun project, plus the do-it-yourself table costs $300 less than the one you want to get! That’s poker money! LOL, but we bought 500 11.5g chips from some online site for $100 AND we got a raggedy poker table, but that’s a deal. The only thing I don’t like about 11.5 is that when I shuffle 8 chips, I can’t get the friggin top 2 chips to shuffle!
I like the heavier chips personally. 500 will more than suit 8-10 players. I have 150 white, 150 red, 100 blue, 50 green and 50 black. We play $1 white, $5 red and .25c blue.
For tourneys, we break out the greens for $25. I like having the chips resemble something close to their casino counterparts’ worth. But that’s just me.
Most places that sell chips will send you a 1 chip sample if you send them a SASE. Might be an easy way to see if you like the 9 or 11 gram ones better.
I didn’t see this mentioned in the above comments: those 11.5g chips are WAY slippery. Unlike clay or ceramic chips which have some friction to them to help keep them in stacks, the 11.5g are plastic and as a result want to slide all over the damn place. Having played with clay, ceramic and 11.5g plastic chips, the plastic ones are by far the least pleasing to handle.
Just my two cents.
It is nice to see that my game is becoming famous across the land. As for my tips …
Chips: Go on EBAY and buy a set for about $100 or so. You might have to sit through a few auctions, but there are tons of chip auctions. I got, I think, the heaviest weight. Everyone seems to love them, I have gotten nothing but compliments and many have expressed various degrees of envy (including Ugarte who spent more and got lighter chips that are plain and says mine are better — contact him for comparison). I got 150 red, 150 black (I love black chips), 75 blue, 75 green and 50 white. I like having more than three colors and in my game we use red for $.25, black for $1, green for $5 and blue for $10 and this Monday I decided to throw in the the white as a $25 chip. Having the bigger chips makes splits and counting a lot easier, especially if you play lots of different games that may result in different sized pots.
Can’t help you on the table … I live in NYC, my dinner table is the poker table and my occasionaly desk. If you are picking out a poker table, surface is very important and round or oval is probably good. But you can get by with most anything.
Finally, make it fun, especially if you plan on winning. If people enjoy themselves, they’ll keep coming back.
OK, ok, I know it’s not as nice as a real table, but if you’re looking for something cheap and transportable and hide’s away easy, the fold-out poker table top you can get at Pier 1 works. It’s practical and inexpensive. If you’re game takes off and you’ve got the space by all means I stongly recommend a real table. But in the meantime, this is a quick solution. Just a thought.
Looks like other have already covered the most important stuff, but I can never resist adding my two cents:
1. I have 11.5g chips from 5stardeals, and I like them. I have seen and played with better chips, but these are plenty good enough. And unlike YP2, I have no trouble shuffling up to 14-16 of them.
Really nice chips are really expensive–the 11.5g onces are a nice compromise.
2. You can get a VERY nice table for $400, shipped. If you are handy, you can probably build your own. I personally would/could never do so.
3. Have a designated dealer and a designated shuffler, with two decks going. You can churn out hands faster than a casino by doing it this way.
4. Make sure you get a dealer button and cut cards when you order your chips.
5. Kem cards are well worth the investment.
6. From my experience, it’s best to play either a tourney or a cash game on a given night, not both. If you play a tourney, the first players knocked out often end up sitting around for a long time waiting for the cash game, which isn’t much fun.
Chris,
I have the fold up table (my wonderful wife bought for me for Xmas). It works just fine, my friends liked it too. Although it is set up for 8 people, 5 or 6 would be the most comfortable.
As for chips, I’m also trying to decide on which weight. Look around at the local hobby shops, they are starting to carry poker supplies with the new poker craze. You can go in and “feel” them for yourself.
Kevin a Loyal Blogger Reader
I would second Ash on using 5StarDeal. Go through ebay rather than their website for a better price. I won an ebay auction for 300 of the 11.5g Super Diamond chips for $61. I payed almost exactly $70 after tax and a $3 pick-up fee (they’re about 20-30 minutes outside of Cleveland).
I also got samples of the other chips and I liked the look of the Royal Suited the best even though from the pictures they looked the worst.
Our games are usually NL sit&go’s with 6-8 people. 300 is more than enough chips since we start with $150 and blinds at $1/$2.
If you get 500, get four colors.
150
150
150
50 for large denominations.
This works really well for our 6-10 person game every Tuesday night for 5 years.
I like the heavy ones [metal slug] but thats just me. I looked around quite a bit one afternoon and the cheapest I’ve seen is about 18 cents a piece. I paid 120 for a nice aluminum case and 500 chips. I just use a regular table but I don’t want an extra table around.
vegassuppliesandgifts.com but he sells on ebay for cheaper than his website.
I built a table and am so happy with the finished product that I must recommend the do-it-yourself approach. Check out my post on it: http://cheapthrillsjd.blogspot.com/2004_03_28_cheapthrillsjd_archive.html#108100070567332149. I am not a woodworker either, but it was surprisingly easy.
Regarding chips, I have the 11.5g metal-insert and am happy with them. Casual players are very impressed with them, but regular casino players tend to notice that they don’t feel like clay casino chips.
I find hosting a home tourney to be a hassle, whereas ring games are so much fun.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that the 11.5 chips won’t absorb beer if it’s spilled like clay ones will… not that it would happen to you.
You should check out PokerProf’s entry about 5stardeal before buying there, just my opinion.
http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/ebaytips/fraud_vero.php