HOW TO HOST A SUCCESSFUL TEXAS HOLDEM HOME GAME

Hosting a poker game at your home is a great way to have friends over to share time eating and drinking, laughing and telling tales, and generally having a good time competing to win or lose. Here are a few ideas to help you in hosting a game at your home that will be fun and authentic. Enjoy!

FORMAT OF THE GAME

Before any cards are dealt you need to set and confirm house rules with everyone involved.  Home games can be setup any way you want.

A ring game format is most commonly associated with home games. Stakes are set beforehand, and players are able to buy-in with as much money as they like. They can also leave the game whenever they wish, allowing them to leave with more of their money than might be the case if they stay to the end.

One poker variant can be played all night, whether Texas Holdem or Five-Card Draw. Or, you can go with ‘dealer’s choice,’ where, as they deal rotates around the table, each player is able to call the game of his choosing.

Though most tournaments play Texas Holdem, you’re sure to end up playing Seven-Card Stud or Omaha or some other variant at someone else’s house one day. Thus, you should learn to play as many variants as you can. PartyPoker.com is an excellent place to do so, with its free poker rooms for Stud, Omaha and other games. Practice before going to your friend’s house, and you may just well surprise yourself and the others with how well you do. Once you decide you want to play for money, this site is also a great place to do so, thanks to its huge jackpots and busy cardrooms.

If you want to play tournament-style at home, you need to follow a different format. You’ll need a set amount for the buy-in, and there can only be three ways to leave the game:

1. To lose all your chips.

2.To concede your seat and whatever chips you have remaining,

3. To win all the chips. This means there will only be one winner, with all others losing. That’s not always fun for the losers, of course, but the potential for bragging rights for the winner, and higher tension regarding the stakes, makes this exciting for all levels of players.

One further advantage to doing a tournament-style is that it’s impossible to lose more than the amount of the buy-in (unless you incorporate an add-on period later in the game).

UltimateBet.com regularly schedules tournaments. Go there to hone your tournament skills when you feel up to the challenge!

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