FREE POKER SUPPLIES

Hosting a home game

Over the last years poker has exploded in popularity and more and more people host home games. Many recreational players prefer playing at home with friends instead of going to a poker club or a casino. It is usually a friendlier environment, and you don't have to pay any rake to the house. Before you bring your friends over and start playing there are a few things to take into consideration.

Poker supplies
To be able to host a good home game you need to have some poker supplies. It is necessary to have poker chips. You could play with cash on the table, but to be honest, that doesn't feel very professional, and if you host a tournament it is almost impossible to play without a poker chip set. There are quite a few stores, both online and offline, that sell quality chips to a reasonable price. This is the first step towards a good home game.

If you wish to improve your home game further there are a wide range of poker supplies to choose from. You can by a felt to put on your kitchen table, or why not go the whole way and buy a real poker table. It is not as expensive as you might think. There are cheap fold-out tables available for about $200, which is a small price for a big improvement.

Blind structure and chips distribution
Before you start a tournament you have to decide how fast the blinds should be raised and how much chips each player should have. If the blinds are raised too fast in relation to the chip-stack the tournament becomes a lottery. The short stacks only have two moves; fold or all-in. To prevent this, big blind at the first blind level should at least be 1/100 of the total stack. So if all players start with 1000 in chips, the blinds at the first level should be 5/10. This is the absolute minimum. If you have more time you can go with the WSOP-structure where players have 10.000 in chips and the blinds start at 25/50. If the blind structure is too steep luck becomes a far more important factor, and the good players won't benefit as much from their superior poker skills.

These things will help you in making a good home game for you and your friends. Good luck!