We get it, you’re itching to play some live poker. Despite the coronavirus lockdowns
resulting in a new poker boom, 🎅 with searches for “online poker” reaching a 5-year high
amidst the pandemic, you just can’t get the same thrill online 🎅 as you do staring down
an opponent in a live game.
Casinos are still closed (and at Lemons & Sevens we 🎅 support
keeping them that way until there’s little-to-no threat posed by the virus), but as
more countries in Europe begin 🎅 to tentatively end their lockdowns, it looks as if we’ll
be able to take part in home poker games long 🎅 before we’re able to re-enter a casino
safely.
Now is the perfect time to start preparing to have your friends visit 🎅 your home
for a texas hold’em tournament or cash game, so you can celebrate being allowed to
socialise again in 🎅 style. At Lemons & Sevens, we’ve been running our own home games for
years, and we’ve put together this guide 🎅 to ensure your poker home game runs smoothly
and is enjoyable for everyone. (Yes, even those who leave with a 🎅 much lighter
wallet.)
Hosting a home game means you’re interacting with far fewer people than you
would in a casino, and 🎅 no employer has to make a decision on whether to risk the health
of his or her employees and customers. 🎅 However, we don’t recommend holding a home game
until it is safe to do so.
What do you need to host 🎅 a home poker game?
Before you can
host your poker game, you need to know you have a group of people 🎅 who are willing to
sit down with you for three or more hours playing cards. Ideally, you’ll have at least
🎅 6-8 players at your home game, but you can have up to 10 players for a one-table
tournament and as 🎅 many as you like for a cash game, provided you have people who are
happy to join a waiting list.
Whether 🎅 the attendees are your friends, family, or
colleagues, you’ll want to get some sort of confirmation that they’re going to 🎅 show up.
There’s nothing worse than only 4 people from your 8-person game showing up at your
house and trying 🎅 to play short handed for the entire night. To stop people from flaking
on our poker night, we like to 🎅 ask for buy-ins up front. (As a reward for paying
up-front, you can add an extra 2k to those players’ 🎅 20k starting stacks.)
You may also
want to start a Meetup group to keep all of your players in one place 🎅 where they are
easy to contact. A meetup group gives you the ability to attract new players by having
a 🎅 web page dedicated to it. Here is ours.
Texas Hold’em Setup
For a typical Texas
Hold’em set-up, you’ll need:
At least one deck 🎅 of cards
A set of poker chips
A dealer
button
A poker table
Someone who can shuffle and deal cards
Established house
rules
Playing Cards for 🎅 Texas Hold’em Poker
It’s best to have two decks of cards in
play, that way you can always have one shuffled 🎅 and ready to go. If a card goes missing
or is damaged during your game, you’ll also need a replacement 🎅 deck of cards to swap
in. So we recommend having three decks of cards at a minimum.
All the decks of 🎅 cards
should have different designs to stop cards from one deck making their way into another
deck. They should also 🎅 be made of plastic, not paper. Paper cards will be banana-shaped
by the end of your game, and are far 🎅 more susceptible to damage from spilled drinks,
etc.
In a pinch, one deck of paper cards will do for an amateur 🎅 game, but you should
invest in multiple decks of good plastic playing cards if you want to make your poker
🎅 night a reliable and regular feature. (Please note: Lemons & Sevens readers can follow
this link and use code LemonSeven 🎅 for 10% off all orders over £50, but rest assured
that we have not been paid for this endorsement and 🎅 genuinely recommend using Premier
Poker Chips’ cards and poker chips.)
Poker chips for your home game
Chips with numbers
on - don’t 🎅 get blank chips. Gets confusing and there’s always one guy who needs to ask
the denominations every hand. Not everyone 🎅 has the same level of poker experience that
you do, so think about how confusing it would be for some 🎅 of the less experienced
players at your table.
Not all numbered chips are created equal, however. Numbered
poker chips come in 🎅 three materials: plastic, ceramic, and clay. Plastic chips are the
cheapest, and a good set of plastic chips will serve 🎅 your home game well. Good quality
plastic chips can even be customised with your home game’s logo. However, you should
🎅 steer clear of the very cheapest plastic chips if you want to make your poker night
look and feel professional. 🎅 (They just don’t lend the same gravitas to your 3
bet.)
Ceramic chips are a more professional, upmarket chip for any 🎅 home game. In fact
you’ll find that some casinos use ceramic chips themselves. They’ll put you back more
than a 🎅 plastic set but if your poker night is going to become a staple of the social
calendar then you’ll be 🎅 getting more than enough use out of a nice set of chips.
Clay
is the highest standard of chip, and very 🎅 few companies in the world make them - both
of whom are based in the USA. If you want a 🎅 high-end custom set of poker chips, you’ll
have to shell out up toR$20 per chip, but you can also find 🎅 used sets online for less.
Clay chips are for the high rollers among you.
For anyone else, a good set of
🎅 high-quality plastic or ceramic chips will do the trick.
How many chips do I need for a
poker home game?
For a 🎅 home poker tourney with one table, you’ll need a minimum of 300
chips of various denominations, and a cash game 🎅 will require at least 500 chips.
Tournaments and cash games use different types of chips (see image), so if you 🎅 plan on
having both games you’ll need both types of chips - with tournament chips numbered up
to 5,000 and 🎅 cash chips numbered up to £25.
For more information, check out our Poker
Chip Distribution Guide (and calculator).
