How to organise a home game of poker with friends

The popular card game is not only available to visitors to gambling houses and online poker rooms. If properly organised, it’s also suitable for family or friends at home.

Inventory

Ideally, instead of just one pack of cards, you should have a poker set with chips. They can be easily found at specialist shops, department stores and online websites.

The kit contains:

• A pack of cards.
• Different coloured chips.
• The trim card.
• Button chip.

Sometimes includes a cloth, “Big Blind”, “Small Blind”, “All-in” buttons, and a fleet for placing chips. A budget variant will cost 100 EUR, a better quality variant will cost in the region of 500 EUR. Chips can be purchased individually.

Rules and nuances

In gambling establishments, disputes are solved through croupiers. If you want to play at home, you must take care of everything beforehand: print out the game rules and the table of possible combinations, determine the amount of fines for violators of certain points.

The rules of the table are agreed upon before the start of the game:

• Determining the amount of mandatory bets.
• Setting a minimum and maximum buy-in fee.
• Deciding how to get more chips.
• Choosing a banker, who is responsible for handling the financial transactions.

The winner should not be prevented from getting up from the table, forcing his opponents to win back. However, it is forbidden to participate in just one hand and leave the game after the big payout is overturned. Playing the game for at least three more hands is a requirement.

End of game

It is best to plan in advance what time the game will end (or when the table will be closed). Otherwise there might be some confusion and frustration on the part of the losers, who will try to win back. The hour set is the signal for the announcement of the last deals. There can be a certain number or a full round of “Button” chips.

Deal of the cards

The start of each round is shifted clockwise by one player in order to keep the order of the cards. For convenience, many elect a croupier, but the ‘Button’ chip continues to move in a circle, ensuring the same frequency of blinds for each participant. Don’t forget the order in which the cards are dealt – starting with the MB and the last starter goes to ‘Button’.

Tournament

Organising a home tournament requires you to put the event control on a machine. For example, download a special application equipped with a tournament timer to your PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. The software is able to count down the total time, warn of blinds and breaks, and calculate the number of prizes and the amount of rewards by itself. If you don’t feel up to purchasing inventory and dedicating space in your own flat for a friendly tournament, we suggest organising a private online game to spend time with friends remotely. Leading poker rooms do not forbid invitation-only tables.