[mizuchaud]

We usually play a NLHE tournament for $10. I know micro, but that's what we got.
8 people max due to the small size of the poker table.
The tournament lasts FOREVER..... usually around four to five hours due to bad blinds management. By the time it's heads up there's six people around the pool table and no one wants to play another tournament because it's 2:30 in the morning. Four hours for around $60 in money just sucks.

My question is: if I were to suggest a cash game, what should my structure be? I have a feeling people will be happy to buy in at $20. We usually play on average once a month. (I'd love to do it more, but it's not my house and the host house is the only one with a poker table and without kids.)
Two of them play nightly online in 5$ tournaments. a third is a hothead and usually busts out early and then complains for the rest of the night. A fourth was disappointed there wasn't a rebuy in the tournament when he played for the first time.

$20 min buy-in $40 max, .25 -.50 blinds for NLHE sound ok or too high?
I have never done this before. I guess rebuys too in case people go nuts.

I got 200 St Jo $100's I can pretend are $1's. I guess I will be looking for quarter chips if we do this. (160-200).
I got enough of another ncv denom (120) to cover the $5's. Let's say 8 people buy in for an average of $30 each. ($240) how much more do I need to cover in chips for the night? Double that?
Sheesh.
Tournaments seem so easy now.


Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Devilboy]

Get a blinds timer!

We also play $10 tournaments of around 8 players but we allow re-buys. Starting stack 2000-4000 with 25/50 blinds

Sometimes we play cash games. I personally prefer the cash format but some of our players won't play anything but tournaments (wtf). We play $10 buy-in and 12.5c / 25c blinds. Sometimes we do 25c/50c blinds with $20 buy-ins but some of our players don't want to lose more than $20 and if they bust out early they refuse to re-buy which is no fun for anyone. So usually we do the 12.5/25 thing.

[mizuchaud]

Originally Posted by Devilboy

Get a blinds timer!.

D'oh. Must get one.

Originally Posted by Devilboy

....the 12.5/25 thing.

The 12.5/25 thing sounds about right for our range, but I think that's going to be a pain to explain each time.

[Damon]

What about .25 / .25 blinds?

[mizuchaud]

Sounds good!

Gonna go shopping for quarters now.
For a 8 person distribution, $25 buy-in would 20 quarters be enough?
I need 2 racks worth?

[Wylecoyo]

I have recently, in the last two months or so, started playing a micro-cash game on a rotating basis with our tournament style game. We also normally only play with a $10 buy-in so all I have been doing is using a $10 cash game, no limit with a set $0.05/$0.10 blind. This may seem like too small of a blind, but it has worked very well and everyone has enjoyed themselves.

[A-Ro]

We also play $10 tourneys. I've implemented a ring game after the initial tourney is over playing 10c/25c NL (also $10 min but w/ a $20 max).

We used to play two to three tourneys a night when we played, but this works well as people are busted out they just merge into the cash game. At the end of the night you leave when you want (not if/when you get busted out).

[Big Mike]

Originally Posted by mizuchaud

Gonna go shopping for quarters now.

This whole thing is about having an excuse to buy more chips, isn't it?
It's ok, we understand.

Mike

[jdunford]

My group started as a cash game group and I encouraged touranments (eventually), which tend to be short (2-3 hours) followed by cash games (usually the tourney losers are eager to try to win their money back). Our cash games are usually $20 buy-in at 25c/50c, but occasionally it's $10 with 25c/25c (no point in designating a 12.5c chip). Actually, the last time we counted out $20 in chips but a couple of guys weren't willing to buy in for $20 and didn't want to play if they started short stacked, so we all bought in for $10... so I guess it was 12.5c/25c with chips worth half their face values...

For tournaments, I used to use a free clock on my computer but purchased "The Tournament Director v2" this summer. It's fully customizable. If you know HTML, it'll only take a couple of hours to make a very professional looking clock (or you can use a template/sample if you don't care to customize it). You can see it in action in some of the photos on my web site.

[99%evil]

We play a .25/.50 or .50/$1 cash game. YOu don;t need a ton of your low denom chips. if we do the.25/.50 each person gets 12 quarters, that's all the quarters we ever use. If you rebuy it's with $5 or $20 chips and you get change. I see no need for giving out more blind change. I've got a cash set with the following (good for 8-10 people)
100- .25
140 - $1
140 - $5
20 - $20

That's over $1200 in cash, we've never had more than $600 or so on the table.

Starting stacks for 8 people ($20 typical buy-in) (change it to 8 - .25 and add a $1 if it's 10)
12 - .25
12 - $1
1 - $5