This is my web diary (dare I say "blog"?) of my forays into making my own poker table. I thought it would be fun to share with others. Maybe it will provide a little inspiration.
THE PROBLEM:
I want to host poker tournaments at my home. However I can not really accomodate more than 10 people and the table I would use for that is really not ideal when there are fewer than 8 people. Plus, it's our really nice dining room table so there's that to consider as well. I have the room for more people, it's just a matter of providing a place to play other than the big stuffed ottoman.
So, I looked at the Trademark folding octagon portable table top. It's cheap, I could afford two or three of them and there you go. Problem solved, right? Well... those chip trays with the integrated "suggested drink location device" look like trouble waiting to happen. Put that thing on a wobbly card table and I can just see big ol' brown blotches of dried Diet Pepsi all over our nice light-beige carpet. (Not to mention all over my new ASM Group Buy chips!) Hmm... OK maybe something better is needed.
So, I looked at a nicer Trademark table, but it just doesn't do it for me. It's a tad more expensive and it does not look like a good value. I think it would last about as long as the folding top above but it's several times the investment of cash.
I don't want an oval table. Takes too much room to setup and store and for some its a strain to look across the table at the cards. I also don't like how you really can't see the people sitting next to you if you are on one of the long ends.
So, what's a guy to do?
THE SOLUTION (i hope):
Build my own table.
I decided two things right from the get-go:
1) It has to be an octagon.
2) It has to be cheap, simple and upgradable.
I explained #1 above. For #2, cheap is self-explanatory. I don't want to spend even two days wages on a table. Simple... I don't want to spend a month building this thing or buy new tools to do it. I want it to be portable and just sit on my card table but be more stable than a fold-out top with cheapo "felt". Simple also because I want my 9-1/2 year-old son to help with the project. Upgradable? Yes, I want to be able to add a raceway at a later date if I get the hankering to do so. I also want to be able to add banquet table legs to it to make it a complete package. Also, keeping with the cheap theme, upgradable allows me to decide if stage 1 actually works or not without investing in the whole thing in one sh-bang. Also, I want to be able to air-brush a backgammon layout into the surface of suitable size to use poker chips for the pips. I could even do four of them, at opposite corners and have four games going at once. Or, a backgammom layout in one corner and a chess/checkers board at the opposite corner. Neat idea, eh? Plus, I think it would just look kind of unique, you know?
Ok, so where do I start? Well, I started at
www.HomePokerTourney.com There is a section there all about building your own table. I browsed through that gathering information and found two very important items that got me moving down the right path...
1) Where to get the cloth and padding.
2) How to lay out the octagon shape.
#1 turned out to be Poker Supplies Ltd.
www.pokersuppliesltd.com They had a foam/speed-cloth combo deal that saved me some money from buying it seperately. They were easy to deal with and Len actually called me to check what I was planning on doing so that he could be sure that what I ordered would work. Cloth, foam and adhesive cost me about $61 shipped FedEx. It should be here in a few days, hopefully before the weekend. (Fingers crossed).
The octagon shape... how on earth was I going to figure that out?!? Well, I wasn't really too stressed about it (I do have a BS degree in Mathematics after all), but I did find a website that made things REALLY easy. It's a calculator that figures out all your measurements for you! if you are even halfway thinking about doing something like this then do yourself a HUGE favor and go here...
http://www.members.cox.net/ultimate_...alculator.html
OK, so I've psyched myself up and I'm commited. Let's do this thing! I went to Home Despot (ugh, what an adventure that was) and got myself a 4x4x3/4 piece of plywood, some screws, a 2x2x8 stick of wood, a new blade for my circular saw and a utility knife (since I somehow misplaced mine.) What else? Oh, we tried to find someone to help us with new countertops for our kitchen. We didn't. Anyways, it cost me about $55 for all that, but the actual materials (less blade, knife, extra screws) were only about $30, probably less than that actually. The lines were agonizingly long so I ventured over to the self-checkout. It only worked in Spanish. *sigh*... count to ten my children are watching... But God works in mysterious ways and there was actually a helpful employee who translated for me and got me checked-out. That was a surprise... an employee... a HELPFUL employee... that I did not have to search for... at Home Despot... go figure.
Now for the fun part... I get to cut things, drill holes and screw it all together!
continued next post...
) the folding legs are great for less than $20. i could never find them at lowes though, HD has them, most of the time in the moulding section (aka millworks). and if you run into any problems, scott keens builders forum has all the info you could ever want. 
Linear Mode
