Home game question

I host a NL $10 cash ring game regularly at my house, and have a few questions.

How much should the blinds be? We are currently playing .10/.20.

Should I increase the max buyin? The normal post flop bet is close to $1, and the normal turn river bet is 2-5. This seems a bit high for a ten stack, yet everyone is so accustomed to doing it. Thanks in advance.

.10/.20 blinds are a tad on the high side for a $10 buy-in (based on rates for online play). If I recall, $10 is typically the max buy-in for a .05/.10 table.

With most bets being that high, I'd definitely expect a higher buy-in to coincide. It's not far from the expected for the level of blinds you're playing at, but since the blinds are double what I'd expect for that buy-in, it only stands to reason...

- Jeffrey

Sounds like you need to raise to $20. That's just me though. Our bets on river/turn are also around $2-5, and we play $20 buy in with a $20 rebuy.

With $20 buy ins we used to start off with .25/.50 blinds. Now our blinds start out at .50/.50 (most people were paying .25 to see a flop anyway, plus it was a pain in the ass to cash out chips once our blinds raised, so we made small and big blinds the same to start out). Then we go to .50/1.00, 1/2, 2/4, 4/8, etc.

Tomorrow I'm holding a home game with at least 25 people. We're having $20 buy ins with $20 rebuys. First two blinds last 45 minutes (.50/.50, then .50/1) to encourage more rebuys. After that we're going 1/2, 3/6, 5/10, 10/20, 20/40, 40/80, and 80/160 if we have to.

Go with 100 x Big Blind stacks. So either make the buy-in $20 or lower the blinds to .05/.10.

This allows for skilled play to occur on the turn and the river, instead of just having to push all-in whenever the pot gets big.

I had a similiar question when I first started up my home game. Here is what Fnord had to say..

Originally Posted by Fnord

The larger the stacks are relative to the blinds the more hands like suited connectors and small pairs go up in value and hands like AK, AA, AJ etc. go down in value, as it becomes more difficult to just push most of your chips in on the flop and expect a worse hand to call.

My guess is Party does 50x BB buy-in for NL to attempt to "juice" the game and give newbies a chance not to bust out (their bankroll) too fast. However, the unintended consequence is that at in a full ring game they made it too damn profitable to sit at 8 tables at once waiting to ram and jam the shit out of big cards.

As a better player, you *want* tall stacks, and to keep 'em tall.

Check out the home game forum for more tips..