Poker

[Paul Makepeace]

On 9/8/07, wiggly at wiggly.org <wiggly at wiggly.org> wrote:
> Chris Jack wrote:
> >> Hmmm, anyone up for a London pm Texas Hold em night ? No money on
> >> the tables but we could do a small entry fee, winner takes all
> >> thing if  people wanted ?
> >
> > I'd be game for a game - but there would have to be money on the
> > table. If you've ever played the "for fun" tables on line, you'll
> > understand precisely the reason why. The money ain't the point nearly
> > so much as the people just ain't playing poker.
>
> I'd be up for a game, but not without cash. For exactly the same reason
> as Chris. With no money people are quite happy to go all in with fuck
> all and turn it into a lottery. I don't play the lottery, it's no fun.

Yep, waste of time. If people haven't played before give them a quick
lesson before they start and go easy while they're learning. I've seen
enough complete beginners do really well to consider 'learning on the
job' totally reasonable.

> On the other hand, even if you're only putting a fiver in with 8 or so
> people that's still quite a nice amount of money to focus the mind.
>
> The other option is a cash game. Good in so far as people cannot be
> knocked out completely (i.e. watch everyone else play for four hours

Cash games it's worth considering allowing cash-downs where you can
take some cash out of play after a hand. Get agreement on this before
obviously.

> after they've been knocked out) but most people want to play tourneys
> since that's what they see on TV. Plus tourneys do ultimately limit your
> losses without you having to have any willpower.

If you play a freeze-out i.e. don't have rebuys or add-ons it makes
the tournament a bit dull if you bust out early. That's bad enough
with a 10min cycle across Dublin but for someone traveling into London
it'd be annoying as hell, unless they could content themselves with
getting drunk on their own or with the other losers...

If people are too worried about being sent to the rail it can slow the
action too much.

> If you want some suggestions of starting chips/blind structures/winning
> split I'd be happy to shove my two penneth in.

What works well for us is an initial buy-in of say 20quid for 200chips
and unlimited rebuys at a tenner (also for 200chips) if you get broke.
After a couple of hours it's freeze-out with an optional tenner add-on
for 300 chips. This gets a nice prize pool going without eliminating
anyone for at least two hours. We usually pay top 15-25% of players,
e.g. 50% 25% 15% 10% for a couple of full tables.

Pizza/curry is ordered out of the prize pool too (hence the extra cash
going in at the beginning).

P

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