Best House Rules for a Fun Home Game

We’ve talked a lot about home game on PokerTube; be it about etiquette or ways to reintroduce the spark to your felt-life. If you are hosting a game, responsibility is on you to make sure the game runs smoothly and according to the rules. Which means either taking charge of rulings yourself or delegating them to the anal retentive grinder in your group who knows the International Poker Rules back to front.

But sometimes the rules are dumb, or you and your buddies just think table-stakes is for pussies and like the wild west feel of true no limit. In that case, here are some things you might want to consider before writing up your house rules:

Dealing

Work out what the minimum quality of deal you are willing to allow is, and make sure every player makes an effort to achieve that level. The dealer is the person who is most likely to foul up a hand by getting something wrong (exposing a card, putting the flop down early, holding everyone up while they check their phone). So peer pressure the shit out of those who can’t deal or else have them assign someone else to do their job for them.

Or else have a few people who are a) competent and b) willing to just deal every hand at their table. Encourage other players to offer free alcohol to these people as a thank you. Although not so much that it impairs their hand-eye coordination.

Newbie’s Get A Freebie

Neophytes deserve some leeway as they are getting into the game. Likelihood is they’ll throw out a few string bets while they try to work through the sequence of play. They’ll make single chip bets without announcing a raise. They will act out of turn.

The usual rules should probably apply but if you are gonna suspend them for the noob, be aware that it can clash with the interests of other players.

So work out beforehand how much leeway you are going to give new players, which rules you will give it on, and in what size pots. Make sure the newbie and anyone playing with the newbie are aware of this rule. Bear in mind mitigating factors, if their move is in a small pot, it is fairer to wind it back and redo their action than in a larger pot.

You also want to think about what is fair for the other players in the hand.

Angle Shooting

Plenty of angle shoots are covered in the rules (string bets for example are just flat out illegal). But there are plenty of moves that the rules don’t rule on. Using these moves to your advantage can sour what should be a fun game if people feel it's ungentlemanly or they’ve been made to look stupid.

For example:

These kind of things are within the rules, but seem dirty. As home game director you need to know in advance if your joint is the kind of place where you don’t stand for that sort of thing or if you live in a wild wild west where ingenious deception no matter how sordid is all part of the game.

I don’t want to advocate either way, but make sure everyone in the game knows what’s fair and what isn’t.

Tourney vs. Cash

The nature of cash gives you way more room to play around with rules. Since any given hand only affects those who are playing it, if everyone involved wants to do some wacky shit, they can go for it.

Tourneys however, require more uniformity to avoid players affecting other’s chances at getting a payout. If you want the tourney to involve the seven-deuce game, or to run it twice you need to make sure every table is playing that rule consistently every hand where it becomes relevant. Otherwise it becomes unfair for the other players.

For example newbie freebies in cash can be worked out by the players in a given hand. In a tournament the rule needs to be stricter, and you as TD are the one to ensure it is applied consistently and fairly.

BYO and Where to Put It

It is not exactly part of the game, but poker is a social occasion. And if it is happening in your home, you will want to make sure the rules re snacks, booze and general refreshment are clear. If it is BYOB make sure you put that in the invite. Because otherwise someone will turn up without and bitch about being dry.

For the non-alcoholics you should have tea, water and instant coffee available just as a bare minimum. You’re still a host after all.

If you don’t want stuff spilled on your table, chips, baize cutout with blackjack markings on it for some reason then tell everyone to keep their drinks off it. Provide relevant surfaces within arms reach to put them on. Don’t wait for someone to get pissed and pour a pint of sticky real ale over the cloth, because banning the malcoordinated pissant who does so will make that cretin feel singled out, and all your future games will stink of brewers yeast. Forever.

The Golden Rule

All of these things basically boil down to making sure there is a clear and consistent set of rules, and that everyone knows what they are right from the get go. Nothing worse than playing out a massive hand before finding out that actually the highest spade takes half the pot on odd numbered rounds every third game of the month in this game.

Things like that will have people going over to your neighbor’s house for their poker funtimes. And your neighbor is probably a dick.