Hey there. I have friends over 3-4 time a year for poker. We have always played nlhe for 10 years or so. Recently there has been some mention of adding plo or limit omaha/holdem. Just wanted to run an idea by the great minds in here.

.25/.50 nl and plo.

3/6 omaha and o8.

5/10 limit holdem.

buy in $60-$150

Are these similar stakes?
Does anyone run something similar?
Would you change anything if it was your game?

We play weekly plus a few extra sessions. We play .25-.50 with a cap of $50 for BI and reloads. We do a 4 game rotation of an orbit of NLH, PLO, a combo NLH/Omaha game we call Amarillo , and a locally developed creature we call NLH Triple Draw. We kept the stakes the same for all games.

As to adding games to your group. Do all or most of you just play poker 3-4 times a year? OR are you just talking about a game you host once a quarter? Do some or many of your group play in other home games or casinos? I ask this because if you only play poker VERY occasionally I would be very carefull about adding games like PLO to a group like that. It took our group some time and study , not to mention a lot of financial bloodshed , to get comfortable with PLO.

So if you are casual players who only meetup rarely , I would suggest you stay with NLH. If you are regular players who attend both your games as well as lots of others then introducing PLO is a great idea that you will learn to love through the pain! LOL Good Luck to you.

Of the 20ish people on the invite list 8-12 are casino/home game regs, myself included, and are the ones that brought up the idea of adding games. So depending on who comes I would adjust the game or run two tables if the need is there. I was wondering if the stakes made sense.

I would keep the .25-.50 stakes to start out , and if folks take to the mixed game format you could suggest raising the stakes after some sessions with the more experienced players AND some beginners getting used to the new structure. If your crew consists of mostly folks who play frequently, the learning curve will be shorter certainly

I would avoid total dealers choice mixed games , and use orbits of different games in some kind of rotation. A NLH/PLO alternating orbit game is a good start. You can always later add new games to your rotation and take some time to see what your crew wants to play or avoid.

There have been a few threads in this forum about adding PLO, with a nod to the idea of playing spread limit omaha instead. I think if you read through those responses you'll get the idea. Though if you have casino regs, maybe they can handle the wonderfully-phrased "financial bloodshed" that will 100% occur. GL

Can we assume $0.25-.50 NLH is the standard that you've been playing?

For PLO, I'd drop to $0.05-.10

Mixing in Limit games... $5 as an upper limit sounds about right, for both spread and fixed.

I haven't been able to get my groups to ever play an orbit (or orbit+1) of dealer's choice, but they will occasionally consider HORSE. For new games, I think it's a great idea to play an orbit (or two) as an introduction.

If they are NLH guys, it's probably easier to move to PLO, and the next game consider just limit games. Limit just plays too different to make for an easy transition.

I think added games give regular players an even greater advantage. so I'd run two tables, only one of which was mixed games.

I think your blind levels are a touch too high for the added games, given the buy-in.

Another option is what we do in our game, which is just have a button blind for Omaha. It allows you to limit the amount in the pot pre-flop more and it also makes calculating pot size bets pre-flop simpler.