I run a small unraked home game. A couple of the players just moved so the game died. I posted in home game listings, but no responses.

What are your best methods for recruiting players?

Pub league games if you have any are a gold mine... that's where I met poker players, and usually if one person is willing to come, they will bring friends.

I'm hosting my first game next Saturday, lets hope those who RSVP'd will be there, lol

Not as easy as it used to be. New players used to grow on trees. Not so much any more. Do you have legal casinos or card rooms nearby? Are there bar or bowling alley leagues operating? Are there still charity games going on in your area? These used to be fertile recruiting places, but they have declined also. If you can't get another group going , you might consider joining someone elses game.

The only games I know of are raked holdem or plo games. So a bit tough to recruit from there, since I'm looking for a much different game.

My group got started on meetup.com. It's not free, about 12/month, but either you can eat the cost, or ask people to kick in a buck a month for 6 months while you gather some new blood. (Or they just give you a beer, much easier imo.)

After 3 years we had a solid core and stopped using the site. We've also had attrition lately and need to decide how to reinvigorate it.

Here's something I wrote for another forum about what we use. Meetup.com

Our Meetup group currently stands at 150 players of which about 1/2 are active members. Here is our group link: http://www.meetup.com/Chicagoland-Home-Poker/

Overall, I love the site and the fact that it provides some recruiting via a more passive method. How did we get started on meetup? Basically I had a list of 50-60 players as of a year ago and our games rotated around 4-5 different hosts, each of whom had separate invite lists. We all used anyvite for invitations to games and then anyvite had some issues so we were in search of a new invitation site. In the process of doing some research I decided to give it a go, bit the bullet on the cost initially, and signed up.

Initially, we had some trouble getting all members transferred over, but in the end everyone that was still active on the list has made the switch. In the process we've been able to combine all of our lists into one master list that all hosts can use to invite players. Since switching we've had ~100 new people join up on the meetup group, of which maybe 30-40 have actually shown up to a game. We haven't had a bad apple thus far and have met some really great new people this way. Overall, you will get those that join up and say they are interested, but never show up and those that sign up and show up to a ton of games. It's been a wide mix thus far.

As far as the cost goes what I've done for the group is to have a $5/yr cost to be an active member which defrays the cost of the site (for less than 1 raked casino pot) and also gives me a really good handle on our active membership. The dues kick in after a free 3 month trial period so that it gives new players time to come to a game and see if it is worth the cost. The settings for the group are so that all members, paid or unpaid, can see all invites and activity, but in order to RSVP for a game their membership dues have to be paid up. Basically it's a way to filter through the list without doing it manually. I used to remove members after a year without hearing from them to keep the list "up to date", this way I never have to do that and they can rejoin up whenever they are able to start playing without having to contact me. <br /><br />We keep game sites secure to the non-paying/non-active members by only listing an approximate location on the invite and then emailing, messaging, or calling new players to the game to give them the address.

Nice features:

Forums - We have a forum set up for discussion where we talk about things like whose going to host which week, WSOP stuff, new game variants, or just shoot the ****.
Waitlist - If the game is full and someone wants to be on the waitlist they can register for it. Should someone unRSVP and a spot opens up, Meetup will automatically bump them from the waitlist to the game list and notify them. All automated, no work on the hosts part.
Recruiting - As I've said we've only had good people walk through the door. I typically will call new players prior to the game (I did this before) and chat with them so it's not like they are walking through the door without us having spoken. Most of our games are filled with the regular group of players 5-7 of us and then we might have a new person mixed in. The ratio is very high people whom I've played with for years so I don't worry about having a room full of strangers.
Photo Gallery - We started keeping a log of game pictures from big events, hands, etc. that is really nice and anybody can access. New players can get a feel for the game just by looking at the pictures.
Documents - We have uploaded our variety of games, rules, and other information to this section so that anyone can get answer to questions they might have about our game. We are currently in the process of finalizing the modified rules document. If anyone on here would like to see some of the features of meetup and how it works with our group join up and shoot me a message on there that your a PCF member and I'll just mark you exempt from dues which means you'd be able to poke around the site for as long as you'd want. The added benefit is that if your ever in town you can then easily join us for a game. Hope this helps!

Agree with previous poster. I also use Meetup for my home game and find it very effective. We keep the member base around 100 players and have 1-2 games a week, RSVP system works great for poker events.

A couple of things to consider:

1. First and foremost it really depends on where you live, here in Michigan card rooms are everywhere and so are the home games, the crazy thing is there is room for more in some areas because we have tons and tons of poker players - BUT when these players go to home games they are EXPECTING a well run machine.

2. If you are going to post your game online at places like MEETUP and what not, be prepared for these people to expect a well run game, with good dealers and proper rule sets.

3. In order to achieve these things, if you do not already have it, you may want to consider having a raked game to pay for dealers and other things.

4. A lot of players, myself included, absolutely HATE having a dealer who is actually playing the game....be prepared to have a permanent non-playing dealer if you don't already.

In no way take this as an assumption that I think your game is not any of these things, if they are already then congrats on a good set up! Don't be afraid to rake the game, even if just at 10% to $2-$3, and use the money to make the game even better, and a little for your trouble and effort....it will grow.

LOL. Take your rake bull crap out of here. This is home poker, not underground games. Huge difference.

sry missed this small post

it's difficult because it is unraked, when you have a rake game, you can give people 50 or 100 Bonus to get them coming

Amen. We've been running an unraked home game for a decade. When we moved across the country a few years ago we started going to the local bar poker games and built a new group from that.

1) If you are not in an area where it's extremely easy to book a game, you CONSTANTLY have to keep your invite list growing. Attrition is going to happen - it's life in the poker world. Meetup.com, PokerDIY.com, Facebook, Craigslist, etc, are all tools that can help. But be careful. I usually prefer to meet a potential player in person for a 30 minute chat before they get details of game time and location - if I don't get a good impression, they don't get to come.

2) Task your current players with help in recruiting. Poker players know other poker players - that's a fact. You have to keep the network growing. For this to work, you have to let your players know it's "our game" and not "my game". Get your players mentally invested in the game as "part owners" of the game. Come up with some kind of kick-back for successfully recruiting a player.

3) You will attract a larger base of players with a dedicated dealer that isn't playing while dealing (and one that runs a good, clean game). Also, have a top knotch table, chips, and premium cards. Your game is your product. Getting players to come is selling your product. As with anything else, people have choices in products available. Make yours stand out.

I used the networking of getting a few players, then friends of those players, and now I am having consisitently a full 8-10 players, with multiple being turned away at the last minute... I will likely be expanding to 2 tables for my next game and seeing how that goes.

For the record I have a high quality table, computer chairs for comfort, high end paulson casino-used chips, Fournier cards, etc...