The boys and I are thinking about doing one "high class" evening, looking for suggestions. In are mandatory suits/formal wear and expensive scotch, and a playlist with Sinatra, etc. Out are cigars (no smoking allowed in my building) and anything stripper-rific. (It's a mixed crowd, plus I'm a raging feminist.) Looking for any other ideas. TYIA.

(In an ideal world we'd find a venue to go to, since there's nothing about my living room that says 'high-class', but the price is right.)

Try suits and high class drinks. Strippers while fun to watch drag the class down IMO.

Sounds like fun. I need to find a holiday or occasion to try something like that with our crew.

Bump up the stakes? Not for real, but at least pretend the stakes are 100x higher.

Hire a dealer

I was just thinking about this myself, though I'm a long way from implementation.

Definitely seconding a dealer-for-hire...that was what I was going to say.

If held in home, temporarily redecorate the room being used. Move out anything that might prevent the suspension of disbelief (knick-knacks, etc.) and keep it plain, aside from anything that directly assists with the ambiance you're looking for.

I also like the pseudo-bumping of stakes. Maybe play with tournament chips and reduce value by a fraction of 1/100 (or whatever is appropriate for your group)?

I don't know what kind of chips you're using, and buying a new set probably isn't viable for just one evening, but if you know a friend with a really nice set, make an effort to use them instead. Ditto for higher quality cards (and those are worth it to just buy imo...Copag/Modiano/etc. if you're not already using them).

High-backed chairs (same thing, if you don't have them, see if you can borrow or rent)

Improved Table & Chairs
Menu items from quality restaurants nearby (stuff that works as takeout well).
Two Food/Beverage Servers.
Professional Dealer.
2x-3x normal stakes.

Tx everyone for the input. Clearly

is the lesson I'm taking from this.

Our poker group is around 15 regs/semi-regs, and a few other occasionals. Late-20s to early 40s, everyone's working but none of us are high-rollers. Of the regs, space-wise, I think that of the core group exactly none of us live in a house, it's all apartments/condos. (Big city, sky-high rents.) We already have to move my bikes to the bedroom and push back the couch just to get 8 of us in the living room. I do like the idea of a dealer, but with an octagon tabletop, we'd have to bump a player to fit a dealer in. I doubt I could even fit 8 high-back chairs in around the table, and Lord only knows where we'd put the food servers.

We do have expensive chips and cards already. Our usual BI varies between $50-200, only a couple of us are rolled for deeper casino-level degeneracy, so playing past NL100 would provide tilt more than class.

So some good ideas here, but I think that until I can get a venue like a private party room somewhere, I'll probably back-burner the evening.

Let me jump on the "yeah, that" bandwagon with:

Staff is important. Dealers and servers are critical, and you can probably get away with a single server based on your size. Your dealer will need breaks, so consider serving your dinner then.

Don't let us discourage you....these ideas are just suggestions rather than mandatory requirements. Of everything on there, the only ones I'd feel are needed (beyond what you already have) are a dealer and a "clean" room. And it doesn't even need to be a "professional" dealer....just someone pitching the cards that isn't you or one of your players.

No worries, Kesh, and tx for the encouragement. I may have someone in our extended group that has a connect at a hotel, so I'm going to wait til we have a room secured before I spend any more sleepless night's prepping my version of Molly's Game. If/when this gets going I'll post a "trip report".

I should add that my ref to Molly's Game was tongue in cheek. I'm not looking to make money/charge rake or anything like that. This is just for me and the gang on a lark.

Once per year, we have a $100 tournament and there are 20-30 players every year.

The tournament is held in a garage. Normally, this garage is used to hold the trucks that do maintenance for one of the poker crew that owns a property management business. The garage is big enough hold three tables very comfortably and is very clean (even though it is a garage).

Everybody chips in $20 for food, drink, etc. that is separate from the buy-in for the tournament (we actually have some people that just show up to eat and drink, separate from the tournament). That allows us to have a caterer that provides a pretty decent menu with NA drinks, desserts, snacks, etc.

The tournament runs from noon until about 10-11pm with an hour dinner break midway. Everything is self-deal on good tables with good chips (Pharoahs) and good cards (Modianos).

I guess what I’m saying (in a very drawn out way) is that you can have a “special” night or you can have a “high-class” night. A “special” night is possible with a good set-up and a good-sized venue. A “high-class” night can be quite expensive if you add in dealers, servers, upscale venue, etc. My suggestion would be to make sure that your players wouldn’t enjoy a “special” night instead. If you have 2-3 “special” nights and they go well, then I would raise my standards for the next big event.

That will be real fun. Try out suit as it matches with the occasion and try not to drink too much. lol

+ 1 - definitely hire a dealer. plus food selection is key. GL OP