Turns out I couldn't make it back to town for tonight's game. But she still has 7 confirmed.

I would actually go in the opposite direction of most of the people that have posted on this. I think the worst idea would be to give a tip or a gift. There is no scenario that I can come up with in my mind where this would actually work out in a positive way. First, you are going to have to solicit the money from the group. Some will give, some will not. The gives will resent the nots. The nots will feel like they are being pressured by the gives. Once you give this to her, she is likely going to feel like a charity case. Unless you have an absolutely fantastic group of people, this can only end badly and is likely to kill the very game that it was meant to “save”.

You have to go in the opposite direction. Make it $5 (or $10) mandatory. Give the money up front to the host (whoever that is) and have them provide all of the food, drinks, etc. Make sure that it is enough and make sure that the “host” (even if it is not her) is providing the group with whatever they need. At the end of the night, the players don’t feel obligated to tip and the host doesn’t need to worry about asking for reimbursement for their expenses. Also, if the host remains constant and begins to collect more than they are spending over a period of time (which is unlikely, but possible) then they can add in cards or some other poker related item. If the money isn’t enough, then you can make that adjustment over the next few sessions as long as it is upfront.

Good luck.

Why dont you coach her some, give her some tips about the players. she could turn into a winner quite fast and get her passion for poker back. Only give her tips if you know what you are doing obv.

Went to a RIDICULOUS game last night.

$15.00 buy=in gets you 30 CHIPS. Game was a 1 chip, 2 chip NLHE.

Total crapshoot made worse by the fact that any pot that went to the flop saw our host cut 4 chips out of the pot, and another 2 chips on the turn.

Now, I grant you that he put out a large spread of food, but raking 3BB when players are only starting with 15BB is just going to kill the game.

I assume you may not go back??

Well, I dropped my $15.00 and lasted just over an hour, and split. Went because the host is a dart league guy, and I said I would show.

But no . . . never going back. Not even sure if I will ask him out to my (real, unraked) game at this point, but we'll see.

Example of silliness:

I am in the 7 spot on a 9 player table (blinds are 1/2). No folds to me (pot = 11 chips). Look down at KK, and shove for 30 chips total into an 11 chip pot. FOUR callers . . . NONE with even a pair, none with as many chips as me.

So, folks are calling off stacks with hands like J/9o, A/6ss, K/Jo, and 6/7dd.

KK held, but oh my God how can you compete against that? Oh yeah, and my genial host scooped 6 chips out the pot for the "house".

So it's a .50/1.00 game with .50 chips and starting stack of $15. Pretty ridiculous. How much do you think he rakes per night?

A couple of us have, on several occasions. She's improved, no doubt, but she does not maintain control over the course of the night. She gets looser and more gambly as the night goes on. We all do, to an extent, but she doesn't seem to have a handle on it.

And I can't get her to fold a K rag hand preflop to save me. She's call a raise out of position. Someone said she is unteachable, but I hope not.

Lets put it this way . . . he did not put HIS buy-in into the bank. This is a timed game. After 75 minutes, everyone with chips cashes out. Then they take a break for food and drinks and do it all again. I am going to guess that they get at least 30 hands at full rake, so works out to $90.00 coming off the table during play. when you consider that the total initial buy-ins equalled only $120.00, that is straight up bull****.

With eneely's situation, I only object to the $5 fee as a sort of slippery-slope issue. It has the potential to alter the fabric of a long-running game, making it no longer just a friendly "party" where you happen to play poker. But in a vacuum, $5 is a very fair price to me to play in a well-run poker game, and it could work out okay.

However, I'd rather not play poker at all than play in this ridiculously structured, heavily raked game you've described, not even with all 8 of my opponents being total money-burning suckers. The host is just brazenly lining his pockets, managing to turn poker into a sort of house game where no one else has a chance to profit. Lame.

Maybe you should invite him to your game, but pull some kind of nonsense with his buy-in where he only gets 50% cash value for his money. The rest is for the "house." Hell, it'd probably still be a better deal than his game offers its players.

Nope. If he gets an invite, it will be straight up, just like everyone else. I run a square house. No, if his "customers are happy with paying for their refreshments in this manner (he supplies a case of beer and food), that is up to them. I am not stooping to that level, though.

I know, I know. I was just messing around.

I just can't imagine how this guy pulls off this game. The host not paying for his buy-in is a 12.5% fee off the bat, and then he's raking outrageous amounts of money on top of that. Do his players really shrug off the fact that 8 cash buy-ins go into the purse, but then the equivalent of only 2 or 3 buy-ins come out after each round?

I suppose we can point to the fact that they're atrocious poker players, but I still find it incredible that they're clueless enough to repeatedly throw money into a bottomless hole. They show up with, say, a few hundred dollars total. By the end of the night, they come out with probably less than a hundred between them, and the host has all of the rest. That's some awfully expensive beer.

To be fair, I think he does not bother putting his cash in simply because he KNOWS he is taking enough off the table in rake to cover the fee.

As for how "his" group of players feel about the arrangement, I did not stick around to find out. But I saw at least half a dozen re-loads while I was there, so that would offer some cover for his shenanigans.

Impression I got was that most are just there to drink his beer and gamble their cash away. did not think anyone other than our host was too serious about their money.

Yeah, now that I think about it, that buy-in is covered by his rake rather than being a de facto fee (like it would be for a tournament). He still has to make good on whatever chips are out there, including his.

Reloads? Gross. I'd chalk it up to getting ripped off for my $15 as soon as I realized what was going on. After I've burned up that $15, I'm gone, never to return, like yourself.

Clearly.

Y'know, maybe it would be a good idea to invite this guy to your game after all. I would have mixed feelings about offering him a good game for free after seeing the way he treats his players. However, if his spread of players and his atrocious game are any indication, he's probably a total fish. Get him to bring those hundreds he robs from his players in that pseudo-poker game and lose it at some real poker.

And maybe there's an outside chance that he'd realize just how bad his game is after playing in yours.

I think it more likely that he realize how good he has it with his set-up and never invite me again. Which I am fine with, having deleted his number from my phone.

His players aren't gambling. They are spending money, plain and simple.

Well, no game this week. I haven't spoken to the host about how it went last Monday. Most of the old-time regulars didn't play, for various reasons like business meeting, out of town, sick, etc.

Someone else is hosting next Monday, and I am hosting my Santa game on Dec 15. Maybe she will host on Dec 8. No word yet.

Yup. And lots of it.

I wonder whether his game started off like this or evolved from a less extreme structure. At minimum, it's pretty rude, like billing people by the hour to hang out with you.