The Venerati chips from Sidepot. I got a set of 600 as follows:
120 x .25c
220 x $1
200 x $5
50 x $25
10 x $100

This is to cover a .25-.50 and hopefully 1-2 game if I can ever get the latter to run. With 8 players I was about out of quarters and dollars by the middle of the game. A few people had to reload and I gave out $5s and in one case a $25 chip just to use one! The $25 chip was highly coveted. It worked out fine with players making change as needed.

I've built two tables now, the solution for the wobby-ness is an extra sheet of Plywood. The heavier, the better results I got. Though, the most exspensive way would be just buying better legs, but that's a bit of my budget.

I've just recently joined the word of Facebook for specifically this purpose.

I generally kind find my way around software and web applications fairly easily, but if there was a "Best Practice" for using Facebook to coordinate these events, that would be very helpful.

Sarge

Not sure if there is a best practice. I first setup a "group." I filled out all the fields and at some point selected "private" so it didn't display on my facebook page, and other's facebook page. I also don't think it shows up in searches. I wanted to initially invite people I knew and their friends. You can certainly make it public though. I (unfortunately) have some facebook "friends" I'd rather not know I'm running a game - for a variety of reasons. When inviting people you can either select from your facebook friend list or send an e-mail to non-facebook users. I'm not sure what the non-facebook end user experience is though.

Once the group is setup - think of this as your homepage or website - I create "events" hosted by this group. These are the game dates. Again this is a private event (but can be public) and I can mass invited all members of my "group" and anyone new added to the group. There is the option of sending an invite to non-facebook users who can RSVP without a facebook account. You don't need to create a "group" to create "events." Events can be setup anytime ad hoc for anything. I just like the group to centralize all the information and the event to manage the fine details of each night.

Hope that helps some. I'd be happy to add you (or anyone) to the group if you'd like to see what I'm talking about.

Also, I think meet-up works similarly with a group/events. I could have just as easily used that. I already had a built-in captive audience with facebook.

Finally, I've gone ahead and purchased a domain name now for my poker club, so I'll have a site setup at some point too. I've caved in.

Most casinos use speed cloth. The authentic felt you are thinking about is for table games. I'd strongly recommend dealing a game on felt before committing your table to it, it is really aggravating.

awesome, I love your dedication to hosting a home game.

Hmmm. I've only been to two poker rooms and what I have isn't what I played on there. The Mini-Suited Speed Cloth is just too slippery for my taste. The cards do glide right across the 8' span no problem which I'm sure is great for passing the deal around. But it's very hard to manage the cards and chips on it IMO. There's no friction at all. It's like a sheet of plastic. But I'll get cloth samples before I commit to anything on the second table - or just build a second felted top for what I have already and compare the two.

After having followed your story here, I went to
2 homes games (MA) and am going to another one tonight.

At these two houses (one was one of those condos you had to have permission from the owner to enter- I liked that after having read the story about someone robbing a home game at knife point ack!)
they had a dealer and took a small rake to cover the food
and drinks. Everything ran soooo smoothly, I think I am going to ask to deal. (Deal 2 nights, play 2 nights).

In both cases, they sent out for subs and chicken wings.
This was for about 10-14 people on both of those nights.

They were both very well run.
The dealers obviously knew what they were doing-made the game go smoothly, and the $ good
all the way around.

I wondered about chips myself.
Here at these 2 games, everyone bought in for either
$200 or $300. The chip thing was not a hassle.
They had predominantly $5 chips and $1 chips.
a Few $25. When the guy who had the $25 chips, and when I had 2 $100 chips, we just cashed them in
and the chips went back out through the dealer to the other people.

So after having read your story and attending these 2, I might give it a go here (NH).

Just thought I would give you my experience regarding the food/rake thing. It just was very smooth.

Liar!

I've only been in one casino with speed cloth: The Fitzgerald in downtown Las Vegas.

I believe the cloth of choice for custom tables is velveteen.

What kind of crappy felt did you play on?

I don't know. My impression of felt tables is from at least a dozen underground games (Not casinos but these games are raked, so they have $$ to spend).

I've never been to Vegas but I have been to a variety of casinos in a few different countries. Almost all had speed cloth. You could be right though, my sample size is pretty small.

Hm, weird. Which ones? I think maybe I might have heard somewhere that speed cloth was more popular in Europe, but it's also conceivable my synapses just rerouted your post to confuse me.

I've played in many rooms in California and Vegas, and only the one mentioned used Speed Cloth.

Cheap felt does suck, though. Velveteen FTW.

Not velveteen.

Most "casino" felts are a composite poly-nylon-blend, the bastard child of table-game felts and speed felts. Probaby more like YAT's "Nylon Velvet"

...although to be fair, I've only played in AZ, CA and NV.

TBH, I don't really know on this point, but I'm collecting resources for building tables, and that seems to be the cloth of choice.

All my tables use Velveteen. Feel free to ask questions.

Where in CT are you? I live in Fairfield County and would be interested in playing.

*Sigh* I fail.

I can't find a Set Up Group tab on facebook. I can create an event - is that what you mean?

Sarge

Pretty sure you can use event or group, but group I don't think you'd have to repeatedly put out. (Then again that could be good?)

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/groups.php?ref=sb

The link MA has will work. There is an icon there to Create A New Group on the top. Also, if you have the facebook tool bar displayed on the bottom of your browser you'll see icons for Groups and Events. You can start there to create either.

Groups - I use this to post general info and use it as my pool of people to invite. It really can do nothing more than act as a general web page for your group. I called mine a poker club and asked people to join it. You can spawn off events hosted by this group once it's created. It also has pictures, links, discussion boards, wall, etc. If events are created from here it will list all the past, current, and future events you create.

Events - You can either start this from the group page you create, or create ad hoc events. If you do it from the group page you can auto invite everyone already in the group - so that saves you a step. Also, you don't need to put all the specifics of the game there - people should look to the group page for that if you have one. The event will have a link to the group page if you create the event from the group page. You can also invite people via e-mail address without facebook accounts and they can RSVP without joining.

For those who already use facebook, this is the easiest method to organize a game IMO. I've looked at other things that can organize events and manage invitations/RSVPs and nothing works as well for me. E-vite, I just hate on principle. Google Calendar, works OK, but it's just another place people have to go. Personal web page, looks cool, but you need to either build a calendar app or use something like Joomla and pay for an app to do what facebook can. And again, this is yet another place people have to go to look to deal with poker. Most of my group already uses facebook every day so it's one-stop-shopping and free advertisement to all their friends when it posts to their wall.

corwin - where in ct is your game?

I live in Fairfield County and would also be interested.

+1

For those asking to get in, I am within 10 minutes of New Haven, CT. The game runs every other week right now. But as interest grows I'd like to run a weekly game. Stakes are 50NL, but I'd like to get to 200NL with the right pool of people. Maybe some small tourneys in there too.

If you're interested I can certainly add your name to my invite list. PM me with your name if your use facebook and I'll add it to the poker club group and you'll get invited to the next game. If you don't have facebook, just send me your e-mail and I'll send you the info.