Over the years, one of the things I've found frustrating is the number of people who will come to a poker game with only one buy-in, or who may show up with more but seldom put much of it into the game. Naturally, I want my game to be as big as I can reasonably sustain, and players who occupy a seat for 5 hours and only put a little bit of money out at a time don't accomplish much toward that objective.

Does anyone have any tips for getting people to put more money on the table, specifically at a cash game? Obviously, getting deeper-pocketed players into the game is key, but sometimes you just have to work with what you've got.

Any suggestions are welcome, but I'm particularly interested in relatively small changes, not so much bigger-picture stuff like changing the game, structure, etc.

It's funny, we've instituted a .50 to 5.00 spread limit, which effectively reduces buy-ins and the money on the table. So that is not what you want. But it has made the game more sustainable, and encourages newer, learning players to participate, which is great. I'll bet that is what you want. Sometimes you have to find the right balance in home poker.

I've done something similar. About every third game, I've been doing fixed-limit something-or-other, trying to find the "sweet spot" of a non-hold'em game that people enjoy. I hope to do it every other game eventually, but my non-hold'em nights have been a little harder to fill, so I'm taking it slowly at first.

Stud/Omaha rotation went well and allowed two of my less-winning players to book profitable sessions. Then I thought hi/lo games would be a good choice, on the logic that split pots allow less skilled players more opportunities to win something.

I did stud 8 last time, and it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately (or rather, half-fortunately), a new guy and I cleaned everyone else out entirely. That's obviously not good for the game, long-term. Next time, I plan on doing Omaha 8 to see how that fares. Maybe the blowout at stud 8 was just a deadly combination of varied experience and variance.

In any case, I'm not talking about just getting more money into a hold'em game. Big-bet hold'em is great for teaching people expensive lessons, but not for getting them comfortable bringing a lot of money unless they're compulsive gamblers. Even spread-limit can be a little much. (One of Mason Malmuth's Poker Essays books goes on at length about how fixed-limit should be the preferred cardroom format, frowning upon no-, pot-, and spread-limit as games that crush donators too easily, in that order.)

You didn't mention the stakes for your no limit game? What is the min, max buy in and the blinds?


One of the local games in my area is 200Nl with blinds of 1 and 2. I've never seen anyone buy in for more then $100.

My NLHE game is $0.25/$0.25, min $20, max $50. My fixed-limit games are $1/$2, min $20, no max.

Buy-ins at NLHE are a mixed bag; overall, for a 6-handed game, I'm lucky to crack $300 in the purse. I ran it 7-handed one night with a good spread of players and got a little over $400 total. These figures include at least $50 and sometimes more like $100 from me alone. That seems to be about as good as it gets.

In FL games, it's a little less. But it's not a fair comparison because these players are mostly very familiar with NLHE and totally new to non-hold'em games.

That, and most pay-processing services will cut you off and/or freeze your funds if they even suspect they're being used for any kind of gambling.

Bah! I actually considered getting one of these, mostly to keep drunk people from driving to the ATM. It's more of a public service!

If my first reply is unacceptable, I recommend you find yourself a big, fat whale. My .25/.25, $50 max BI game used to run $400-500 deep on a typical, 1 table night. When our resident whale was there, it would usually run to $1k or more. Whether the whale was having one of his lucky nights or not, rebuys were way more prevalent when he was there. Everyone knew that all it was take was one good hand to win back some/most/all of what they were down, and guys that would usually "one-and-done" would rebuy at least once, and some several times. He encouraged everyone to gamble it up, keep playing even if they were tilted, and kept the game going later into the night. Plus, the whale generally will lose 6-10 buy-ins himself!

I will be seeking out a harpoon gun, posthaste.

Really, though, then maybe what I need is to simple find some terrible but deep-pocketed players. As it is, my deepest-pocketed players also happen to be the ones who know what they're doing.

Now that I think of it along these lines, maybe that is exactly what is keeping my game so conservative.

My better players come in for plenty of money. That doesn't really help me much. It's not like they put in a lot of rebuys, and they tend to win in the end anyway. My modest donators are the ones I need to be more willing to rebuy. But the game dynamic so far is that the donators show up, buy in, and lose their money to the better players. It's very straightforward like that.

The thing is, they may not be winning, but they're not totally clueless either. They understand that poker is a skill game and that they're typically being outmatched by their opponents. (One of them even openly refers to his buy-ins as "donations.") They still play because they enjoy the game and the company, but that's not the kind of situation that would make most people want to reach deep, obviously.

I need someone for them to beat, and who brings enough money that it makes a difference. A couple such people would be ideal. Where do people like this hang out?

Just FYI, the whale WILL piss off the mediocre-but-think-they're-good players: "Jesus ****ing Christ! How the **** can you call my reraise there with 96? I was repping KK+, you ****ing idiot!" etc etc. Make sure you have enough of these middle players in reserve to replace the ones that stop coming after their AA gets cracked by 42o runner-runner straight for 500bb. Also, make sure the whale has thick skin to handle said abuse on a regular basis. GLGL

But all of this…It's just…Am I the whale? Have I just been on an extended heater?

http://masoncity.craigslist.org/act/4298601740.html

I'm gonna see how this works. Will report back.

[unspecified side-bet amount] says you get a bunch of sharks dressed up in whale skins.

Alcohol and food usually does the trick.

I'm going to throw this out there, It's not my game but I did visit it once. I think it works best if your not around a casino yourself and are willing to spend a little money and/take rake. There's a summary at the bottom if it's too long for you too read.

There was a game around here that was kind of "underground", I had heard about it from a friend and when I eventually visited it I was at a bar with some friends and it was closing time. I was talking with some randoms who were heading over to a poker game and it sounded exactly like the one I heard about so I joined them.

Basically the game was four tables in a basement, and a separate room where you could hang out and watch TV/have a couple of drinks if you were waiting to play or just didn't feel like it. The owner of the house/game charged rake via his own rules, it was kind of confusing and I obviously don't recommend it but it was $0 for no flop $2 if it went to the flop maxed out at $5 if you saw a turn and $10 for all in's where the pot was $200 or more all paid by the winner of the pot after every hand into a jar set in the middle of the table. It ran on an honour system and there was only once or twice when I noticed it hadn't been paid properly and it seemed to be accidental.If you were caught trying to stiff the rake you would be kicked out/barred from the game.

He was able to charge that much, and attract a ****load of people because a)he provided alcohol b)he provided pizza c)part of the rake was put towards a taxi "service" which people could use on somewhat of an honour system as well. Basically if you got ****tered while playing and brought your car the taxi would be on the house.

Coming late like I did was not usual, the game would run every weekend, and texts were sent out to people who were in good standing with the owner when he wanted to run it. Usually a weekday game would mean there was a hockey game on or something and people who wanted could place a couple of friendly bets, have a couple of drinks, and play at the same time.

Having the alcohol/pizza really seemed to drive the players there, and people were very generous with there cash at the table, presumably and because I heard it more than once during my short stay there "**** it, got free booze anyway right?" The allure of getting a "free" drunk, "free" food, and "free" ride home, really brought these people to the tables.

TL/DR: I visited a game where the owner took max rake, but provided free beer, pizza, and a ride home. Rake is probably illegal, but you might look into providing a couple of drinks/food.

Not a lot you can do to increase buy ins. You could increase the first buyin to a min 30-40 but like I said you might chase away players. Maybe talk to the players and raise the blinds to $0.50 and $0.50, leave the max buyin at $50.

People seem to be very comfortable with the $20 min, even if a lot of them don't use it. I have been thinking about going to $0.25/$0.50, though, to have a more familiar 1/2 blind structure (I'm not married to the 1/1 structure or anything). If so, I might keep the limits right where they are, or bring them up to $20–$100. Not sure what I want to do there yet.

Yeah, when I wrote this, it is what I had in mind:

Just add:

Our regular game is spread limit, $5 max bet, dealers choice. We used to have everyone buy in for $40, and rebuy as needed. Cash on the table played, and was usually changed into chips at my convenience. After a few times when I put the 'rebuy' money into the wrong pocket (bank would come up exactly $20 or $40 short and I'd have that much in in my non-poker, non-bank, pocket, I started asking people to buy in for their max, most do $100.

The pots have gotten larger, partly from that (nobody thinking harder when they cross the $40 threshold), partly from more of the smaller denoms in play, and partly because people are calling more big pot games.

IMHO, the game exists to serve the players. If you don't have a deep pocket crowd, you'll need to find different players.

The 'new' game that I've played seems to have a couple of 'no more than 2 buy-ins' guys, and a couple of 'keep reloading to win it back' people. I'm interested to see if the game remains sustainable. Deeper pocketed players don't like losing multiple buy-ins to people who are only risking one or two buy-ins. In the past, I haven't been able to select players, we're generally happy when we have a full table (8).

GL

the answer is simple: lower the max buyin. When people can afford to gamble with $200 in a night, but the buyin is $40, they're going to be able to rebuy a few times. They'll get used to saying "rebuy", and occasionally put 3, 4, $500 on the table.

It's counterintuitive, and unmanly, and people will complain, but the bottom line is if your players aren't rebuying, it's because they're uncomfortable putting that much money at risk.

I've seen many, many games where the stakes are set too high, both in terms of the blinds and the buyins, for the what the players can actually afford. Being sophisticated gamblers, you and I know that it's not a question of "affording a couple buyins", but the variance that will run people off. (perhaps surprisingly, the more cautious of your players are probably intuiting correctly). Very few of your players is sitting on an appropriate bankroll or budget for the stakes they think are right for them.

If the loosest ~1/3 of your players aren't snorting at how low your stakes are, they are almost certainly too high.


well done, sir.

Gold star, sir.

I do have a handful of people who come in for real buy-ins, stick around to play all night, and tend to rebuy if they get low on chips. The trouble is that they tend to be the winners, and they've turned up to the game less consistently than the donators. The ones I want to be more comfortable buying more chips are my current small core of non-winning regulars. My two most reliable players have already loosened up a bit, for sure. They started off buying in for $20 at a time and are now into $40 at a time, plus a rebuy if necessary. (It's almost like watching someone grow up. Awww.)

The trouble with bumping the stakes down is that I already scoff at the stakes. I'd like to go $0.25/$0.50 NLHE with buy-ins of $40–$100. It feels ridiculous doing the awkward $0.25/$0.25 blind structure so that I can have a somewhat deep-stacked game without scaring people off with a three-digit number.

Going lower than that, I would hardly want to host anymore. I know home games are more about the fun, but I'd have more fun spending my Saturday night screwing around on the computer than poker games where $1 is the "big chip." Hell, I don't even have smaller chips than $0.25. I'd have to break out my crappy non-denominated set.

I've recruited most of my players from a Meetup group, which I still have active (46 total members). Now, I know that a number of them play $1/$2 NLHE; they said so in the screening questions. I'm wondering if maybe the lowness of my stakes is making some of those players reluctant to get involved. Some of them definitely have showed up, but not as regularly as the baby-stakes folks. I feel like I need something to entice those higher-stakes people, some of whom must be the type that are eager to get a lot of money moving around.

On that note, I've considered putting feelers out there for a higher-stakes game, maybe $0.50/$1 NLHE, $3/$6 FL whatever, or a $100 STT. I'd frame it as a "special event" so as not to alienate my current regulars. The regular two-weekly to monthly game would continue as usual. If no one wants to do it, oh well, but it might just bring in some new people.

Thanks for jogging my brain. I hope I'm not coming off as dismissive. What you're saying is making sense, but it's just that lowering the stakes is so unpalatable because they're already so low. There has to be another way.

limit games and tournaments are both excellent (and time-tested) ways to reduce the variance without feeling like the gambol has gone away.

Also, don't get religious about deep stacks. With a 100bb-max limit Online or in a casino, there is a steady churn of players cashing out and new players buying in for 100 or less. In a home game, money put on the table generally stays there all night.

One of the healthiest and longest-running games I play is 40bb buyins. NOBODY brings 1 or 2 buyins to that game and expects that to be enough. Within an hour or two, half the table is 100bb+. I find the mixed stacks even more interesting than a deepstack nitfest or horror show.

What about simply starting with a limit or stud high or even horse game with higher blinds and have an higher min no max rule. Table stakes then apply when the nlh starts

I stopped short of mentioning this in my other post, but one of the areas where I think you're off is variance.

Variance is what keeps weaker players in the game, not scares them off. It's what allows them to win upset pots and have a good night once in a while, despite their lack of skill. Without it, a poker game would be a totally boring exercise in weak players paying strong players x dollars per hour over and over again until they get sick of it.

I hesitate to make a definite claim, but I'm pretty sure that the variance in a poker game actually decreases as you increase the range of options available in betting. That is, no-, pot-, and spread-limit poker are actually lower variance than fixed-limit, when you compare games with similar average win rates. That's why you see weak players get cleaned out so quickly and consistently at $1/$2 NLHE who might have much more variable results at, say, $4/$8 or $5/$10 LHE.

In any case, this leads us to the same conclusion, specifically that limit poker is better for the longevity of the game. I'd love to have a regular stud 8 game more than anything, or even limit dealer's choice, and preferably at stakes that are meaningful for a game I only play once or twice a month.

I've hosted two limit games with my group so far, both of which went pretty well. The first was $1/$2 stud/Omaha rotation and the other was $1/$2 stud 8. The amounts of money people seemed comfortable with putting on the table were about the same as they play NLHE with. They were a little small for $1/$2 limit, really. Some people love getting into a poker game with a lot of money involved, and some don't. My consistent players seem to be the latter type, and around $100 seems to be the pain threshold for them.

Anyway, if I had my regulars in a stud game bigger than $1/$2, and they were okay with putting more money on the table for that, I'll be damned if I'm switching to NLHE. We'll be playing stud all night! (They're totally not ready for HORSE, by the way. For a lot of them, I was their first stud teacher. They're still learning non-hold'em games, so mixed games are a bit much to ask. They'll get there, though.)