I sometimes run a rake free home game at my house when time and the boss allow. I also play at a couple card rooms around town and have had some players inquire about my home game (they all like the idea of rake free ROE).

The player groups are two different types of people (Home game is friends and associate's looking to to have fun and would never play in a card room-raked game, card room people are just folks that like to gamble) and the limits are different (Card Room is 1/3 or 5/5, Home game is 1/1 but plays bigger than a typical 1/3 game).

Has anyone tried to mix two groups like this and what was their experience?

Thanks

Poker players are poker players. Whether you meet them in a bar, on a cruise, or at another poker table in the casino, how well they fit into the group depends on their personality. You will have some good fits and some poor ones.

The worst experience was inviting a guy from a local card room who played with us one time. After that we call him "stinky joe" because one of the other members had to bring him outside and tell him that his BO was offensive and that he needs to shower before coming to someone's home.

I've invited one or two people from the main cardroom I go to to my game, but only after I know them very well. I really like the guys at the room, but the reason I don't invite them is that I worry about stepping on the toes of the guy who runs the room. As much as I like to think of these guys as my friends, they are his clients, and the last thing I want is for him to think I am hurting his game.

I've had great experiences inviting B&M players to my home games. They add diversity (and quite often a large bankroll) to my game. They generally LOVE it because its a much better atmosphere filled with the friendly camaraderie that most cardrooms lack. If I have sized them up properly before extending an invitation, they are the kind of people who will be on their best behavior because the love the game so much and want to be invited back. Also, EVERY game needs a constant influx of new players to stay viable long term. If word of mouth isnt adding at least 1 or 2 new players a month to your one table game, it will eventually die out. My advice is that if you vet a casino player carefully before inviting them, you should have no major problems and your game will be better for it.

Also, dont worry so much about differences in the size of the game or blinds. The only players who will be overly concerned about this are grinder/nits who dont think their winrate will be big enough in your "smaller" game. You dont want them anyway! Focus on the guys who are at the casino for fun. If anything, your game might get a little bigger because your new fish is stuck and wants to play bigger to recoup his losses. How can this be a bad thing!


Its nice of robothead to have such concern for the cardroom manager, but I disagree. First of all, unless he is running a for profit-raked game (and it doesnt sound like he is), he is not truly a competitor to the cardoom owner. Take this example: What if Robothead had a "Board Game Night" at his place every friday evening instead of a poker game. Would he feel the same remorse for taking the cardroom's players? I doubt it. But the result is the same: The player is at robothead's house on Friday instead of the cardroom.

Thoughts?

tl;dr

LOL

That's actually pretty insightful.

As someone who was fired from a cardroom for asking other dealers if they wanted to play in a 25/50¢ home game, trust me, card rooms see EVERYTHING as competition.

As someone who has spent a lot of time in both card rooms and home games... I dunno. They're different crowds. I'd be very very careful. You can find good ones in there, but the percentage of people with serious gambling addiction (which leads to other anti-social behavior) is much higher in card rooms than at even a serious "poker players" home game.

It only takes one bad apple.

fixed your ending

Im pretty new to this forum so could somebody explain what tl;dr means? thanks.

To your first point, just because the cardroom might see him as competition, doesnt mean he shouldnt try. Hes a customer, not an employee so he merely needs to worry about getting banned, not fired. And the cardroom is more likely to give him a warning before barring him from the cardroom. (Thats IF they find out).

To your second point, it is well taken, but not an insurmountable obstacle. +1 to Larry for concisely saying what I would have taken a paragraph to say.

There's a comprehensive list of commonly-used abbreviations, jargon, and slang terms in item 41 here.

Welcome to 2p2!

Thank you.

Already in there.

It means that someone is a lazy **** who needs to have Twitter Lightning-quick Driven up their Rear

Thanks for the feedback. The person in question is actually the guy who runs one of the rooms I play at so that alleviates one concern. If I get a game off I will post my experience on how it goes.

Thanks

Poaching from any business is, essentially, a little bad for your relationship with the business. How much your relationship with that business matters to you is up to you. I, for example, don't much care how the casino near me and their poker room manager feels about me.