This forum has gotten a bit quieter during your hiatus.

How were the dice chips at the new home game? Freshly oiled, I hope.

Dunno why traffic has slowed down. I post a lot less in general on every board I'm on as my kid takes up time so that cuts into the posting part. I'm still lurking and playing weekly, hosting 2 times a month myself with the same crew.

My group has seen an increase in traffic lately due to being on meetup. I think we are close to 115 members with over half of them being fairly active. It's been a nice change.

Our group meets weekly. I Host. We have about 10 or 12 very regular players and maybe another dozen +or- who could show up at any time. Our home game is certainly alive and well. Except for me I don't think anyone else posts on 2+2. Another person used too , but I think he stopped. Nobody lurks either as far as I know. So I use this forum as a constant learning aid , and I will chip in when some newbie has a question or situation that I think I can add something to.

I just think poker in general has leveled out a lot in the last couple of years and home poker and the forum just reflects that. For those that expect/want another "boom" I can only quote wiser thinkers: "Hope Clouds Observation" Gaius Helen Mohiam

I'm in the same group as jzpiano, play weekly, and host once or twice a month. I visit this forum every day but post only when I have something to say.* I'm happy to see that mixed games are popular again after a long, long spell during which most casual players (IME) would only play NLHE.

* Well, I have lots to say, but most of it is on other topics.

I walked in the door, was greeted by the host and met the guys who were already there, drinking beer and eating chili. This was a $20 NLHE tourney, and as expected, there was a fairly new case of dice chips sitting on the table. The host had printouts on each table with hand rankings and chip denominations: 1-2-5-10-20-50.

The host knows that I play regularly, so a few minutes in he tells me, "The guys who normally set up for us aren't here tonight. I figure we'll just divide the chips in the case by the number of players and go from there. Think that'll work?" Hoo boy. I offer to put together a quick structure.

Me: "How long do you want the game to last?"
Host: "About 90 minutes, no more than two hours."
Me: (Hoo boy again.) "Okay, I can do that."

I build stacks and put together an aggressive structure which should get the 16 man game finished in about two hours - it's basically a charity structure, with blinds doubling almost every round. We've got three tables (6/5/5), and the host tells me that they play a shootout: the last two players from each table go to a six-man final table. Also, each table has someone who is responsible for making sure the game goes smoothly. The host asks me to be the "table captain" (lol, yeah I will).

There were a couple of players who seemed to have played before and had a grasp of fundamental strategy. Everybody else was typical uber-loose-passive. I dealt full-time at my table and had to do a lot of prompting, since a couple of the guys simply didn't know when it was their turn in spite of the red Solo cup button that we had.

I ran well enough to collect nearly all the chips from my table and made it to the final table as the big stack, which was somewhat meaningless considering how big the blinds were. IIRC we had about 40 big blinds total between the six of us, and it was more like 10-12 when I got heads-up with a tight, slightly timid player who happened to be the other guy from my original table. I had a little better than a 2:1 chip lead, and he asked if I wanted to chop. Second place money was low ($300 pool since host got a freeroll, payouts were $220-$60-$20), and it was my first time playing with the group, so I offered him $100 which he happily took.

One other interesting part of the evening was that the host opened the game with a prayer. I didn't have any issue with this, but it was definitely a first for me. I wasn't too surprised, as I knew the family are devout Christians. I was a little nervous walking in the door with a bottle of bourbon for the group, but it went over well - several other players helped me put a big dent in it.

I'll play with these guys again. They rotate hosting duties, and I've already been asked to host a couple months down the road. On top of that, there are several guys who work in my profession, so it won't hurt for networking. Last of all, I feel obligated to gently teach these guys how to run a real poker game...

I've hosted a couple tourneys lately, but no recent cash games. I've been really frustrated over the last couple of years trying to build my group. The last several months have been incredibly busy, and I was just lacking the time and motivation to host for much of last year.

I'm going to start again soon - a few players have expressed interest in playing again, and we've got some new guys in the Tuesday tourney group that definitely want to play cash. It'll be NLHE of course, with my small group there's no interest in a mixed game.

I did a little overdue clean-up in HGL today. That sub has been pretty quiet lately, but there were a couple of iffy posts that I needed to handle.

On a poker note, tomorrow night I'm hosting my first cash game in several months. I've been playing cash over that time, of course, but I haven't had the time or motivation to host a cash game until recently. I've got seven on the list so far, so it should be a fun night.

[This space reserved for crushing bad beat story that will wipe out several hours' worth of solid play.]

This might be thread-worthy but isn't home poker per se, so I'll put it here instead:

Since purchasing an X-Bone a few weeks ago, I finally got turned on to something that I thought was a little silly until now: Twitch. I've spent a number of hours watching poker channels - mostly live (Live at the Bike and Poker Night in America), but also some online play. I've also watched some video gaming, primarily for checking out a couple titles that I was thinking about buying.

Anybody else watch poker on Twitch? Any recommendations for channels I should be following?

As to Live at the Bike, I got a monthly sub a year or two ago. I watch the Archives, but not the live (delayed) shows on the PC. I think it is the best cash game show available for learning and entertainment. I am a bit bored of watching the "Big Name pros" push around their big stacks to each other. I like the rec players and the part time pros playing for money that is meaningful to them. Most of the time the commentary is very useful and often very funny. Also there is no profanity filter so it comes over as very down to earth.

Twitch seems very popular for all kinds of gaming. I just don't do that , but lots of folks do.

I haven't seen Live at the Bike yet, but the way you're describing it, it reminds me of Cash Kings. There's an occasional big name in there (Patrik Antonius is the only one who comes to mind), but a lot of the games are for more realistic stakes than typical TV poker.

The smallest game I remember seeing was €5/€5 PLO with stacks mostly in the low thousands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELbT0zKygGI. It's a long video and does include a lot of unexciting hands and meh commentary (some of these guys know nothing about PLO). But it's good poker, and it was actually valuable to me to watch as a sort of PLO study tool. Hole-card cams in a medium-stakes PLO cash game isn't something you get to see often.

They do NLHE too, but televised hold'em just doesn't keep my interest much anymore.

Jim

The games are almost always NLH. The stakes are usually 5-5, 5-10 and 10-20 once in a while. Usually there is some kind of straddle. Many games are capped some are unlimited. They have a lot of returning regs each session with newbies sitting down all the time. Some of the commentary is awful, some is brilliant and helpful , lot of it is fairly comedic and entertaining. It is nearly 100% cash game only. Once in a while they will do a final table of some Bicycle Casino Tournament , but only rarely. It is not for everyone, but you might take a look sometime. Maybe Youtube.

The vast majority of Live at the Bike seems to be 5-5 NLHE, but of course there are some loosey-gooseys who like to make it 5-5-10. I see a handful of the same regs over and over, and it's been extremely interesting for me.

I think there's a ton of info to be learned here for the home game and low-stakes casino player. You just don't get this kind of information on average joe players anywhere else. Plus, it's fun to scream at the screen when the table nit 3-bets KK, checks an ace-high flop, then check-folds to the aggromonkey who bets the turn with bottom pair.

Anybody know what's going on with Desjgn (J Design)? I'd like to get some CVs but can't seem to find them in stock anywhere.

I don't know if anything is going on with Desjgn, but I do see the CVs on sale here and here (scroll down to third row of products on second link). They're out of stock at Cara Gail's, but I was able to add them to my cart at both of these sites.

Thank you, sir. I thought I checked the second link and saw them out of stock, but they are available now.

Jason of Desjgn used to sell direct and on ebay too, but it doesn't look like he's doing that anymore.

I just got a couple setups last month. From Jason on eBay.

Where can I find home games near me? Orange County, Cali.

Search and/or post in the Home Game Listings subforum.

Supbros. I threw out a 2-day ban to refresh the dictatorial powers. In other news, I found a nice (raked) 10/20 HO game that I played Thursday night. There's a player that routinely drops 1-2k there a night. During the Omaha round, when she's away from the table, her instructions are to check/call down every hand.

That's not even a calling station anymore. She's a printing press. That's awesome! Not to mention a limit HO game sounds nice anyway.

Who'd you temp-ban?

Looks like Spacerat's "poker rigged hands" thread was moved here from Live.

Although it references the recent 'caught cheater' thread, it still isn't quite HP.

Yeah, that was an improper move. Just because he mentioned this forum? That's not how it works.

wat

How will I ever get a seat in your game again...

Sorry, guys, I was out for a couple days and didn't get to this until just now. I lobbed it back over the net to LCP, as it is clearly not a HP topic.