Home Game Help

[fjuanl]

I find myself rarely ITM in my home games, and I'm wondering if it has to do with the blind structure. I really like the blind format in Poker Stars, you can play pretty tight at the beggining without the blinds getting out of control fast. Should I try to see more flops and start the aggressive play earlier on in the tournament?, based on this setup :

Starting Chip Amount : Around 200-250
Blinds : Go up on every orbit.
1st : 1/2
2nd : 2/4
3rd : 3/6
4th : 4/8
etc etc..

Keep in mind the blinds continue to go up every orbit until its heads up. When its down to 5 people its tough being shortstack because you can only see 5 hands before the blinds go up on you again. (Generally around 8-10 people to start with)

My strategy has been to play tight at the beginning and once the blinds get to a decent size, start playing aggressive and doing the occasionally blind steal. But it always seems like I don't have enough of a chipstack to play aggressive when the blinds get big because I rarely see a flop when the blinds are small. Should I loosen up and start limping in with a large variety of hands?

[Xanadu]

That depends on the type of play you see in your game. If there is a lot of pre-flop raising, you can't limp in early position with very many hands because the risk of a raise is too high (unless pre-flop raises are usually small and post-flop a lot of people pay you off handsomely when they hold mediocre hands in which case your implied odds often offset the risk).

If a pre-flop raise is rare, you can limp in with a lot of hands. For example, if 80% of the time no one raises, I would probably limp with any 2 suited, any connector, one or two gapper, any pair, any 2 cards 9 or higher (for the first orbit ... each orbit you have to restrict a bit). Even at tables like this (maybe especially at tables like this) I would never play an Axo unless the x is 9 or higher. But all of this might be useless for your game. Tell us what the general behaviour of your table is like and somebody will probably have some useful advice.

One thing you might suggest to slow the blinds down a little is to raise every 10 hands rather than 10 orbits, and if that is too slow at the end, you can kick it up to a set level once it reaches 3 handed and then 1 on 1.
One idea I had for keeping track of this in a home game is each time the button moves, the new dealer puts a $1 chip on it. Once there are 10, the next hand starts with 10 in the pot and the blinds go up; like a delayed ante to sweeten the pot and promote a little extra action every 10th hand.

[fjuanl]

thanks for the input

I would say there is a raise pre-flop around 30-40% of the time when the blinds are still at 1/2 or 2/4, but some beginners raise when they see any 2 face cards. The table is fairly tight postflop though, even after raises. Sometimes when I raise preflop and don't hit anything, I can pull of a steal if the time is right. Most people are tight, but there are is one maniac and only a few aggressive players

[TLR]

Just my 2 cents

With the blind structure you have you need to reach the mid tourney (5 players) with a decent stack otherwise you will be eaten by the blinds.
If you have pretty tight game I would not play super tight at the beginning, I would be willing to risk some chips in order to try to get a big pot. One or two big pots will keep you around averagee stack size when the blinds are high.
At this point turn on the aggression against the short stacks

[boost]

I would insist that they change the blind structure, or dont play there. Thats a pretty unorthodox way to play. And it lends itself to fishy play and gambling, rather then solid play and calculated agression.

Id rather flip a quarter for 20's then play with those blind structures.

[fjuanl]

the main reason why the blinds have been like this is because its not too much of a serious game. Its just a group of friends that come to play for fun (but we're all pretty into it) Its a really slow game, people dont know when its they're turn or too involved watching TV or talking, etc etc. Even with the blinds the way they are, the tournament ususally isnt over until 4 hours of play.

Any ideas for blind structure? Maybe start with less and have the blinds go up slower? The main concern of the group is having a tourney that doesnt take all night.

[boost]

I would suggest doing something like stars, start with 1500, and blinds go up every 15-20 minutes, just copy stars blind levels exactly. you should be fine. You might even wanna make them go up every half hour. It all depends on how many hands/hour you get in typically. If people are really not paying attention and all, and complain that the game takes too long, maybe they shouldnt be playing? Or maybe it would be better for your all to play cash games. Or maybe play on sundays or saturdays and start in the early afternoon, then you dont have to worry about going all night.

[TLR]

Regarding blind structure

Since it seems that your tournament is advancing pretty slow I would suggest to set a blind structure not by time but by the number of hands - in 4 hours of a slow play game you probably have 80 hands.
If you increase the blinds every 10 hands you shoud have 8 rounds
1st round: BB = ~1% of initial stack/player
2nd round: BB = ~2% of initial stack/player
3nd round: BB = ~4% of initial stack/player
4nd round: BB = ~8% of initial stack/player
5nd round: BB = ~15% of initial stack/player
5nd round: BB = ~30% of initial stack/player
6nd round: BB = ~60% of initial stack/player
7nd round: BB = ~100% of initial stack/player
8nd round: BB = ~200% of initial stack/player

If after 4 hours there is no winner the 1st place is the player with the most chips

[outphase]

There's a website with pretty good information regarding home poker tourneys, aptly named www.homepokertourney.com check it out, it has blind structures and other nick nacks

[m3laNcholy]

I have a home game once or twice a week. 5-7 people and we usually play 5 euro buy-in sngs (not about the money just for fun).

we start with 1500 chips and blinds start at 25/50 going up every 15 or 20 minutes. Never lasted more than 1.5 hours so get to play at least 6-8 sng each night.