Tony G vs. Phil Hellmuth
Posted on March 2, 2008
Filed Under Poker Videos | Leave a Comment
Everyone thinks this guy is an asshole, but I actually kinda like the guy ;p
Don’t dark check!
5 Quick Tips to Start Your Home Poker Game
Posted on March 2, 2008
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Here are some quick tips you can do to start preparing for your home poker game.
1.) Start researching all the home poker games in your local area. Go play at those games and scope out what you should and shouldn’t be doing for your game. Mimic your game similarly to those of the successful home poker games in your area.
2.) Get to know the local network of poker players. Network within the local poker network and see if your friends play poker. Start talking poker and make your name known within the poker network. Find out what stakes the locals like to play and how often they play.
3.) Talk to the guys that run the local home poker games. What are their thoughts? What do they like and don’t like about their game? Probe their knowledge and experience. People love to talk about what they do and know. Take advantage of that.
4.) Research the expenses. Research how much it’ll cost to have your own poker game. Research the costs of a table, chips, chairs, food, beverages, and whatever miscellaneous expenses that’ll make your poker game stand out. Develop a budget and don’t mind to spend on quality. Maintain quality and trust me, you’ll make ten times your investment.
5.) Start hosting a friendly, regular poker game among your friends. Just a free, friendly game will start marketing itself among the poker network, especially among the young players that attend college or school. It’ll be easier late to make the switch over to a more formal, regular poker game.
And there you have it. Some quick tips to get started on your home poker game. In future posts, I’ll go over each of these tips in more detail. So what are you waiting for? Go at it!
Bad Call
Posted on March 2, 2008
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I decided to go play at friend’s game the other night. The stakes were pretty low, .50/$1. Anyhow, I’d been playing pretty tight all night. Been getting shitty cards too, but finally, in late position, I see a decent hand, AQo and get somewhat excited. This loose player (we’ll call him Player 1) raises to $4 preflop. He’s a pretty loose player and is just one of those players that plays the game to get lucky. Any face card is good, any potential draw is good, one of those type players. With that in mind, I decided to just call, pretty confident that he’s holding some K9o, A9o, something along those lines. The player (another extremely loose player that we’ll call Player 2) to my left calls. The flop comes QJ9 rainbow. With these 2 players in the hand, I’m pretty confident my hand is the best hand and am hoping to double up on this hand. Player 1 goes all in for $17 and I call. Player 2 raises to $50. So now I’m sitting and thinking, hmmm…. twice so far, I’ve seen this guy make a huge raise on a draw. I start to think about potential hands he could have, KQ? Q10? J10? Then it crosses my mind that he could potentially have 108. Then I think, “wait, there’s no way he has 108. He didn’t flop a straight.” So I go all in for $5 more and turn over my AQ. And of course, he turns over 108. What’s worst is that Player 1 turns over Q10 and hits his straight on the turn.
Oh well, what can you do? “That’s poker baby!”
How I Started My Own Poker Game
Posted on February 28, 2008
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I started doing some online marketing work for Party Gaming, which runs the big online poker room, PartyPoker. After reading about poker all day long, I decided I’d learn how to play. So I started playing online at a few different poker rooms, mostly PokerStars and PartyPoker. I’d play mostly free rolls or cheap Sit N Go tourneys. I’d play online for a few weeks, and soon, I found that quite a few of my friends also played.
I had a perfect spot to play, so I welcomed all my friends and their friends to come play at my place. I loved playing at my place, mostly because I didn’t have to go anywhere to play. I loved playing live. We started playing $0.10/$0.20, then soon moved to .25/.50. I would just call my friends every night and those that could come play, would come over. It was usually enough to be at least 8-handed.
There were times when we couldn’t gather enough players, so I decided to start a Facebook group. A lot of college students found out about my game that way. So after about 2-3 months of playing, a few of my players suggested I start taking a rake. For those of you who don’t know what rake is, it’s a percentage of the pot that the house takes. I was hesitant for awhile because I didn’t want to scare the players away. But after talking to a few of the players, most of them didn’t mind. I still remember my first night starting the raked game. I went out and bought 3 huge bags of candy, 150 piece chicken nuggets from McDonalds, and 4 two-liter sodas. I spent a little under $100 in food and drinks. We started at about 9:00 pm with 9 heads. Around 10:00, we had 2 people in line waiting to play. I had to work the next morning, so unfortunately, I couldn’t stay up all night. I ended up going to bed around 2:00 am and awoke at 7:45 am to find that they were still playing! I usually spent about 15-20 minutes getting up for work, so by the time I was about to leave, they were finishing up. I went over to check the rake. The total rake was $355! So thoughts of ($$$) immediately passed through my mind. I thought damn, this could be really profitable. And the rest is pretty much history.
I would begin hosting games 2 nights a week, .25/.50 and .50/$1. I invested in a flat screen TV, a new custom poker table, and some custom chips. In the first 2 months, there were times when the game would struggle to get some players to come play, but after about 3-4 months, I never again had that issue. My games usually had at least 2-3 waiting in line to play. My average rake was around $400 a night and the game typically would last 8-10 hours. So that’s how it all started. I don’t do it quite as heavily now. Due to some personal issues, the game has slowed down a bit, but I’m confident I could bring things back to normal if I desired it. Anyhow, look for an upcoming post that will provide some tips on what to do to start your own profitable home poker game.
Home Poker Blog Begins!
Posted on February 25, 2008
Filed Under General | 1 Comment
When I first had thoughts of starting a regular home poker game, I did quite a bit of research. I talked with the few guys that I knew that ran a regular home poker game and just asked as many questions as possible. I was surprised to learn though, there really wasn’t an abundance of information on the web about starting or hosting one. There are a few articles here and there, but none dedicated to running a successful one. Lol, probably because it’s not really a “legal” thing, although there are probably thousands of games in this country. Anyhow, after starting my own game and being successful with it, I think I’ll show those aspiring to start their own successful home poker game how to make it happen 
.