How to Establish and Host a Regular Poker Night
Hosting a poker night is a great way to spend an evening and if you and your friends enjoy it, it can become a regular occurrence. You won’t need much to host the perfect poker night except decks of cards, chips, a good-sized table, and plenty of snacks and drinks of course! Here’s everything you need to know about establishing a regular poker night.
Generally, hosting a poker night in your own home is usually allowed, provided that the host, home owner or anyone else is not benefitting financially from the game. This means you can’t charge players to enter your house or take part in the game, but the players can lawfully bet real money between themselves on the poker game itself. This is a discussion on Do you play worse when YOU'RE hosting poker night? Within the online poker forums, in the Live Poker section; On average, I do MUCH better at my friends' house games than I.
Plan Well In Advance
While hosting a poker night seems simple enough, you need to make sure that you have everything needed to play poker including multiple decks of cards, chips, and a large, sturdy table. You should also consider creating a playlist for the evening to set the mood and decide if you’re going to supply snacks and drinks for your guests or whether every person should bring what they want.
Learn Everything about Poker
As the host of the poker night, we don’t suggest asking your guests to help you play the game. If you’re serious about hosting, you should absolutely learn everything there is to know about poker before sending out the invites. Fortunately there are plenty of resources online to help you learn all the ins and outs.
Decide on the Level of Play
Once you’ve sent out the invites, you and your guests need to decide on the level of play. While there may be a few guests who are well-versed in poker and major fans of betting sites, you’ll likely also have novices in the group and it won’t be a lot of fun if they get knocked out on the first hand. Decide on the level of intensity and don’t allow the more experienced players dominate from the get go.
The Poker Table and Chips
While using a real poker table adds to the excitement and real-feel of the evening, purchasing one can be a costly exercise. Fortunately, it isn’t really necessary to purchase one and any large table will do the trick. If you would like for it to be more authentic, you can always purchase a felt table topper, but you shouldn’t skimp on the chips. We suggest purchasing a 500-chip set.
Be Consistent in Your Plan
If you plan of the poker night becoming a regular occurrence – either weekly or monthly – you will need to be consistent in your plan. If you decide on every Friday night or every 1st Saturday of the month, be sure your friends are all aware of the plan. If not all the guests can make it, don’t cancel or move the date, rather invite friends from a different social group or have guests bring along some new faces.
Hosting No Limit Poker Night
Snacks and Drinks for the Night
A poker night can take several hours to be concluded and you’ll need to ensure that your guests are well fed and watered throughout the night. You’ll need to establish whether you will cater for your guests, whether they will bring along their own snacks and beverages, or you can always keep it simple with pizza and beer.
Hosting A Virtual Poker Night
Our guide on how to host a poker night outlines everything you need to consider, even how to social distance while playing poker.
The current pandemic has forced people to slow down and enjoy being at home more than ever before. Also, with so many events, parties and travel plans canceled or postponed, we’ve all had to get creative in planning fun activities with our friends.
What better way to have fun with your group of friends than to host a poker night at your house? If you’ve never hosted your own game night and don’t know what to expect, we’ve outlined a few tips and tricks below to host a poker night successfully.
4 key factors to host a poker night
Strategy and Rules
Since you are the host, you’ll get to decide the strategy of what type of game will you play. Will it be a cash game or a tournament? What is the buy-in, and will there be rebuys? You’ll also need to think about how to handle disputes. If you set the rules from the beginning, it will help avoid confusion.
The experts at Global Poker explain, “Unfortunately, if money is involved, arguments can and will happen, no matter how friendly everyone is at the start. Outlining rules such as if there are rebuys, what happens in the event of a draw and what happens to someone’s power hand if they are out on smoke break or in the bathroom when the cards are dealt, will ensure it doesn’t fall on you as the host to play referee and settle disputes.” Also, if there are disagreements throughout the night, it’s best to take a vote and rule that majority wins.
Social Distancing
With being in the middle of a pandemic, social distancing will be important at your poker game night. Plan to have at least two good tables with your players evenly spaced apart – more tables depending on the number of people you invite. Depending on the weather and where you live, you could host the poker night entirely outside. It’s important to check with your attendees on what they would feel comfortable doing.
It’s also important to remind your attendees if they feel ill or have been around anyone who is sick to kindly not attend. This could affect your numbers and the overall game, but it is important to keep your other guests safe. Plan on being flexible the day of – just like you would with any party you’re hosting.
Provide Food and Drink
What’s a game night without food and drink for your guests? If you don’t want to spend hours cooking, consider ordering take out or pizza to arrive as the party starts. It’s a perfect way to minimize a mess in your kitchen or stress over if the food will taste good. Also, if you are inviting a large group, it’s easy to feed a crowd with takeout.
You could even go with a theme of a “Mexican Poker Night” or “Italian Poker Night” and order accordingly. Also ensure you have enough drinks for you guests. Whether alcoholic or not, you’ll need to provide beverages over the course of your game night! You could also ask your guests to bring their favorite beverage with them.
Have Fun!
The most important part of hosting a successful poker night is to have fun. Things will likely stray from what you planned, but just roll with it! If you have any questions or are stuck with the rules of the game, work together to figure it out. Get creative with the prize for the winner (besides the cash they win) – you could even look at getting a trophy made or some other fun keepsake. If you a host a fun party the first go around, your friends will be begging you to host again!