Texas Holdem Poker

DavidP · Newbie Joined: Jun 24, 2006 Posts: 2

Now it goes without saying that quitting whilst you are ahead in a friendly game is considered bad form amongst most poker players. Especially by those who are losing.

But how do you fairly decide a time to quit playing?

Particularly if the ability to buy-back-in and a requirement to sleep prevents you from playing untill there is an outright winner.

What are the pros and cons of each method?

webmaster · Site Admin Joined: Nov 26, 2003 Posts: 668

David - interesting question.

This is a home game so the best way to do this is to set up the tourney right from the beginning. I prefer to play NL Holdem up to 10 handed, starting with 1500 in chips, blinds at 5 and 10 doubling after every 10 minutes. That guarantees the game will end in 2.5 hours. An evening would comprise 2 games starting at say 7pm finishing at midnight. I tend not to do rebuys because they generate so much false play.

As your game didnt seem to have the agressive blind raises it could have gone on forever. You were correct to leave when you did and your friends should just accept they were outplayed on the day and save from losing more by your departure.

DavidP · Newbie Joined: Jun 24, 2006 Posts: 2

Well I deliberately didn't give the circumstances of the game, the blinds the ending nor say that it was me who left, but you seem to have guessed pretty accurately. Are you pyschic?

We still play tournament poker, but found many of us were frustrated by sitting out large chunks of the evening watching the others play. Afterall we are trying to encourage more players, many of whom are absolute beginners and having them sit on thier tush for hours at end is not very inclusive.

Instead our game was no-limit with small blinds and very small stakes. We figure a beginner loosing 10-15 Euros is fair amount to pay for a lesson in basic hold'em strategy. Buy-ins also allow those who bomb out early or on an unlucky hand to get back into the game and carry on playing.

We have a quirky buy-in rule so not to imbalance the game. You can only buy-in when you have less than the initial stake (typically 5 Euros in our friendly games) and then you can only buy back what you have lost from your initial stake.

We were a bit thin on the ground last week and only had three players. The night progressed as follows:

I bombed out early with a load of crap cards and crap play. Gaz had the early running with Bully staying about evens. I bought-back in, and proceeded to wipe out Bully, who again brough back in. I then took a large chunk off Gaz, winning back my earlier losses, an as the evening went on I continued to win key hands taking money of the pair of them.

The finall chip count was:

Player | Gaz | Bully | Me |
Initial Stake | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00
Buy ins | 0.00 | 5.00 | 5.00
Final Chip Count | 6.00 | 0.00 | 19.00
Net Profit/Loss | +1.00 | -10.00 | +9.00

Blinds were small 0.05/0.10

At midnight Bully decided he'd had enough, we had work the next morning so figuring that Gaz hadn't lost anything on the evening, I decided to call it a night too. Gaz was however, rather upset, he wanted a go at my winnings. This was kinda understantable, because before my re-buy Gaz was massively ahead, he then proceeded to lose it all as the game progressed and the cards came my way.

In the end I offered to simply suspend the game rather than close it. So we pick things up with the same chip count next time. All I can think to do is say we'll play until midnight, then close a hand later. But I can see this leading to very conservative play later in the game.

Frankly I think Gaz needs a mentality change. He's so used to tournament style poker where you win it all or lose it all over the course of the evening, that he can't seem to get it into his head that in a game like this each hand is much more independent and you've got to be prepared to loose the chips you bet on a single hand and never see them again.

webmaster · Site Admin Joined: Nov 26, 2003 Posts: 668

David - just played in enough games to know what works and what doesn't. The other problem you have here is that when the new players bomb out early you bore them. If there were say 10 of you playing then a cash side game would start up and they'd be entertained. With so few of you it'll just be dull.

Absolutely need to liven this up with doubling of blinds every 10 mins. This will change the dynamics of the game immediately but no so much that it all becomes luck. You'll still find time to beat them all if you're good but they won't be sitting out as they do today. Rolling forward games by the day is not good, nor is expecting to win every time you play (which it seems your opponent thinks can happen as he's unhappy at you leaving).

nfpoker · Newbie Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 4

I usually wait until the game dies down. If someone does a hit and run at my table after doubling up off of me, I will be upset. This is very frustrating especially if the player leaving has only played for a short time.

1rainbow · Junior Member Joined: Mar 20, 2006 Posts: 12

quitting in friendly games is bad form unless you have a good reason, like feeling sick or whatever, we had a gal leave because she was sick but her husband stayed, it shouldn't happen a lot or else they won't play with you anymore.....i've went to lye down b 4 & that was ok, as long as it's not a habit, & if you do it when you're down same thing applies.....myself i try not to do it at all, i love to play too much Smile

wildbill · Junior Member Joined: Feb 25, 2006 Posts: 5

In my weekly home game we solve this problem by setting a time limit on the cash game.
We start at around 7pm, and play cash till 10pm.
At 10 we start a rebuy tourny which we play untill there are 3 players left. This normaly lasts for a couple of hours or so. After that anyone that wants to carry on (normaly all of us) play a freeze out, this normaly meens people start drifting of at any time between 1-3am.
There are normaly8-10 players and this works well for us.

Astros · Junior Member Joined: Feb 23, 2006 Posts: 12

we try to cover any imaginal thing that may happen at the beginning of our game, but it seems something always happens out of the ordinary, One of the guys in our last game was very upset about how long the game was going, we had only been playing a couple of hours, but he had a date that night and he wanted to come up with a way we could determine the winner in short fashion. We jacked up the ante and the game did finish, but a few of us were not to happy about the ending..........

jobberone · Newbie Joined: Aug 16, 2006 Posts: 3 Location: USA

depends on who, when and where. It is never bad taste to quit ahead unless you are a sore loser. However if you are in a very friendly game which is low stakes then play very friendly. Don't check raise yada.

In a real game then anything goes except rude behavior and cheating.

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