By
Lee Jones |
Published
Nov 07 2009, 08:05 AM
I just came back from a home game at a friend’s house. And as I was going to that game, and while I was sitting in that game, and when I was leaving the game, I thought to myself:
“Why would anybody ever choose casino poker over a good home game?” Now, I’ve been to some bad home games, and they are really quite terrible – not the least because it’s such a letdown after the expectations that you built up. But let me tell you about this game:
It’s held in the garage of a house that these two ladies own. Yes, the biggest poker junkie in my county is a woman – I’ll call her “Missy.” Missy is a realtor so she knows basically everybody. She certainly knows every poker player in the county. And fairly frequently, she clears out their garage, sets up the custom poker tables which she built, and starts emailing friends.
Driving to this game, you head out into the lower hills of western North Carolina, as the sky is turning a purplish blue over Mount Pisgah to the west. All the western mountains are varying shades of blue, depending on their distance and the light (thus the term “Blue Ridge”). The moon is rising and stars are beginning to twinkle out over the farmland. You say to yourself,
“If I simply turned around at this moment and drove home, this drive would have been well worthwhile.” You don’t end up in a parking lot, with garish lights and busses idling. You end up on Missy’s street, and it’s hard to miss her house, because the garage doors are up, the garage is lit up, and there are two rollicking poker games going on. Other than that, the neighborhood is quiet.
You walk into the garage and shouts of welcome meet you from every direction. People you don’t know stand up and extend a hand in greeting. You get handshakes from some and hugs from others. Missy personally takes your buy-in and gives you a stack of chips. You grab an energy drink or beer from the fridge, toss a $1 chip to Missy for it, and settle into your chair.
Immediately you’re dealt into the game. Posting – what’s that? This is a friendly game, you’re sitting there with chips in front of you; you get a hand. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the cutoff or under-the-gun. It’s $1-1 blind no-limit hold’em. The other table is $.25-$.50 blinds. Halfway through the hand, there is shouting and laughter at the other table – they’ve built a $9 – nine dollar – pot and everybody’s breathless to see who will drag this monster. You finish your hand and the button passes. The cutoff has the responsibility for shuffling the second deck of cards, so there’s no delay in dealing – heck, this is faster than a shuffle machine. The next dealer begins pitching cards across the table.
Did you notice anything missing? Oh wait – the rake. Nobody took the rake! Of course not, silly. We’re guests in Missy’s home and you don’t charge your guests for their entertainment. Home games with rake are, forgive me, second-rate casino games. They’re also quite illegal in virtually all jurisdictions. But rake turns a fun evening of poker into a business. Poker as a business is a fine thing – for example, it feeds and clothes my family and me. But to me, a true home game, in the purest sense of the word, doesn’t have a rake. I mean heck, if you want to all chip in for the pizzas, great. And many of us round down our cash outs at Missy’s and leave the bits and bobs for her. That doesn’t count. But if somebody is reaching in pulling chips out of every pot, you’ve crossed a line.
Anyway, back at the game, basketball games are arranged, golf foursomes put together, and concert travel arranged (there is even over-optimistic discussion about how people might score tickets for U2 in Raleigh). Laughter is frequent – we are relaxing among friends and it’s a good time, even for those of us who are stuck.
Now, about the accoutrements of the game – the chips, the cards, etc. In the old days, home games usually had cheap cards – the most impressive were those where somebody had brought home a souvenir deck from Las Vegas. Of course, those cards were what the casino deemed no longer usable, and they were cardboard to begin with. Now, any home game worth the name (and Missy’s game, to be sure) has high quality plastic cards. And high quality chips are also the standard – no more red/white/blue thin plastic drugstore chips. When the big $9 pot broke out at the $.25-$.50 table, those of us in the bigger game laughed about how big a $9 pot used to be to us. “How am I going to stack all those quarters and dimes?” we remembered thinking. Home games have come a long way.
The evening’s over, and we all cash out, help Missy fold chairs and put the tables back against the garage wall. More hugs, handshakes, and promises to get together sooner than later. Yes, it was a poker game, but as much, or more, it was a social gathering that binds us as a community. And that is what makes a home game better than casino poker.
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Lee Jones is the cardroom manager of Cake Poker and has been in the online poker business for over six years. He is also the author of Winning Low Limit Hold’em, which is in its 15th year of publication.
More Articles by Lee Jones
Pretend It's a Bank Sep 14, 2009
This, Too, Shall Pass Aug 27, 2009
The Arc of a Home Game Jul 14, 2009
Getting What You Want from an Online Poker Site Jun 21, 2009
Lee Jones Podcast - May 21, 2009
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