Mandylou - Tournament etiquette and rules

Ok, so you’ve taken the plunge and decided to set up your own home game. You’ve bought the table, practiced your chip riffling and the fridge is stocked to bursting.

So how do we go about running things on the actual night?

I’m going to assume here that you know your guests reasonably well and they have a similar level of poker experience. If that’s the case then things should be easy enough.

It’s always better to establish the house rules straight away to avoid any problems later on – is the house smoking/non smoking? Etc. As I mentioned in my previous article the stakes and structure are down to personal choice. Is it a re-buy/freezeout tournament? How long are blind levels? What are starting chips? You can get some good structures and ideas from http://www.homepokertourney.com/, and the key with the stakes level is to make sure that they are enough to make the game worthwhile, but not so much that anyone feels uncomfortable. What I would advise is that if you make it a freezout, provide something to keep your guests entertained once they have been knocked out. Maybe a PC so they can play online!

The next job is to decide on the table seating. The easiest way to do this is to give everyone a card (A,2,3 etc.) and then use that to place people in order around the table. You can then either re draw for button, or simply start with the Ace.

It’s best to get one person to take over the dealing, as the game will run more quickly, but if not then everyone will have to take their turn. This can be daunting for people at first, but after a couple of goes everyone should soon grow used to it. The easiest way to shuffle is to simply scatter the cards over the table and mix them up, and then cut a couple of times. It has in fact been scientifically proven that this is the best way to shuffle! It is then conventional to then offer the cards to another player for a final cut before dealing.

So now we start the action. Whilst you are playing in a relaxed atmosphere, you should be installing into your guests a set of guidelines that will apply if they then take the plunge and start playing at the local cardroom or casino.

The betting:

All bets should be declared verbally and players have one of three options: fold, call or raise.

Fold – This action is obvious, but you should make sure that players’ cards are taken away or thrown into the muck pile. Don’t let them keep them in front of them as it will only confuse people on later betting rounds.

Call – Obvious again, but try to get everyone into the practice of protecting their cards when calling. They are dead if they are inadvertently swept away by dealer, and it is the players’ responsibility to protect them.

Raise - When raising, a player should announced “raise”. Simply throwing a high denomination chip into the pot does not count, and this should only be classed as a call. Also get everyone into the habit of moving in all the chips they are raising with in one movement. If chips are dropped one at a time, nearly all places will stop a raise at the minimum unless the amount is announced. One common misconception is that players can say “I call you AND I raise….”, but this is known as a string bet and is not allowed. It wouldn’t be allowed at any casino and therefore shouldn’t be in your game. If anybody tries this they should only be allowed to call.

It’s best to encourage players to put their chips in the pot on each round in front of them when playing a hand. Otherwise it can be very difficult for anyone to follow the betting and work out pots if everyone just throws them in the middle. Once the hands are then in play and ongoing, you should discourage anyone from talking or conveying information about the hand or discarded cards. This applies especially for those who aren’t involved – there is nothing more annoying than an inactive player virtually telling the table he would have had the nuts if he hadn’t folded.

Always remember the rule about burning a card before flop, turn and river and it’s better if you get players to show hands face up at the end of the hand to avoid any confusion in the early days.

Clearly a lot of situations and discrepancies will occur from time to time, but unfortunately there are no generic standard rules that everyone adheres to so it can occasionally prove difficult to give a 100% correct ruling. The only way round this is to make one person Tournament Director for the night, and often this should be the most experienced player or the host. It should be announced to the players that he/she will be called upon to settle any dispute; they won’t always give the correct answer but as long as they are as fair as possible no-one should feel disgruntled.

So that’s virtually it, remember the key things are to have a drink, a laugh and enjoy yourselves. Hopefully you’ll win more than you lose, and don’t forget to come onto the forum to let us know how you got on!