How to host a poker night at home: the checklist

For a poker night at home you need a table with room for everyone, two decks of cards, a case of chips and a clock for the blinds. Before the night, settle three things: how many people are coming, when you will stop and which house rules apply.

The easiest format is a small tournament. Everyone gets the same number of chips, the blinds (the forced bets at the start of every hand) go up every 20 minutes, and whoever runs out of chips is out. With the table below, one round of blinds costs almost a whole starting stack after a little over three hours. By then the end is near.

The checklist

Before the night

• Pick a date, a start and an end, and invite people. Tell them whether you play a tournament or a relaxed game.
• Chips: 36 per player. The chip calculator works out how many you need in total and how to split your set.
• Two decks of cards with different backs.
• A dealer button, a disc that shows who deals. A coaster works too.
• A clock for the blinds, for example our tournament clock on a laptop.
• A sheet of paper with the chip values and your house rules, where everyone can see it.
• For new players, the poker hand rankings to look up which hand wins, ideally printed out as the poker rules PDF.

On the night

• Draw for seats. Whoever draws the highest card gets the dealer button.
• Hand out the chips, everyone counts them.
• Read the house rules out loud once, then start the clock.

How many players fit at a table?

Texas hold'em works with two to ten players at one table. If there are more of you, you need a second table with its own deck and its own dealer button. How a hand plays out is in the poker rules.

Tournament or relaxed game

In a tournament, everyone gets the same starting stack, the blinds go up on a schedule, and whoever has all the chips wins. It has an end, and everyone knows when.

In a relaxed game, called a cash game in poker, the blinds stay the same. Anyone can stop whenever they like, and at the end everyone counts their chips. At Flopnight nobody plays for money: write the chips down as points at the end and keep a table over several nights.

Blinds for a home game

These levels fit 1,000 starting chips and our chip values (white 5, red 10, green 25, black 100). You can pay every amount exactly with these chips.

Blind levels for a home game

Level	Small blind / big blind	Starts after
1	5 / 10	0:00
2	10 / 20	0:20
3	15 / 30	0:40
4	25 / 50	1:00
Break, 10 minutes
5	50 / 100	1:30
6	75 / 150	1:50
7	100 / 200	2:10
8	150 / 300	2:30
Break, 10 minutes
9	200 / 400	3:00
10	300 / 600	3:20
11	400 / 800	3:40
12	500 / 1,000	4:00

The tournament clock comes with exactly these levels: it counts down every level and plays a sound when the next one starts.

After level 4 you no longer need the white and red chips. Swap them for green ones at the first break, how that works is under coloring up.

So nobody spends most of the night just watching, you can allow a rebuy: whoever loses all their chips before the first break gets one new starting stack from the case. Money plays no part in it, the stack simply comes on top. Anyone who arrives late also joins with a full starting stack until then. The tournament clock shows how long that is allowed, and the chip calculator how many more starting stacks your case has.

House rules to agree on first

• Rebuy: yes or no, and until when.
• Time to think: how long can someone think before the others may remind them?
• Misdeal: if a card is turned face up while dealing, deal again.
• Showing cards: at the end, only cards that lie face up on the table count. What someone announces does not.
• Phones: away from the table, except the one with the clock.
• Breaks: after levels 4 and 8, ten minutes each.

Who deals the cards?

Whoever has the dealer button shuffles and deals. The cards go around clockwise, one at a time, starting left of the button. After every hand the button moves one seat to the left.

With two decks it goes faster: while one player deals, the player to their right shuffles the second deck for the next hand.

Food and drinks

Best are snacks that don't leave greasy fingers: pretzel sticks, pretzels, vegetables with a dip. Glasses go on a side table or a corner of the table, away from cards and chips.