home game blind raising

[whogivesa_89]

I go over to my buddys house and play hold'em at least once every weekend. Usually there is about 5 of us playing. I was just wondering how to determine when to raise the blinds...? Game by game we gradually started changing our time intervals, going from every 30 minutes, to every 15 minutes, now every 20 minutes. Sometimes when we have more than 5 people we will raise the blinds once the deal has went around the table. So I guess my question is what are acceptable time intervals to raise the blinds for a home game with 5 people(since thats what we typically play with)?

[jimmer]

It all depends on a number of issues.

How many chips do you all start with?
How long do you want the game to take?
How much talking do you do inbetween each hand?
Do you plan to play another game afterwards?
Etc etc etc.

When we first started playing home games, we used it as a social get-together. therefore we played so little poker it was unreal. Half the guys never understood the concept of blinds so it never really mattered. Therefore we only increased the blinds after someone got knocked out. If two players got knocked out on one hand, we'd skip a blind level and go up twice. It was a crap way to do it, but baring in mind half the guys didn't understand the game, who really cared anyway!!!!!

If you want to drag the game out all night, you need to have lots of chips compared to blind levels. (maybe start with 5000chips and blinds of 5 & 10, which go up every ???30min/1hr/2hrs????). However if you want the game to last a couple of hours you need to reduce the chips, to say 1000 and raise the blinds every, say, 20 minutes.

Theres no right or wrong way to play, as i said it just depends.

Which ever way you choose, make sure you all agree before the start.

Good luck