What kind of rules do you use for home games and how strictly do you enforce them?

In my local game, we have 2 or 3 fish that like to get drunk while they play and they comprise most of the dead money in the game. As a result, the rest of us are VERY tolerant of things like string bets, out of turn play, and other things that would never be allowed in a casino.

For awhile we were playing small buy in no limit, but the drinkers kept having to rebuy and eventualy the chip stacks were huge. People started losing more than they could afford, so we added a rule to let anyone that had over 2 buyins in front of them take 1 buy in off the table. Removing the cash is optional This kept the amount of money in play more reasonable, the game going longer, and the fish still lost... so everyone was happy.

In one home game, they threw 2 little house rules into the game to keep things interesting:

1) If you win a hand with Presto (pocket 5's), and you stand up and shout "PRESTO!" while throwing the cards down on the table, everyone throws you 4 chips, no matter the denomination at the time.

2) If someone bets sloppily and a chip rolls off the table, and catch it, you get to keep the chip. I think the rule was made to keep people from being too lazy about putting their bets out.

The rules you discuss sound alright and pretty familiar for what i've seen in other games.

-PokerGeek

You got a regular game in LA, geek?

I miss the days when you could walk into any casino in LA and hear someone shouting "Presto Goooooooooood!" My GF just started playing and I've got her saying it now.

Rule #1: If you take longer than 1 minute to make a decision on a hand, it will be folded.

Rule #2: THERE IS NO RULE TWO!!

Rule #3: Have fun.

I played a few $60 buy in tourneys in some guy's detached heated "Garage/poker room" a few weeks ago. I think I played 3-4 times and there were like 15 people there.

The guy who owned the place kinda let me in on his own rule... which was that every time someone was all in.... the all players at each table had to drink a shot... or a full can of beer.... celebrating the "all-in" moment by taking their beverages "all-in."

I quickly learned that a select few who loved to drink anyway... would go all in on each other... and take down the pot with no action... just to have an excuse to drink the host's hard liquor.

I got in on the premise that consuming any alcohol at all would throw off my medication, so I was never involved with this "all-in" tradition.

Of course... I do not take medication, and had no problem buying my own soda... if it meant that I could sit back and watch everyone else get drunk while I took their chips.

It was a super long game.... starting tourney chip stacks were like $40,000 and the blinds started at $50-$100..... so there was more than enough time to wait around until the sloppy players started playing pretty much every hand..... Very hard for me to believe that people would let themselves get into that state..... with a $60 buy-in.

Anybody else know of a game with those rules? If so... give me a call...

Four of the players in our regular game have added a sort of jackpot home rule. It all started when we were playing against a fish that swore up and down that he never lost playing J5 and proceeded to go all in with it to catch a runner runner straight. After a few days of Motown jokes we came up with the following...

If any of the 4 of us win a pot with J5 beating a pair of queens or better (doesn't have to be pocket queens), the others pay him 5 bucks. So far, only one has collect. On an AJ9 flop I was holding AQ against J5. All the money went in on the flop and the turn was a 5. Not only was I busted, I had to go in wallet to pay him 5 more bucks.