How to Host a Poker Night: The Complete Checklist

To host a poker night, send one group message with the date, start time, stop time, stakes and buy-in, then set out two decks, a dealer button and enough chips for rebuys. Decide who holds the money before the first hand, write down every buy-in and rebuy as it happens, and at the stop time count the chips against that list.

A week before: the invite, the stakes and the gear

1. Choose a cash game or a tournament. This checklist is for a cash game, where players can rebuy and leave whenever they want. A tournament needs blind levels and a clock; see home poker tournament setup.
2. Send one message with the details: start time, stop time, stakes and buy-in. Our group plays $0.25/$0.50 blinds. At those stakes a $50 buy-in gives everyone 100 big blinds, and that's the example used below.
3. Ask for a real yes. A maybe texts you at 9 PM. Confirm the headcount the day before.
4. Check the gear: two decks with different backs, a dealer button and a chip set. Two plastic decks and a button cost about $30. A 500-chip set covers up to 10 players with rebuys if you build the stacks top-down, as below (how many poker chips you need).

The day of: chips and the money

Build starting stacks from the top down. If everyone gets 25 reds, 6 players use all 150 reds in a common 500-chip set, and the first rebuy gets nothing. At $0.25/$0.50 with a $50 buy-in, give each player:

Every rebuy gets 2 black $25 chips. Big chips sound wrong when the blinds are small, but they break down in the next pot, because the pot makes change. The free poker chip calculator builds stacks for other buy-ins.

Decide who holds the money: cash in a box, everyone paying one person by Venmo or Zelle, or settling everything at the end. Pick one before the first hand, because switching at midnight is how money goes missing.

Start the buy-in log. A notebook works if you never skip a line.

At the table: dealing, blinds and house rules

1. Rotate the deal. The deal moves one seat to the left every hand, with the dealer button in front of whoever has the cards. If the host deals every hand, the host plays every hand badly.
2. Use both decks. The person who dealt last shuffles the other deck while this hand plays.
3. Post two blinds. The player left of the button posts the small blind ($0.25) and the next player posts the big blind ($0.50). In a cash game the blinds never go up.
4. Say three house rules out loud, and give new players a hand-ranking reference, because the first argument is always about something nobody said: one big chip without the word "raise" is a call, a first or second card flipped on the deal means a redeal, and the last player to bet shows first. The rest are in home poker game rules.
5. Log every buy-in and rebuy the second it happens, with the name. "I'll get you at the end" is how $50 disappears.

End of the night: the stop time, the count and who owes whom

At the stop time, deal one last round so everyone gets the same last chance. Anyone can leave earlier with their chips, which is why the stop time matters.

Then count. The chips must equal $50 times every buy-in and rebuy, so 6 buy-ins and 4 rebuys should count to $500. If the chips come to $450, $50 in chips is missing; if they come to $500 but the log only shows $450, a rebuy never got written down.

Each player's result is what they leave with minus what they put in:

Four payments settle it: Mike pays Sam $35, Dave pays Jen $62, and Chris pays Jen $30 and Alex $20, in cash, Venmo, Zelle or whatever your group agreed on. More in how to settle up a home poker game.

The printable poker night checklist

A week before

• Cash game or tournament
• Group message sent: start time, stop time, stakes, buy-in
• Real yeses; headcount confirmed the day before
• Two decks with different backs, a dealer button, a chip set

The day of

• Stacks built top-down; blacks set aside for rebuys
• Who holds the money, agreed
• Buy-in log ready

At the table

• Deal and button move left every hand
• Blinds posted left of the button
• Three house rules said out loud
• Every buy-in and rebuy logged with a name

End of the night

• One last round at the stop time
• Chips counted against the log
• Results sent; players pay each other

Host's note: Our group plays a casual $0.25/$0.50 game around a kitchen table. Before we logged every rebuy as it happened, we'd spend half an hour at the end replaying 6 hours of poker, and sometimes we settled the missing money with rock-paper-scissors. Whoever lost always felt they'd lost money to bad tracking, not to poker.

Watch: how to host a poker night for the first time

This 6-minute video walks through the same checklist, from the group chat to the final count.

Video: How to Host a Poker Night for the First Time (Complete Checklist)

Frequently asked questions

What do you need for a poker night?

Two decks of cards with different backs, a chip set (500 chips covers up to 10 players with rebuys if you build stacks top-down), a dealer button, a table that seats everyone and a way to log every buy-in and rebuy. Add a stop time and a plan for the money.

How much should the buy-in be for a home poker game?

A common starting point is 100 big blinds. At $0.25/$0.50 blinds that's a $50 buy-in, though plenty of casual groups, ours included, buy in for less. Pick an amount nobody at the table minds losing.

Who should hold the money at a home poker game?

Pick one method before the first hand: cash in a box, everyone paying one person, or settling everything at the end. Any of them works if everyone knows which one it is and every rebuy is written down.

How do you end a poker cash game?

Set a stop time in the invite. When you reach it, deal one last round so everyone gets the same last chance, then count each player's chips and settle up. Players can still leave earlier with their chips.

Settle up without the math

The free poker settlement calculator turns buy-ins and chip counts into who pays whom. HG Poker logs every buy-in and rebuy during the game, checks that the table balances at the end and shows who owes whom; it doesn't hold or move money, so your group pays each other outside the app. Download on the App Store · Get it on Google Play