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

It's your first poker night. Mike wants to rebuy, and you're digging through the case for red chips that aren't there. So, this is the complete checklist for hosting poker the first time, including the stuff nobody puts on the list. >> [music] >> So, you hand him whatever's left, and he says he'll pay you at the end, and you forget about it until 1:00 in the morning when the count comes out $50 short. And the annoying part is you prepared because you bought the cards, the chips, and the snacks like every list told you to. If you search what you need to host poker, the answer is basically cards, chips, and a table. One guy under a big tutorial wrote that he was hosting friends for the first time, and the chip breakdown was exactly what he needed. But the chips are the one part of the night that's already solved when you open the case. I assumed the same before our first game that if the gear was right, the night would run itself. But the questions new hosts leave in the comments aren't about gear. They ask why a rebuy gets $5 chips, who shuffles, how a cash game even ends, and how to keep track as the banker. And the item that does the most damage costs nothing, which will make sense once we get to the end of the night. So, here's the checklist in the order the night actually happens from the group chat to the final count. Each one starts with the moment it goes wrong because that's the version you'll remember on Friday, and the last one decides if the night ends in 5 minutes or 40, and where that $50 went. Number one happens before anybody shows up, and it's the group chat. Six people said yes, two bring a friend, one never shows, and nobody is sure what the buy-in is. So, the message goes out a day early with the start time, the stop time, the buy-in, and the stakes. For us, that's 25 cent, 50 cent, and you ask for a real yes because a maybe texts you at 9:00. Number two is the cards, and one deck feels like plenty until five people wait through every shuffle. Someone asked under a hosting video if there are two decks per table, and who shuffles the used ones. So, get two decks with different backs, and the person who dealt last shuffles the other one while this hand plays. Two plastic decks are about $21, and they survive a spilled drink, which paper cards don't. Number three is who deals, and the first night mistake is the host dealing every hand because nobody offered. So, you deal 40 hands and play all of them badly. In a home game, the deal moves one seat to the left every hand with a dealer button in front of whoever has the cards, and the button costs less than $10, which makes it the cheapest argument you'll ever settle. Number four is the blinds, and the first night version is everybody tossing something in and nobody remembering who's in. In a cash game, you need two. The player left of the button posts the small blind, and the next one posts the big blind. At 25 cent 50 cent with a $50 buy-in, everybody starts with 100 big blinds, and unlike a tournament, the blinds never go up. So, there's no clock or structure sheets to run. Number five is the chips, and this is where Mike's rebuy went wrong. If everybody gets 25 reds, six players use all 150 reds in a normal 500 set. And one new player asked why you'd hand a rebuy $5 chips when the blinds are 25 and 50 cents. It sounds wrong, but big chips break into small ones in the next pot because the pot makes change for you. So, build the stack from the top down, 12 whites, 12 reds, and seven greens, and every rebuy gets two black chips. Number six is who holds the money, and nobody decides it until someone hands you a 20. You can keep cash in a box, have everyone pay one person on Venmo or Cash App, or settle everything at the end. One host wrote that he's run a Venmo bank since 2019, and it's been a huge success for him. But someone we knew ran their bank through Cash App, a lot of money moved in and out fast, and the account got banned. So, pick one before the first hand because changing it at midnight is exactly how money goes missing. Number seven is house rules, said out loud before the first hand because the first fight is always about something nobody said. One big chip without the word raise, a card flipped on the deal, who shows first. I ranked the 10 biggest of those in another video, so pick three and say them while everybody's stacking chips. And number eight costs nothing. It's writing down every buy-in and rebuy the second it happens with the name because I'll get you at the end is how that $50 disappears, and one commenter asked for a whole video on how to keep track as the banker. A notebook works if you never skip a line. In our game, every buy-in and rebuy goes into the app I built HG Poker, where the host taps rebuy, and it's logged. It takes no bets, holds no money, and moves no money. It just keeps count. Number nine is the stop time because without one, the night ends when the guy who's up the most remembers he has work. One person asked how you even end a cash game, and if someone who wins a big pot can just get up and leave. He can because in a cash game you can leave with your chips whenever you want. So, the stop time is what keeps it fair, and when you hit it, the deal goes around one last time, so everybody gets the same last chance. And number 10 is the count. Every chip on the table has to add up to $50 times every buy-in and every rebuy. So, six buy-ins and four rebuys means the chips should count to 500, and if they count to 450, a rebuy is missing. I know that feeling because in our game we'd sit there for half an hour trying to replay 6 hours of poker. And sometimes we'd end up playing rock, paper, scissors for it, and the loser always felt like he'd lost money to bad tracking. So, that's the item that costs nothing because the count only comes up short when number eight didn't happen. In the app, the count goes player by player, and if the table is off, it tells you why, like missing chips or a missed rebuy. And once it says balanced, you tap finish and settle, and it sends the group chat who owes who. And paying out at 1:00 in the morning is just what you leave with minus what you put in. So, if Mike bought in twice for a hundred and leaves with 65 in chips, he's down 35. Now, this list is overkill for two kinds of games. Four friends playing for pennies need a notebook and one deck, and a tournament is a different checklist, which has its own video. And beyond the chips, the first night is two plastic decks and a button, around $30, and your first game in the app is free. So, back to Mike and his rebuy. This time you hand him two black chips, it's logged before he stacked them, and at 1:00 in the morning the count says balanced. And what surprised me most in those comments is that the hard questions were never about gear, they were about the money and how the night ends. So, tell me in the comments, what did you forget your first time hosting? And if your friends are still learning, send them the how to play poker video before Friday. >> [music]