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Host a Poker Home Game
Free tools and a plain-English guide for running a poker night — chips, blinds, payouts and settling up, all computed in your browser with nothing to install.
Settlement Calculator
Start hereEnd of the night? Work out who pays who in the fewest payments — or paste a PokerNow ledger.
OpenBlind Structure Calculator
Generate a level schedule sized to your time slot, with antes, an end-time estimate and a fullscreen timer.
OpenChip Distribution Calculator
How many chips of each color to give every player, for tournaments and cash games.
OpenPayout Calculator
Turn the buy-ins into a prize pool and split it across a fair number of paid places.
OpenSide Pot Calculator
Split any multi-way all-in into the main pot and side pots so everyone wins only what they can.
OpenPrintable Cheatsheets
Hand rankings, starting-hand charts and odds as print-ready PDFs to leave on the table.
OpenGuide
How to host a poker night
A great home game comes down to four things: chips, blinds, payouts, and settling up cleanly. Get those right and the poker takes care of itself. Here's the whole flow.
Before anyone arrives
Decide the format first. A cash game lets people buy in for real money, rebuy freely and leave whenever they want — ideal for a relaxed, drop-in night. A tournament gives everyone an equal starting stack, a fixed start time and one winner, which suits a planned evening. Set a buy-in nobody would mind losing — $20 to $50 covers most friendly games — and keep any host fee small. Have two decks, a dealer button, and a chip set ready: 300 chips handle up to about six players, 500 comfortably seat a full table.
Chips and denominations
Everyone should start with a playable stack — enough small chips to post blinds and make change, plus a few larger chips to hold value. For a tournament, split your set into equal stacks and keep the leftovers as a bank for coloring up as blinds rise. For cash, weight the stack toward the smaller denominations that match your stakes. The chip distribution calculator works out the exact per-color breakdown either way, and includes the standard chip color/value reference if you're assigning denominations from scratch.
Blinds and structure
If you're running a tournament, you need a blind schedule. Start the big blind at roughly 1% of the stack (a 10,000 stack starts at 50/100) and raise the blinds 25–50% each level, adding antes around level 4 to speed things up. The trick is matching the pace to your evening: a full table with 20-minute levels runs about four hours. The blind structure calculator generates a clean, round-number schedule sized to your target time, estimates when you'll finish, and even includes a fullscreen timer you can put on the TV.
Payouts
Turn the buy-ins into a prize pool and decide how many places to pay — roughly the top 10–15% of the field, a little more for small friendly games so more players cash. A top-three split of 50/30/20 is the classic for a single table. Use the payout calculator to build the pool, suggest the number of paid spots, and split it with preset or custom curves. If play gets short-handed and someone wants a deal, don't chop by chip count — use an ICM chop so the split reflects each stack's real equity.
Settling up
The end of the night is where friendships fray. Total each player's buy-ins against their final chip count, confirm the money balances, and pay out. When it doesn't balance — a forgotten rebuy, a miscounted stack — recount before you do anything else. The settlement calculator checks the totals, flags any gap, and produces the fewest possible transfers to square everyone up — plus a copy-paste summary for the group chat. Playing on PokerNow? Paste the ledger and it fills everything in. Settle the same night while everyone's still there, and post one shared summary so nobody relies on memory.
Frequently asked questions
What do I need to host a poker home game?
A table, a deck or two of cards, a chip set (300 chips for up to 6 players, 500 for a full table), a dealer button, and a plan for blinds and payouts. Decide before anyone arrives whether you're running a cash game or a tournament, what the buy-in is, and how the money gets settled at the end. The free tools on this page handle the chip, blind, payout and settlement math for you.
Should I run a cash game or a tournament?
Cash games let players come and go, rebuy freely, and leave whenever they like — good for a casual, drop-in night. Tournaments give everyone the same buy-in, a set start, and a clear winner, which suits a planned evening with a fixed group. Tournaments need a blind structure and a payout table; cash games need a chip denomination plan and an end-of-night settlement.
How much should the buy-in be for a home game?
Pick a number nobody at the table would mind losing — for most friendly games that's $20 to $50. The goal is a fun night, not a big swing. Keep any host fee small (a few dollars per player for food and cards) or skip it entirely. You can always run a higher-stakes game once the group is comfortable.
How do we settle up at the end of the night?
Total each player's buy-ins against their final chip count, confirm the money balances, and pay out. In a cash game with different denominations that math gets fiddly fast, so use the settlement calculator — it checks the totals balance and produces the fewest transfers to square everyone up, ready to paste into the group chat.
How long does a home poker tournament take?
A typical full-table home tournament with a 10,000 starting stack and 20-minute levels runs about four hours. You can make it shorter with faster blinds or fewer chips. The blind structure calculator estimates the length from your settings and lets you tune it to the time you have.
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