Home-game tool
Poker House Rules Generator
Answer the questions that cause arguments, get a printable house rules sheet for your home game. Every default is the standard cardroom ruling, so you only have to change the ones your group does differently — then print it, paste it in the group chat, or share the link.
Your game
The game
Format, buy-ins and when the door closes.
Money
Who banks it, how it is settled, and what happens to the odd dollar.
Betting
The mechanics that cause most mid-hand arguments.
Verbal is binding in turn. Announce the total amount before moving chips.
All amounts are totals. The dealer announces the total and the amount to call.
A single chip larger than the bet, put in without a word, is a call. Say “raise” first if you mean to raise.
An all-in for less than a full raise does not reopen the betting: players who have already acted may call the difference or fold, but may not raise.
Mistakes
Out-of-turn action, misdeals and absent players.
Showdown
Who shows, what counts, and how all-in pots are paid.
Last aggressor shows first; if there was no river bet, first live player left of the button shows first. All-in hands are tabled immediately.
Cards speak. A hand is live until it is released face down or mixed with the muck, so what you say about your hand does not kill it.
To win a called pot you must table both cards face up. A hand that is never shown cannot win it.
A player can only win what they covered. Side pots are built as the hand happens and paid before the main pot.
The end of the night
Deals, bounties, the button, and the finish time.
Heads-up, the button posts the small blind and acts first before the flop, then last on every street after it.
Etiquette
The things that are not rules until somebody breaks them.
No discussing a hand while it is live, including by players who have folded, and no reading the board out loud for someone who is thinking.
No angling: no fake stacking, no pretending to have missed the action, no hesitating with the winner to make somebody sweat. It is a friendly game and everybody knows the difference.
Disputes
Who decides, and what this sheet covers.
Anything not covered here follows standard cardroom practice, and every ruling protects the integrity of the game ahead of the technicality that would win the pot.
Your sheet (36 rules)
House rules
The game
- 1.Tonight is a tournament: everyone starts with the same stack and plays until one player has the chips.
- 2.Seats are drawn at random. Draw a card for your seat; high card takes the first button.
- 3.Rebuys are allowed until the rebuy cutoff on the blind schedule. A rebuy is a full starting stack for the original buy-in, and you may only rebuy when you are out of chips.
- 4.There is no add-on: one buy-in plus any rebuys is all the chips anyone gets.
- 5.Late players may buy in for a full starting stack until the rebuy cutoff, and are blinded off from the moment their seat is dealt.
Money
- 1.The host banks the game. Pay before you are dealt in — nobody plays on credit.
- 2.No IOUs. If you have run out of cash, you are done for the night — this is not a rule about trust, it is a rule about friendships.
- 3.At the end we count every stack, work out who is up and who is down, and settle it in the fewest possible payments rather than paying each other in circles.
- 4.Payouts are rounded to the nearest $5, and the remainder goes to the last place paid. Agreed in advance, this stops a debate about cents at one in the morning.
- 5.The number of places paid and the percentages are posted before the first hand and do not change once play starts.
Betting
- 1.Verbal is binding in turn. Announce the total amount before moving chips.
- 2.All amounts are totals. The dealer announces the total and the amount to call.
- 3.One forward motion of chips, or announce the amount first. Reaching back for more chips after the first push is a string bet, and the bet stands at what crossed the line.
- 4.A single chip larger than the bet, put in without a word, is a call. Say “raise” first if you mean to raise.
- 5.A raise must be at least the size of the previous bet or raise, and there is no cap on the number of raises in no-limit.
- 6.An all-in for less than a full raise does not reopen the betting: players who have already acted may call the difference or fold, but may not raise.
Mistakes
- 1.Action out of turn is binding unless the action in front of it changes, in which case the chips come back and the player may act freely.
- 2.Misdeal if either of the first two cards to any player is exposed. After that, the deal continues and the exposed card becomes the burn.
- 3.A player away from the table is dealt in, posts their blinds, and their hand is folded when action reaches them.
Showdown
- 1.Last aggressor shows first; if there was no river bet, first live player left of the button shows first. All-in hands are tabled immediately.
- 2.Cards speak. A hand is live until it is released face down or mixed with the muck, so what you say about your hand does not kill it.
- 3.To win a called pot you must table both cards face up. A hand that is never shown cannot win it.
- 4.A player can only win what they covered. Side pots are built as the hand happens and paid before the main pot.
- 5.All-in before the river, either player may ask to run it twice, and the agreement is binding once both players have said yes.
The end of the night
- 1.A deal needs every remaining player to agree, and the starting point is the chip-count-and-payouts number rather than an even split. Anyone can say no and play on.
- 2.Part of each buy-in is a bounty paid to whoever eliminates you. Nobody eliminates the winner, so the winner keeps the bounty on their own head.
- 3.Dead button: the big blind always moves forward one seat, even if that leaves the button on an empty seat. Nobody ever skips a big blind.
- 4.Heads-up, the button posts the small blind and acts first before the flop, then last on every street after it.
- 5.The blind schedule does not change once play starts. If we have to be finished by a certain time, we agree that before the first hand and use a structure that fits it.
Etiquette
- 1.No discussing a hand while it is live, including by players who have folded, and no reading the board out loud for someone who is thinking.
- 2.No angling: no fake stacking, no pretending to have missed the action, no hesitating with the winner to make somebody sweat. It is a friendly game and everybody knows the difference.
- 3.Use your phone between hands, not in one. If you are in the hand, you are at the table.
- 4.Food and drinks stay off the playing surface. Whoever spills on the cards buys the next set.
- 5.Smoking and vaping happen outside, on a break or at your own risk of being blinded off.
Disputes
- 1.The host's ruling is final at the time, and any rule we got wrong gets fixed on this sheet before the next game rather than argued now.
- 2.Anything not covered here follows standard cardroom practice, and every ruling protects the integrity of the game ahead of the technicality that would win the pot.
pokerpro.tools/home-game/house-rules
Print gives you a one-page sheet on white paper — choose "Save as PDF" in the print dialog if you want to send it round before the game. The share link carries every choice you made, so a co-host can open the same sheet and change it.
Guide
What belongs in a set of poker house rules
A house rules sheet is not there to teach anyone poker. It exists so that the five or six situations with no obvious answer already have one before they happen — and so the answer is not decided by whoever argues hardest at one in the morning.
Most rules are not actually in dispute
Verbal declarations being binding, bets being stated as totals, cards speaking at showdown, the last aggressor showing first, what a misdeal is, how side pots work: these are standard in every cardroom, and nobody argues once they hear the ruling. They are on the generated sheet as single lines with no options, because writing them down is useful and changing them is not. If you want the reasoning behind each one, it is in poker rulings: the disputes that stop home games.
The ones with no right answer are the whole point
A handful of rules genuinely differ between good games, and every one of them has ended a home game somewhere:
- Is a run-it-twice agreement binding? Both players said yes, then one changed their mind when the first card came out. Standard practice does not settle it; your sheet has to.
- Does the winner keep their own bounty? Nobody eliminates the winner, so one bounty is never collected. Both answers are fair; only one of them is written down.
- Dead button or moving button? When a player busts, whether the button sits on an empty seat decides who pays a blind twice, and it is the rule most home games have never chosen at all.
- What happens to the odd dollar? A prize pool that does not divide by three, settled in cash, at the end of a long night. Round to the nearest $5 and put the remainder somewhere specific.
- Is there credit? The one rule that is about friendships rather than poker. Decide it when nobody is stuck.
The generator defaults to the more common answer for each of those, and the point of the buttons is that you can change 5 of them in about ten seconds.
Cash game or tournament
The two formats need different sheets. A tournament needs rebuys, late arrivals, add-ons, the prize-pool split, deals, bounties and where the button goes when somebody busts. A cash game needs buy-in minimums, table stakes, when you can top up, and how the night is settled. Pick the format at the top and the generator only shows the clauses that apply to it: 36 of the 38 clauses for a tournament, 30 for a cash game, across 8 sections.
Print it, and keep it with the blind schedule
The sheet is most useful on paper, next to the chips, because a rule nobody can see is a rule somebody will dispute. Print it (or choose "Save as PDF" in the print dialog) and pin it up with the blind schedule — the two sheets answer almost every question a player will ask you all night, including the rebuy cutoff, which appears on both.
The share link carries every choice, so you can paste the sheet into the group chat before the game and let people object in advance rather than mid-hand. That is also the honest test of a rule: if nobody objects when they are not stuck in a pot, it is a fair rule.
Revise it after the argument
Every sheet is missing something until the night it is tested. When a situation comes up that the sheet does not cover, rule on it at the time — the host's call, or a vote of the players not in the hand, whichever your sheet says — and then add the clause afterwards. A house-rules sheet that gets one line longer each year is a sign of a game that lasts.
Everything else a host needs
Frequently asked questions
What should be in a set of poker house rules?›
Three kinds of rule. The standard cardroom rulings that nobody disputes once they hear them (verbal is binding, bets are totals, cards speak, last aggressor shows first, what counts as a misdeal, how side pots pay). The money rules your group has to agree (who banks it, whether there is credit, how the night is settled, what happens to the odd dollar). And the handful with no universal answer: whether a run-it-twice agreement is binding, whether the winner keeps their own bounty, dead button or moving button, and who settles a dispute. The generator on this page covers all three and defaults to the standard answer for each.
Do house rules override the normal rules of poker?›
Inside your game, yes — that is what makes them house rules. In practice the only rules worth changing are the ones where cardrooms themselves differ, because rewriting settled rules just means every new player at your table is playing a different game to the one they know. The sensible sheet keeps standard practice and states the local answers to the genuinely open questions.
Is there a printable poker house rules PDF?›
This generator prints to one page, and any browser's print dialog will save that as a PDF. Build the sheet with your own game name, stakes and rules, hit Print, then choose Save as PDF — you get a document you can pin up, email round, or paste into the group chat as plain text instead.
What are the most common poker house rules arguments?›
Acting out of turn, "how much total or how much more", a player who says they have nothing and then finds a hand, who has to show first, a run-it-twice agreement one player wants to take back, and where the button goes when somebody busts. Six of those have a standard ruling; the run-it-twice question does not, which is why it belongs on a written sheet.
Should house rules cover the cash game as well as the tournament?›
If you play both, yes, but they need different clauses. The tournament half needs rebuys, late arrivals, the prize split, deals and the button rule; the cash half needs buy-in minimums, table stakes, topping up and how the night is settled. Pick the format at the top of the generator and it shows only the clauses that apply.
Who should settle a dispute in a home game?›
Name someone in advance. The two workable answers are that the host's ruling is final, or that a majority of the players not involved in the hand decides with the host breaking ties. What does not work is deciding who decides while an argument is already running, which is how a friendly game turns into a bad evening.
How long should a house rules sheet be?›
One page. A sheet nobody reads protects nothing, and the situations that actually cause arguments fit comfortably in 25 to 30 lines. Leave off the clauses your group has never needed — the generator has a Leave off option for exactly that — and add a line whenever a new situation catches you out.