How to I host a casual texas hold 'em style poker night?

Question

I'm having about 8 friends over tonight to play hold 'em...We're all novice poker players. How do I host a poker game, should I use chips, cash, do I need to have a buy in, should there be a limit, who is the dealer?

Answer 1

You will need a set of chips.  300min, 500 will be a better option.  The most common way to do it would be to have a small tournament.  Set a buyin you are comfortable with, say $20.  I also like to have the option for people to rebuy if the lose all of their chips.  Assign values to the different chip colors, and print off a sheet so everyone will know (eg. 1=white 5=red 25=green 100=black 500=purple/blue.  Now you need to issue each person the same number of chips.  100 big blinds is a good number.  So 200 in chips each would look like:

15x$1 (white)=15

12x$5 (red)   =60

5x$25(green)=125

total:             200

now start the blinds at 1/2, with a kitchen timer set to 20-30minutes, when it goes off, the blinds go up to 2/4 on the next hand.  your blinds schedule will look something like this

1/2

2/4

3/6

4/8

5/10

6/12

8/16

10/20

you can put in breaks after 3 levels, and trade in the white chips after 4/8.  I usually allow rebuys untill after the 3rd level, but it is up to you.  Print out a copy of the blinds so everybody knows ahead of time.

The dealer rotates clockwise areound the table, with the two people to his/her left posting small and bifg blinds respectively.

The site below has everything you need to know to host a poker game, including chip amounts, and even a blind timer!

have fun

Answer 2

You should have a poker table or some table that is big enough to play on. You should set a buy in, say 100 dollars, or more, but you shouldn't play with cash. Chips are always the best. You can put all the money away, and when the game is finished, the person with all the chips gets the money. Also the dealer should be switched every turn according to the dealer button.  

Answer 3

The easiest way is to play a very simple cash game.

Get some chips, one color is worth 25c, another color is worth $1.  People buy $20 worth of chips.  Blinds are 25c/50c.

Either have someone volunteer to deal and use a button, or simply each take turns rotating the deal clockwise after each hand.

People can cash in their chips for money at any time, or purchase more chips in multiples of $20 provided they have less than $10 worth of chips.

You cannot bet more than the chips you have in front of you (table stakes).

Set an end time when the game absolutely has to end.

It should be fun and simple this way.

Tournament style play is harder to arrange and once people get knocked out they will get bored not playing.  This is why a low stakes cash game is a better option.