Home games are the best way in my opinion to start your poker career for two big reasons i believe.

• The first is that you are with your friends in an ideal surrounding with no pressure.

• The second is you can come up with your own buy in for as little as you would like.

Many of us enjoy playing poker because of the social aspect. Playing cards – no matter what game it is - is a decades old method of gathering people together, and you’ll never see a greater melting pot than at a low limit poker table in a casino. Your home game should embody some of those qualities as well, expect playing a table i would reccommend playing tournament style if only at first just because of the fact that the buy in is known in advance and the the people you will be having over know how much at most they will lose. Tables can get people in trouble especially when they start thinking "I'll just win that right back" then they lose more and more.

Try to get some people involved that are outside of your every day circle of friends. It’s best to start with two to three of your friends that are interested in playing, and have each of them invite a friend. This way you not only begin to get a good rotation of people coming into the game, you also use the card game to meet new people and expand your social circle. My home game is made up of myself, Walt and anywhere from about 5-8 of our very good friends. Now granted everytime we play not everyone can make it but we always have others who are not regulars but may come with one of the regulars every once in a while. It's nice though knowing who you know will be "down" for a game no matter when or where it is. Usually our home games change from house to house depending how house is free for that night.

Most people will tell you to play online first because no one can see you or you wont feel ashamed if you make a mistake. I feel the total opposite and its how i went about starting my poker career. When we began playing cards it was more of a "fun, new thing to do" kind of thing, the buy ins were 2.00 (we now laugh at it but i highly reccommend starting at something that low, maybe 5.00 would be more sufficient)and we were just learning the basics of the game. As you play more and more as we did you begin to raise the buy ins (not to high where some cant afford reguarly) and also begin to get more serious about cards while having a good social time with friends. Now we play a couple times a week and winning is the main objective (the money is good to win, but bragging rights and knowing you won that weeks game(s) puts you on the top and makes it feel so good).

When playing online you normally have to put a certain amount of money into the account and your playing against a vast array of talents and skill levels that you may be so thrown off that you may never really form your own style or gameplan. Starting online, with a plethora of different games and buy ins finding the right one maybe not be as easy as you think, setting limits for yourself is not the easiest thing to do online, but at home with friends limits can always easily be set.Playing online is fun and highly reccommended, but to start out try playing a nice small home game with small buy ins so everyone can enjoy. If you do begin online, dont get discouraged to the point where you get fed up with cards and wont play a home game when your offered to attend. Progree from home to online and you are sure to be successful and raking in the big bucks. Remember once your "game" is fit for your "style" during a home game you can then move to online play where your "game" and "style" is different from the thousands of players on that particular site and your advanatege will go up!!

Remember when you start playing have a table, chips, good playing cards (not some dollar store cards, spend the money and get nice plastic cards) a set buy in, know when blinds will be raised, and most importantly have some good high qulaity people to play with so your experience will be a grand one. Their is nothign better than a night of cards with good friends.

Copyright EverythingPoker.com
Emil Erhart & Walt Impellicceiri
2006