Home games use customs such as bomb pots, the 7-2 game, running it twice, and
straddles from different seats. The details vary, so agree on your version
before play starts.
Nothing in this chapter comes from a rulebook that settles it for everyone.
Robert's Rules of Poker, the standard card-room rulebook, mentions a few of
these customs (it allows dealing twice in big-bet games and lets the blinds
chop), but it doesn't describe bomb pots, the 7-2 game or a home game's bank.
The TDA's tournament rules cover none of them. Each rule below says where a
custom is described, and the honest answer is often a card room's posted
rules, a poker site's explainer or a players' forum. pagat.com's advice holds
for all of it: a home game should agree its game, stakes and house rules
before play starts, above all when someone new sits in.
In a bomb pot everyone at the table puts in the
same agreed amount before the deal, there are no blinds, and there's no
betting before the flop. The cards are dealt, the flop comes straight out,
and the first betting round is on the flop with the whole table in a pot
that's already big. After the flop it plays like any other hand.
Massachusetts' card-room rules define a "Bomb" hand as a special ante in
which nobody posts a blind. PokerNews describes it as an agreed amount from
every player and no betting before the flop, played most often in Hold'em
and Omaha.
Whichever you use, set a deadline for calling it. Home players on a poker
chip forum mostly put it before the first card is dealt, or at least before
anyone has looked at a card. PokerNews describes the once-an-orbit version
with its own bomb-pot button.
Agree the amount, usually in big blinds. Then decide whether a player may sit
one out. In most home games everyone at the table antes; CardPlayer's
explainer has a player either post the ante or sit the hand out. Card
rooms differ:
Massachusetts' rules let a player decline the bomb hand and put nothing in,
and need at least four players in for it to run. A player short of the ante
is all-in for what they have, as with any short forced bet (Blinds, antes and bring-ins).
A bomb pot doesn't have to be the game the table is playing. Hold'em and
Pot-Limit Omaha are the usual choices, Omaha especially. Agree the game and
the limit before the deal: a no-limit Hold'em table that deals its bomb pots
as pot-limit Omaha has two sets of betting rules in one evening.
Many bomb pots are dealt on two boards: two separate flops, turns and rivers,
one pot and one round of betting per street. The usual split is half the pot
to the best hand on each board, so you can win one half, both ("scoop"), or
share a half on a tie. That isn't the only way: the Asian Poker Tour's
double-board rules also describe a version in which the single best hand on
either board takes the whole pot. Say which you play, and where an odd chip
goes.
90.7 Decide whether the button moves after a bomb pot
Nobody posts a blind in a bomb pot, so does the button move? Home games
disagree. Some leave the button where it was, as if the bomb pot were an
extra hand; others move it as for any hand. If the button stays, the same
players face the blinds again on the next hand; if it moves, the player who
would have posted the big blind skips it. Either works if it's agreed.
90.8 Run it twice only if everyone in the pot agrees
When a player is all-in before the river and the betting is over, the
players can agree to run it twice: deal the
rest of the board two separate times, and award half the pot on each.
Robert's Rules allows players to agree to it in no-limit and pot-limit games.
Card rooms that allow it want every player in the pot to agree: the Irish
Poker Tour's cash rules say so, and the Hippodrome in London adds a minimum
pot. It's a cash-game custom; a tournament hand is played once (Tournaments).
The pot is cut in half and each half is played for on its own board. Every
side pot is halved the same way. A $400 pot run twice is two $200 pots; win
both runs and you take $400, win one and you take $200. Settle in advance
where an odd chip goes.
Some games allow running it three times; Robert's Rules and the Irish Poker
Tour both allow two or three runs by agreement. Players on a poker forum
report that Hustler Casino Live allows two at most, and that thirds of a pot
with side pots in it get awkward fast. With three or more players all-in,
decide whether one player who wants it run once stops it for everyone. A
forum answer some games use: the others may run it twice between themselves,
provided the player who wanted once wins nothing on the first run.
90.11 Rabbit hunting: most card rooms ban it; decide yours
A rabbit hunt is dealing out the cards that
would have come after a hand ends early, just to see. Card rooms mostly say
no: the TDA and the WSOP ban it in tournaments, the Irish Poker Tour bans it
in cash games, and Robert's Rules asks dealers not to show what would have
come. Many online rooms offer it, some for a fee. At home, decide whether
it's allowed, who may ask, and whether the whole table sees it.
Seven-deuce offsuit is the worst starting hand in Hold'em, so some tables pay
a bonus to anyone who wins a pot with it. The live version has no pool: when
someone wins holding a 7 and a 2, every other player pays them an agreed
amount. In a 2022 high-stakes game at Triton Madrid the bonus was 10,000
euros a player. Poker Now's version has every player dealt into the hand pay,
and the winner must show the 7-2 to collect.
Card rooms often pay a bonus for a very big hand, commonly four of a kind or
a straight flush, or a prize for the best hand of the hour. The usual
conditions, as PokerNews describes them: you must show the hand, both your
hole cards must be part of it, and the hand counts even if it doesn't reach a
showdown. A home game that copies the idea needs to say what qualifies, what
it pays and who pays it.
In the nit game every player starts the round with a button, and gets rid of
it by winning a pot. When only one player still holds a button, that player
pays an agreed amount to everyone else. The Lodge poker club's write-up says
it used to be called the stand-up game. A last-longer bet is a tournament
side bet: a group each put in an agreed stake, and whoever of them lasts
longest takes it, wherever they finish. Agree the stake, and whether a pot
must be shown or won outright to count.
A straddle is an optional extra blind, usually
twice the big blind, posted before the deal. It plays like a third blind:
the straddler acts last before the flop and may raise. Robert's Rules allows
one straddle, from the player just left of the big blind, in no-limit and
pot-limit cash games, and none at limit poker except in named games. Beyond
that:
(a) a re-straddle doubles it again from the next seat; pagat.com notes some games allow it;
(b) a button straddle or Mississippi straddle comes from the button or any seat, with the action starting to the straddler's left; the Hippodrome allows a button straddle only three- or four-handed, and the Irish Poker Tour bans the Mississippi;
(c) a sleeper straddle is posted from a later seat and only plays if the action reaches it without a raise.
When everyone folds to the blinds, the small and big blind may agree to take
their blinds back and skip the hand: "chopping". Robert's Rules allows it in
button games, while banning any other agreement to split a pot. Decide
whether your game allows it, and whether it must be a standing agreement
(the same answer every time) so nobody chops only when they hold a bad hand.
In a dealer's-choice game the player dealing names the game for that hand,
before anyone antes. pagat.com notes that home games sometimes allow games
that aren't poker on the list. Agree the menu, whether a pick holds for one
hand or a full round, and the stakes for the limit games. The mixed-game
rules are in Mixed games.
At most home games the deal passes to the left after each hand, with the
dealer holding the button. pagat.com picks the first dealer at random, for
example by high card, and gives the dealer the job of keeping the game
running and the rules followed. If one person deals all night, say so, and
decide whether the button still moves.
Home cash games are table stakes: you play only the chips in front of you
when the hand starts, and you can buy more only between hands. pagat.com
suggests a minimum buy-in of 10 to 20 times the minimum bet; card rooms set
a range. Decide the minimum and maximum, whether a busted player may rebuy
for less, and how many times.
Under table stakes you can't take chips off the table while you stay in the
game ("going south"). You also can't leave with a big stack and come back
soon after with a small one ("ratholing"). Robert's Rules asks a player
returning within an hour to buy in for what they left with. pagat.com allows
chips off the table only when a player leaves for good.
90.22 One person keeps the bank, with a written record
Somebody has to sell the chips and pay them out. pagat.com has players buy
chips from the host and cash them in at the end. Hosts on a poker chip forum
and the DD Poker hosting guide add the details that stop the bank coming up
short: one person in charge, a written note of every buy-in and rebuy, chips
handed over only once paid for, and a cash-out counted aloud and checked by
a second person.
Decide in advance whether the bank gives credit (an IOU) and how much, and
when everyone settles. The hosts on the poker chip forum mostly settle each
player's net result once, at the end of the night, and won't hand over chips
before a transfer has landed.
Three things save the most trouble: a start time, with what happens to late
arrivals; an end time, with the last hand announced (many games play a last
full round of the table, so everyone gets the button); and whether phones are
allowed at the table. The DD Poker hosting guide suggests telling guests the
late-arrival policy beforehand and using Robert's Rules for anything you
haven't decided. Robert's Rules lists using a phone at the table as improper.