Rules of Poker · Chapter 91 · 2026 edition
Write down the customs your group uses, including straddles, whether everyone must ante in a bomb pot, and taking chips off the table. A short rules sheet gives players a shared reference.
Use the printable house rules template to record the choices below. The customs themselves are described in Home-game customs.
Agree the rules before anyone has a hand to protect. pagat.com advises a home game to settle its game, stakes and house rules before play, above all when a new player joins, because a rule misunderstood mid-hand is hard to settle fairly. Keep the sheet short enough to read in a minute, and send it to anyone new before they come.
Source: pagat.com, "Poker Rules".
Your sheet only needs your own choices. For everything else, name a rulebook and agree that it decides. For a cash game the usual choice is Robert's Rules of Poker, which its author lets anyone copy and use free; the DD Poker hosting guide recommends it to home hosts. For a tournament, the Poker TDA rules (2026 edition, Version 1.1) are what most card rooms use. This rulebook can serve too.
Source: Robert's Rules of Poker v11, introduction; DD Poker, "Hosting"; TDA 2026 Rules (Version 1.1).
Write down the game or games, the blinds, and whether it's no-limit, pot-limit or fixed-limit (Betting structures). For a dealer's-choice night, list the games on the menu and the stakes for each (90.18). Home games vary most here: pagat.com notes that small-stakes home games often set a fixed maximum bet, and may cap the number of raises. Robert's Rules won't change a game's limit if two or more players object, and lets the house approve a raise in the stakes.
Source: Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 2, "Procedures" rule 17; pagat.com, "Poker Betting", "Betting limits".
Set a minimum and maximum buy-in, whether a busted player may rebuy and for how much, and say plainly that chips stay on the table until you leave (90.20, 90.21). Most games play table stakes and allow rebuys between hands. Robert's Rules requires a player returning within an hour to buy in for at least what they left with.
Source: pagat.com, "Poker Betting", "Table stakes"; Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 2, "Procedures" rules 7 and 8.
Say whether you allow a straddle, from which seats, for how much, and whether it can be re-straddled (90.16). Most games allow the straddle under the gun at twice the big blind. Robert's Rules allows exactly that one straddle in no-limit and pot-limit games.
Source: Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 14, "No-Limit and Pot-Limit" rule 15.
Five answers: what calls one, the ante, whether everyone must play, which game and limit, and one board or two with how the pot splits (90.3 to 90.6). Add whether the button moves after one (90.7). Most home games ante everyone and play the flop straight away; there's no published rulebook to adopt, so these have to be your own words.
Source: common home-game practice; see PokerNews, "Bomb Pot Poker Rules" and Massachusetts Gaming Commission, Poker rules (2026), Section 1, "Bomb".
Say whether a pot may be run twice or three times, and that everyone in the pot must agree (90.8 to 90.10). Then say whether rabbit hunting is allowed (90.11). Card rooms that allow running it twice want everyone in the pot to agree, and most ban rabbit hunting. Robert's Rules allows dealing twice or three times by agreement in big-bet games and asks dealers not to show the next card.
Source: Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 2, "Procedures" rules 16 and 24; Irish Poker Tour, "Cash Game Rules", rules 5 and 8.
Say whether the blinds may chop when everyone folds to them (90.17), and list any side game the table plays (the 7-2 game, a high-hand bonus, the nit game) with its amount and its conditions (90.12 to 90.15). Robert's Rules allows chopping the blinds; no published rulebook covers the side games, so write their details down in full.
Source: Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 2, "Procedures" rule 15; common home-game practice for the side games.
Write down that the cards speak (a hand is what the cards show, not what its player calls it), who shows first, and how long after a hand a mistake can still be fixed. Most games use the standard show order (Showdown). The TDA covers cards speaking and show order; Robert's Rules sets the deadline for a ruling at the start of the next deal.
Source: TDA 2026 Rules (Version 1.1), Rules 13 and 18; Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 2, "Decision-Making" rule 5.
Name the person who rules when the sheet doesn't answer: usually the host, with someone else for the host's own hands. Card rooms make the floor's word final, and let it rule in the spirit of fairness where the letter of a rule gives a poor answer. Robert's Rules and the TDA both say so.
Source: Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 2, "Decision-Making" rules 1 and 2; TDA 2026 Rules (Version 1.1), Rule 1.
Say when cards go in the air, what happens to late arrivals, when the game ends and how the last hand is announced (90.24). Decide whether anyone may call the clock on a slow player, and how long they get. Robert's Rules gives a player on the clock one more minute in no-limit and pot-limit, with a ten-second warning; the TDA's 2026 rules have their own rule on calling for a clock.
Source: Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 14, "No-Limit and Pot-Limit" rule 16; TDA 2026 Rules (Version 1.1), Rule 31; DD Poker, "Hosting".
Name the banker, how buy-ins are paid, whether there's any credit, and when everyone settles (90.22, 90.23). Most games keep a written note of every buy-in and settle the same night. No rulebook covers a home game's bank, so this one is your own.
Source: common home-game practice; see Poker Chip Forum, "Playing 'Bank' - Tips & What I've Already Learned... The Hard Way" (2023) and DD Poker, "Hosting".
Say whether phones may be on the table, and that nobody in a hand uses one. Add the basics of behavior: one player to a hand, no help from anyone else, no abuse. Robert's Rules covers conduct and etiquette; the TDA has a stricter phone rule for tournaments.
Source: Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 1, "Conduct Code" and "Poker Etiquette"; TDA 2026 Rules (Version 1.1), Rule 5.
For a tournament night, adopt the TDA rules and write down only what the TDA leaves to the house: the buy-in, the starting stack, the levels and breaks, rebuys and add-ons, the payouts, how players out in the same hand are placed, and whether deals are allowed (80.10, 80.19, 80.21, 80.24). A home-game guide's advice is to announce the payouts before the first hand.
Source: TDA 2026 Rules (Version 1.1); HomePokerTourney.org, "Poker Tournament Buy-in Help and Advice".
Rules of Poker, 2026 edition, by MyHomeGame. Free to copy and reuse with credit under CC BY 4.0. How to cite and reuse.