Any more than that and you'll have a game that is super tight, both in terms of the poker and the space available to you. The theoretical max at a table is limited only by the number of cards available in the deck. 52 cards, and 8 are used up as part of the board (5 cards shown plus 3 total burn cards). The standard number of decks for a Texas Holdem game is one. There might be times when two (2) decks are used but not simultaneously. Doing more than one deck will result in an increase in the number of hands and the probability of drastic hand changing. In every hand of Texas hold ‘em, the cards are dealt from one 52 card deck. I play in a home game where we use two decks of different colored backs, usually red and blue. While we are playing a hand with one deck, the other is being shuffled in preparation for the next hand.

How to hold a Poker Party

A poker party is a great party, best with 6 to 10 people.

Here's what you'll need:

If you don't have any of the stuff then get one of the many poker sets around, they will include the chips, cards and the dealer button.

You might also want to print out our helpful list of poker hand nicknames, these are the names people call particular combinations of hole cards. It does sound so much cooler to declare you've got 'Big Slick' rather than just 'A King and an Ace'

There are an infinite variety of poker games. I'd recommend starting with Texas Hold'Em as it's currently the most popular so more people are likely to know it.

If you have a regular game then you might also want to play a few rounds of 'dealer calls' where the dealer nominates the game for that round (i.e. like in the films where you hear stuff like '5 card draw, deuces and one eyed jacks are wild').

Choosing Poker Chips

There are various 'standards' for the colours of poker chips and what they are worth; for instance the state of New Jersey defines these:

However you probably only want to get four colours so a reasonable set of values might be something like 1, 2, 5 and 25.

You'll want to get more of the lower denomination chips than higher; a reasonable ratio is something like 4/3/2/1 so, for instance, you might want to get 400 white, 300 pink, 200 red and 100 blue chips.

Each player needs to start with a good number of chips, say between 30 and 50, and make sure you have enough left to let people re-buy; you only need the larger value chips left for re-buys as the other players can 'make change'.

Try our simple Poker Chip Calculator to play around with different combinations of chips and buy-ins.

Not so long ago a nice set was really expensive but they have really come down in price. Amazon sell some nice sets, for instance the one on the right.

It's not that much to get nice 'casino quality' chips. Look for ones listed as 'clay' chips weighing 10 - 11.5 grams (although bear in mind that if, for some reason, you need to carry your chips a lot then 1,000 chips at 11.5g each is heavy).

Before the day

If you have beginners then I'd recommend sending out a 'how to play poker' guide about a week before the game. Download a PDF of one I cobbled together from various internet sources here.

Email everyone with basic details: start time, buy in (if playing for real money), whether it's a tournament or cash game, any rules (max raise, re-buys etc).

Print out your rules and ranking of hands sheets.

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Write/print a sheet with the value of the chips, useful for the first few times people play together (e.g. white=1, red=5, green=25, blue=100)

If you have beginners suggest to them that they arrive promptly, then you'll only have to explain the game play once.

On the day

Not much to do, set out the table, food, beer etc.

Before the game starts

Go over the basic rules.

It's fun to give people chips in a 'virtual' currency. So if they buy in for 10 pounds/dollars you give them 1,000 pounds/dollars of chips, it just makes all the pots seem much bigger. Obviously when cashing out you reverse the process!

Use two packs of cards: at the end of each hand the dealer collects the card, passes the dealer button on and the next dealer starts dealing the second pack. The old dealer shuffles the cards well then passes them to the player after the current dealer ready for a prompt start to the next hand. This keeps the game moving.

If you have more than 10 people you probably want to split into two tables. As people leave you can combine the tables.

If you're going to play for cash rather than just chips then there are three golden rules:

Golden rule 1: Make sure everyone knows the key rules, especially on re-buys and cashing out.

Golden rule 2: Keep the chip stash in a safe place and have one nominated person (usually the host) who takes the cash and gives chips in return (and vice-versa). This person is the only one allowed to do it and has to make up the shortfall if things don't add up. Never trust someone else's count of the chips, count them again in front of them before handing over cash. Countless games have had 'unpleasantness' at the end of the evening when someone miscounts when cashing out, leaves and then there isn't enough to pay the remaining players.

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Golden rule 3: Be fairly strict on the mechanics of the game, proper shuffling & cutting, no string bets, no playing out of turn, re-deal if there's a misdeal, if a player steps away from the table they still have to play blinds etc.

Further reading

A friend of mine and his sister have written this excellent book on Texas Hold'Em; great if you want to improve your play.

Also these cards are produced by a good friend of ours and you might find them helpful, especially if you're a beginner.

Got a party tip?

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If you have a party tip please tell us, email us at tips (at) how-to-hold-a-party (dot) com.