Chapter II Choosing a game

Choosing a game Choosing where you play can be an important factor in bar poker. Do you want to get points to advance to another tournament or are you just looking for a one night evening out. If you choose to play in a league game, you will see smaller prizes, but with the chance of a bigger payoff later. Players tend to be playing to gain points so play will be much different then a non league game. Play will be aggressive early but will tight up as you get near the points. League games are the best for honing your skills and learning to read people because the same people tend to play each week. A weekly game with no points tends to have higher prize payouts, because they are not paying towards a bigger prize. These games can be very loose because you are only playing to win that evening. People will try and win a lot of chips early with the win big or go home attitude. The other important factor is blind schedule and lengths. Are you looking to play for the whole evening or just a couple of hours. Bars that run two games in one evening tend to have much shorter blind levels and start with fewer chips. In order for a bar to run a good game you need to start with at least 5000 chips starting at 25-25 or 25-50 if blinds levels are 15 minutes. If 20 minutes then 3500 chips should be enough. Many bars will offer incentives to players such as purchase minimums for extra chips or for arriving early. It is important that you try and take advantage of these incentives as you don’t want to start out short stacked on your table.