Home Game

I was at my brother-in-law's house Friday night for a tourney. 12 people, two tables with re-buys the first four rounds. I ran into major hands and had to re-buy. Don't remember too much how I got knocked out, but I lasted quite awhile after my re-buy (but went to the rail with 8 folks left). They played forever seven-handed when my brother-in-law raised all-in in bb with four callers in front of him. Newbie calls to his left, then big stack calls, then newbie's girlfriend calls! Brother-in-law had A5 suited, newbie had AK suited, big stack had 55 (absolutely horrible call), and girlfriend has AQ off. Of course, 55 held up, which I was glad (freed my brother-in-law up for cash game). I talked him into playing heads-up freeze-out for $5. First hand we re-raise each other until he's all-in, and I relucantly call with ATd (he has AJ). Then I convince him to play again for $10 and take him, then we get a third to play and I take that. We finally get a five-handed freezeout game, which goes to 3:30 in the morning. I get knocked out with bottom pair heads-up vs. 2nd pair (I bet on flop, turn, then all-in on river). I don't drink, but there were shot flowing, so everyone had a great time.

It seems that local police busting games is becoming more prevalent. There was an article in the Sunday Greenville (SC) News about a bust of a game in a subdivision clubhouse. $100 buy-in with $10 for the house for refreshments. Apparently, they publicized the game on the web. I assume it is fairly easy to bust these games for the police, but it seems like a poor use of resources to worry about evil poker players. This seems like the most innocuous bust to date. No real organized rake, just pooling funds together for refreshments. I would submit some simple ways to prevent these sorts of problems:

• If possible, invite a member of your community's finest to be part of the game
• No rakes for home games--bring your own refreshments, or pitch in to buy something specifically
• Don't keep any written records, as well as anything in the computer. My brother-in-law has a tournament director on his computer that allows you to compute payout, but something similar was quoted in the Greenville article
• Keep the cash on someone, maybe in a specific money clip or something

I'll try to research any state history/movement in Georgia for legalizing poker. I'm not sure of the groundswell regarding this, but the base is definitely here to make it successful.