The Gulp Buy In
November 23, 2007
What is the gulp? What do you do when you gulp? When you gulp, you feel a bit uneasy, right? The gulp buy in is the amount of buy in recommended to make poker players feel uneasy, not too little to make them feel like the game is pointless and not too much to make them feel like if they lose, they will never come back again.
If you are hosting a poker tournament at home, you should make sure that you know the demographics of the people playing. For example, if you are playing with a bunch of unemployed teenagers then you should not make the buy in so large. You should make it just enough so that they will lose their allowance for two to three days. If you make their buy in as much as their allowance for a month then if they lose, they are likely never to come back.
If you are hosting a group of tycoons then you should make the buy in around the ten thousand dollar range. You have to make sure that they will feel the money or else they will not care about the poker game at all. You have to make sure that they are a bit uneasy when they play. Imagine, if there are ten players on that table, the winner will end up with one hundred thousand dollars. That is still some money for a tycoon, right. He or she could buy a Porsche with it.
If you are hosting a poker tournament with normal people then you should put the buy in at around fifty to one hundred dollars. This is the normal buy in range for the average home invitational poker tournament. If you have ten players then the winner can win as much as a thousand dollars. That isn’t bad. At least you know that the people will be taking the poker game seriously to some extent, right?
If you think about it, the ideal gulp buy in is the amount of money you earn in one day of work. If you are earning three thousand dollars a month then a hundred dollar buy in is just right for you. If you lose then gone is a day’s work but if you win then you can spend lavishly for the next week. That isn’t bad, right? If you want to enjoy life more then make sure that you keep winning your poker games!
Imagine if you were earning three thousand dollars a month and the buy in was three thousand dollars! What would happen if you lose? If you lose, gone is a month’s work for you. That is so horrible. If you earned that money with your sweat and blood then you will feel it go away. You will curse gambling and you may never play a poker game ever again. This is certainly not the goal of the gulp buy in. Make sure you compute the gulp buy in right so that you can keep having poker tournaments in your house.