Poker tournaments are one of the more popular forms of home game poker.  They have a number of advantages, the primary one being that they provide a reasonable loss limit for players.  It’s difficult for someone to lose too much money to really matter playing a tournament, whereas cash games in a home game setting can quickly get out of hand.  While a little money passing between friends is no big deal, a substantial amount of losses can result in hurt feelings and even threaten the friendship.

So if tournaments are the way to go, what’s the best way to host a tournament?  One thing you have to think about is the timing.  You don’t want a tournament that moves too quickly or too slowly –  ideally, you’ll like to find a balance between an amount of chips and blind increases that both promote a fairly speedy resolution of the tournament but still allow for some play.

One of the easiest ways to accomplish this balance is to use an online poker clock.  There are several clocks like the one linked back there which will not only help you keep track of the tournament time, levels, payouts and so on, but will also help you choose a good format for your tournament by providing you with present options and helping to explain the ways a tournament will be impacted by particular structures.

Hosting a home game can be a lot of fun, and even more so if the stress and pressure of keeping track of the tournament is handed over to a computer.  That way everyone can just focus on what they came to the game to do –  play poker and have fun with friends.  With a few simple steps and a poker clock, that can be a relatively easy goal to accomplish.