I have been using this in my home games for the last 3 years and love it. I've only replaced the battery once so far.

Tim Kugler

How many times have you shown up to a new home game just to find out it's poorly organized and poorly run? It's the WORST! Now you're stuck for over three hours with no blinds schedule, distractions, confusion, and a frustrating night of dealing with home game noobs. The fact is, REAL poker players know how to run a home game, and REAL poker players know that this blind timer is a NECESSITY! Do NOT throw your home tourney without this!

Here's what you need if you want to have a well organized, comfortable home tourney:

1. This Blind Timer ($20)

2. A Schedule for the Blinds (Do NOT just make them up as you go, that's so lame) Cost: FREE

3. A deck of GOOD cards (preferably KEM but Copags are nice too). These cards are just a thousand times easier to shuffle and more comfortable to play with as well as being durable, bend resistant and spill resistant. ($20)

4. A 500 piece chipset with different colors/values. (Do NOT mix chips from different sets, and do not make all the different colors equal the same value). ($25-$400, depending on quality)

5. A padded playing surface. Either purchase a padded table topper for around $50-100, an actual poker table from around $150 up to $1000+, or just make your own makeshift soft/felt top for nothing. Why do you need this? A few reasons: it makes it easier to lift the cards off the table rather then have them stick to a hard flat surface, it also softens the chips being tossed rather than have that annoying, loud, clanky, rolling wobbling metalic chip sound constantly all night.

That's it, that's all you really need to create a very comfortable, enjoyable home game. I hope this list helps, and I hope those of you who have regular home games will heed this advice, spend some money, and take your home game to the next level!