Zithal
Intro:
There's been a few threads on the boards over the past few days dealing with the subject of blind schedules, so I thought I'd toss an article out on the subject based on my own personal experiences with tournaments. It was a shame to see those other threads get to the point where they needed to be locked, because it SHOULD have lead to a interesting discussion of what makes or does not make a good tournament.
Perhaps the most important thing to note is the definition of "what makes a good tournament". This is highly subjective and based on the experiences and play styles of the individual player. What may be methodical and deliberate with plenty of room for moves for one player may be slow and boring with almost no action for another.
It's important to keep this concept in mind while analizing a blind structure. Given any blind structure you can draw obvious conclusions as to it's length, what the texture of the tournament will be and where the dynamics of the game will change.
You should also be able to tell whether it will be a tournamnet that you will enjoy. What you can't say is if it will be a good tournament for others.
Zithal
Part 1: Tournament Length
Knowing when your tournament will end is an important part of tournament planning. The generally accepted rule of thumb is that your tournament will end approximately when the Big Blind equals your initial buy-in. (i.e. If you start with 1,000 in chips, you can expect your tournament to end around the 500-1000 level)
This is a good rule of thumb, because traditional home tournaments will see ~15-20 players. With the explosion of the popularlity of poker it's not uncommon to see 80 to a 100 people playing at once, which causes the rule to get... modified.
How can you guess when a tournament will end given the number of people playing? I find it easiest to look at the number of Big Blinds currently sitting on the table with two players left. Depending on how risk adverse and agressive (or tight) your players are, having 20-30 BB's on the table usually spells the end of a tournament. (On average, each player has 10-15 BBs left, so a minimum raise, followed by a call represents 10-20% of the chips in play. We're getting to a point where there's not a lot of play left in the game and one wrong move could cripple you.)
For example, looking at a 25 player game with a starting chip count of 1,000 chips, we'd expect the tournament to end when the players have 20-30 BBs between them. The total number of chips are 25,000 which makes the range of 20-30BBs, 833-1250. We'd expect our tournament to end somewhere around the 500-1000 level, dead on to our rule of thumb.
(Note that I'm leaving out add-ons and rebuys but, in general, add one rebuy and one add-on to the starting chips to get an estimated starting chip count)
QUIZ #1: You're running an 80 man tournament with 1,500 in starting chips. At what level would you guess the tournament will end?
ANSWER (in white): 80 people x 1,500 chips gives 120,000 chips. 20 BBs is 6,000 chips. 30 BBs is 4000 chips. I would expect the tournament to end at the 2000-4000 or 3000-6000 level.
As a tournament director, knowing approximately what your last level will be will let you control the length of the tournment. For the casual player, knowing this information will let you make an educated guess at when a tournament will end.
Zithal
PART 2: The Texture of a Tournament
There are two main factors to look at when trying to determine how a tournament will play out, ie. the "texture" of a tournament; blind size and blind length. As a TD, you can manipulate these two factors to give your home game the feel that you'd like.
Blind size affects how much play is in the game. The longer the blinds stay low, the longer players will stay in. As blinds rise, more and more players get eliminated. (I think I deserve an award for stating the obvious right now. Go me!)
What most people fail to realize is that, from a purely tournament length perspective, **since we know the blind level when our tournament will end - how we get there is irrelevant to it's length**
For example, given two tournament with equal legnth and 6 blind levels each (estimating the end of a tournament at the 500-1000 level), which tournament structure will take longer..
A) 5-10, 10-15, 10-20, 15-30, 20-40, 500-1000
B) 25-50, 50-100, 100-200, 200-400, 300-600, 500-1000
Given that we expect the tournaments to end at the 500-1000 level, both tournaments will take approximately the same amount of time!
If the way our blinds increased failed to affect the overall tournament time, then what affect did it have on our tournament?
In tournament A, we see the 5th blind level is 20-40 compared to 300-600 in tournament B. Obviously we expect more players to still be playing at the 20-40 level compared to the 300-600 level, so the effect is that, in general, players in tournmament A will play for a longer average period of time than in tournament B, but tournament A will have a more chaotic endgame.
Tournament A will have a slow drop out rate in the first 5 level, which will then turn into a random all-in fest for the last level, as players drop likes flies.
Tournament B as a more gradual increases will which spread out the eliminations over the same period of time.
Given that the level of the blinds determine how fast people drop out, the major affect of the length of each blind level is clumping.
For example, each tournament runs for 5 hours, tournament A has 2 hour blind levels, tournament B has 1/2 hour blind levels. What's the major difference between them...
A) H1,H2: 5-10, H3,H4: 250-500, H5: 500-1000
B) H1: 10-20, 15-30, H2: 20-40, 30-60, H3: 50-100, 100-200, H4: 200-400, 300-600, H5: 500-1000
We expect the tournaments to end around the same time.
In tournament A, eliminations will be clumped around the 250-500 level, then again (once the dust settles) at the 500-1000 level. Eliminations in tournament B will be spread out over a longer period of time.
QUIZ #2: You decided to hold a 24 player tournament with 1,500 starting chips. Blinds start at 25-50 and double every hour. The blind schedule is then (H1: 25-50, H2: 50-100, H3: 100-200, H4: 200-400, H5: 400-800, H6: 800-1600)
Based on the information in Part 1, you expect the tournament to end around the 800-1600 level (6-7 hours). You announce the tournament and get a lot of players complaining that the blind struture is too aggressive and that they want more play for their money! Although you LOVE an aggressive schedule due to the action it creates, you decide to adjust it to appease your players. Change the above schedule to appease players that want more playing time for their money WITHOUT affecting the overall length of your tournament.
ANSWER (in white): The two items that you have control over are how gradually the blinds raise, and the length of each individual blind level. Shortening each level to a 1/2 hour allows for more levels at a gradual pace. w A sample blind schedule, if you insist on (25) as the lowest denomination, might be (H1: 25-25, 25-50 H2: 50-75, 50-100, H3: 75-125, 100-150, H4: 100-200, 150-300 H5: 200-400, 300-600, H6: 500-1000, 1000-1500.
If you had an extra colour (for (5) chips), starting at a level around 10-20 would let you control the slope of the blinds to an even finer point. The more gradual the blind increases are at the beginning of the tournament, the longer the average player gets to play. This alteration has had little affect on the end time of your tournament.
Zithal
PART 3: The True Value of Blinds
If you want to get really keen on how blinds work on a tournament, you need to change the way you look at the value of your blinds. Is 5-10 a good starting blind? The value of the Big Blind is "10", but what does that mean?
The amount of the blinds only has value when compared to the average chip size.
For example, in a tournament where every player starts with 100 chips, a starting blind of 5-10 represents 1/10th of a stack (or 10 BBs) and immediately short stacks everyone. In a tournament with a starting chip count of 10,000, the same blind level now only represents 1/1000th of a stack (ie. 1,000 BB's) and becomes far less significant.
You want a tournament where the Big Blind is meaningful, but not oppressive. As an example, I'm going to take a page from our planning sessions for the KWSOP.
The KWSOP will start with a 10,000 chip count. One of the original ideas was to start the blinds off at 1/2 and double every hour. The starting blinds would have represented 1/5000th of a stack.
How much of our stack would be lose if we sat out of the tournament for 3 levels (hours)? The blinds would be 1/2, 2/4, and 4/8. We would start playing at the 4th (ie. 8/16) level. From previous experience, I'm going to assume we can do 1 rotation of the table every 20 minutes. This means that, for every 60 minute blind level, we would lose our blinds three times. In the first level we lose 3 chips, three times for a total of 9. 2nd level: 6x3 = 18 chips. 3rd level: 12x3 = 36 for a total chip loss of 63 chips or 0.6% of our starting stack.
How much difference is there in starting at hour 1 with 10,000 or hour 4 with 9,937 chips? You lose the ability to amass chips, but you're also unaffected by doing nothing for 3 hours. A standard raise to four times the blind on level 4 represents the total amount you lost in the first three hours by doing nothing. Blinds are affective when they are not too oppressive but also not too meaningless.
Zithal
Part 4: The Dyamnics of Blind Levels
Thinking about blinds as a percentage of an average stack has other applications.
In a tournament you have 10 BBs left. How are you playing? Are you in every pot or are you picking your moments more carefully? (Hey look, another award for stating the obvious!!)
The point I'm trying to make is that you can think of this in the opposite. When the average player has 10 BB's left, the average player is playing a short-stack strategy. When blinds raise, it changes the dynamic of the game and the tournament, by it's nature, will eliminate people to return to a more comfortable state. This gets a little confusing, so stay with me for a bit.
Let's say there are 24 players left in a tournament. Everyone started with 1000 chips and we're now on the 25-50 level. The average player has 20 BB's left and play is confortable for players, (ie. the average player does not feel short stacked.)
The blinds change to 50-100 and now the game has hit a state where people are short stacked, as the average stack has suddenly gone from 20 BBs to 10BBs. To go back to a comfortable state, the game needs to raise the average chips stack back to 20BBs and that occurs when players are eliminated. In fact, if we eliminate 12 players (leaving 12 left), the average stack is now 2,000 chips or 20BB. Our game with 24 players at a blind level of 25-50 has the same player dynamic as the game when it has 12 players left with blinds at 50-100.
Now the blinds raise to 100-200 and once again, the average stack is 10BB. To reach the same dynamic, we now need to have 6 players left with an average chipstack of 4000 chips.
To generalize: When the blinds double, the number of player needs to be cut in half to return to the game to previous dynamic. This becomes more true as the blinds increase dramatically. (ie. the dynamic between 5BB v. 10BB is FAR different that 50BB v. 100BB)
QUIZ #3: If the blinds doubles, what's another way of returning to the previous dynamic *without* eliminating players.
ANSWER (in white): By using re-buys and add-ons! If we're at the 25-50 level and the average stack is 1,000 chips (20 BBs), when the blinds raise to 50-100 and we offer a 1,000 chip add-on then (assuming everyone takes it), we've now altered the average stack to 2,000 chips (once again 20 BB). By including an add-on, we've given the illusion that the game is progressing, but haven't changed the dynamic of the game. Re-buys and add-ons are another tool used to increase the playing time of the average player. (To be really nerdy, I'll conceded that including an add-on alters the standard deviation of the chips which does alter the dynamic, but that's a topic for another day)
Note that a comfortable dyanamic changes from game to game and player to player, but a TD who plays with the same people will eventually discover what a comfortable dyanamic is and can use that information to tweak a tournament. For exmaple, on a table of rocks, 5BBs may be all that's needed to keep balance, while a table full of manicas may see huge swings with the average stack at 20BBs
Zithal
Part 5: The Price-point of a Tournament
In everything I've said above, I've tried to encourage the thought that a tournament isn't, by itself, good or bad; it's the opinions of a player which makes it good and bad for them. That said there are some generalities than, I think, are true for most players.
If a the Price-point of a tournament is high for a player, that player expects more action. As the price-point lowers, the length of the tournament becomes less meaningful.
There's the tricky bit. What do we mean by a price-point? Loosely defined it's the amount a player feels comfortable spending for a evening of poker.
For me, today, if I pay $50 for a tournament, I want to make sure I get a lot of play for my money. I want the tournament to have a running time of five hours or more, and I want a nice gradual blind schedule so that I don't feel rushed. Conversely, if I pay $5 for a tournament, the last thing I want it for it to be running all weekend.
For a professional poker player, playing a blind, heads-up, all-in first hand $1000 tournament is comfortable for them, where the average home player would need to win a satellite to even consider playing in a game that big.
When running or offering comments on a tournament, you need to consider the price-point of the players involved. In general, I believe the following is true:
If the price-point of a tournament is low, it can be as wild, fast and crazy as you want. As the price-point increases, the tournament also needs to increase it's value, either by smoothing out the blind schedule, increasing the playing time, or adding re-buys an add-on to artifically increase it's value.
QUIZ #4: The KWSOP is a $160 buy-in event lasting three days. Is it a good value?
ANSWER (in white): Based on the players we're targeting, that amount for that length of time has been percieved as a good deal based on feedback. Our target audience are people who are comfortable with a "$160 for three days of poker" price-point.
Zithal
Conclusions:
So, how does all of this apply to Blind Schedule Theory? I'm going to go back to a tournament I organized last year; Merry Xmas Maddness!
Here's what I wanted out of the tournament: lots of crazy action in the first part of the tournament followed by more serious poker after that. I wanted an aggressive blind schedule to encourage lots of play, but I didn't want anyone to feel cheated by how fast the blinds would raise. I needed an agressive blind schedule coupled with re-buys and add-ons to artifically length the average playing time.
I started everyone (24 players) with 1,000 chips and the first four levels (20 minutes each) were 25-25, 25-50, 50-100, 75-150. Without rebuys, the average stack was ~7 BBs! Throwing in an add-on of 1,500 chips (as well as re-buys) helped raised the average chip count and return to a more comfortable dynamic.
Everything I mentioned above was applied to the tournament: Knowing that I was allowing re-buys and add-on gave me a good estimate on when the tournament would end. I created aggresive blinds and short levels to encourage lots of action, but temperated it with add-ons to keeep the dyamic of the game comfortable for as long as possible and to extend the playing time of the average player. Knowing that the game was going to be chaotic, also let me set the buy-in/re-buy/add-on amount to $5 so that it would feel comforatable to the players I play with.
The tournament was a success, everyone had a lot of fun and the texture of the game was exactly what I was looking for.
Knowing when a tournament will end, knowing the texture and flow of a tournament, knowing when you can expect the dynamics of a game to change and understanding your player's price-point are all part of good tournament organization. These items do not make a tournament "good" or "bad" but, if you aware of the above, this information will help you, as a player, decide if a tournament structure is one that **you'll** enjoy (or not).
FINAL QUIZ: I'm hosting a 100 player tournament for $50 no re-buys, everyone starts with 1,000 chip, the blinds start at 25-50 and double each 1/2 hour. After the third level, I'll offer a $100 add-on for 2,000 chips. Is this a good format or not?
ANSWER (in white): I know what I'd say. I don't know what you'd say. I would listen to the feedback though and adjust as needed to play a fun game of poker.
Lamb_of_john
Anyone else think they'll buy robs poker books when he publishes them?? I certainly knwo i will.
that was a very enjoyable read rob.
When i am playing a tournament where the buy-in is higher, i want more time to use my chips. I want to be able to make solid plays.
for example, the KWSOP has 1 hour blinds. I am just tickeled with the idea that i may have a chance to actually use my poker abilities (at least I percieve them as abilities...............shannon!! haha) to PLAY!!! I'n not a big fan of being the guy with 10/BB.Â
With blinds small and gradual, you can actually play with the mentality "I bet X amount that my hand is better than yours." instead oof "I am betting X amount that i can take down this pot". It makes room for real players to make real plays.Â
I see the KWSOP as a place for our local talent to shine as good players. Not a place to see who had the best luck that weekend.
thanks alot for the posts rob. again, great read
Johnny
literation
I have some reading to do later. Perhaps Sloth can concatenate this for you and put it in member articles.
Iron
Nice post. Zithal's tournaments have been some of the best that I've been to, and I learned a lot about running my home game after attending a couple of them.
Xsqueezeme
I too owe a lot to Rob's tourney knowledge. After playing in a couple of his tourneys and getting info from him, my tourneys have been getting smoother and smoother.
Good post Rob.
rgspence
Wow, that was a great thread, my eye's hurt. I think that as a player and a TD, that this thread has helped me quite a lot.
Thanks for putting in the effort, what other reading material do you have, and when can we get it in paperback?, cause my eye's really so hurt.
Zithal
Thanks for all the great comments everyone. All the above I owe from starting off at homepokertourney.com, followed by the experience I've got running home games for the last year and a bit. I'm still learning all the time. Tonight's tournament was a great example, and I'll be posting details about it in another thread tomorrow.
pkrfce9
Thanks for the post, Rob. It is nice to see the theory posted so maybe now we can have some intelligent discussion when people complain about the blind schedule or try to estimate the length of a tourney. Now, can you post some theory on how big the rake should be at some people's tourneys???? :D
I'll buy your poker book when it comes out. Johnny, will you buy my spelling and grammar book? What? I'm kidding!
Lamb_of_john
Awnna plea soem heeds up Gerg??
Dnam!!! Y wont Mi Speel Chek Wrk????
Preroller
Lamb_of_john wrote
Awnna plea soem heeds up Gerg??
Dnam!!! Y wont Mi Speel Chek Wrk????
LMFAO!
CrazyJoe113
This is the structure I use for a 24 person tournament that usually lasts around 5 - 5 1/2 hours, just wondering if you could offer some comments or critcisms on it.
Each player starts out with 1500 chips(denominations of 5, 25, 50, 100, 500), 3 tables of 8, tables collapse as players get eliminated, no addons or rebuys. $25 buy in + $2.50 for pop and chips.
5/10 (20 min)
10/20 (20 min)
15/30 (20 min)
25/50 (20 min)
35/75 (20 min) (5 minute break, colour out 5 chip denomination)
^^**This level is strange, i didnt want to jump from 25/50 to 50/100 though** any suggestions?
50/100 (20 min)
75/150 (20 min)
100/200 (20 min)
150/300 (20 min)
200/400 (20 min) (5 minute break, colour out 25 chip denomination)
300/600 (20 min)
400/800 (20 min)
500/1000 (20 min)
750/1500 (20 min) (5 min break) - <<**tournament usually ends around here**
1000/2000 (10 min)
1500/3000 (10 min)
2000/4000 (10 min)
3000/6000 (10 min)
[deleted]
I use a similar structure and do make the jump at 25/50 to 50/100 it has to happen eventually and I find this a smoother transition. This is also where I schedule my break. other then that it looks good. Lots of play and ample time to make your moves early.
Flint Bones
I think what impresses me more about Zithal's post is the time it took him to write it. Between the KWSOP, Poker On-line, Poker Tourney's, WarCraft and that place he calls work, when the hell does he get the time to write this stuff? (I say as I write this at 3:10 on a Friday where I work).
Nice job, Rob.
K R
Here's the blind structure my friends and I have started to use for our weekly game of about 7-9 guys, 20.00 in chips.
.25/.50 - 30mins
.50/1.00 - 30mins
.75/1.50 - 30mins
1.00/2.00 - 30mins
2.00/4.00 - 30mins
Most of the games are usually done or near done by that point. One game did have us using 5.00 and 10.00 blinds. That was crazy.