Hosting Tradeoffs
I'm in the middle of planning my January event, and I would appreciate some feedback from various hosts and players (especially those who come to my place). I want to host a "bigger" event a couple times a year, and this time I wanted to do a big stack (10,000 chips) all-day (noon till around midnight) tourney with slow blinds (40 min). I had also considered making this event slightly larger by adding a few tables beyond the 5 I normal run. Now that I'm actually getting into the numbers, I'm finding that my overall goals simply don't work together nicely. This is not a "big event" like Westside or River Rat run, this is really just a home game.
1. Day Length
How long is too long? My plan was for about 12 hours of poker, which would be starting at noon and ending by 1am. Is this too long, and/or is longer acceptable/preferable? The conflict here is that to end around midnight means either shorter blind levels or more aggressive blind increases.
2. Blinds
Since the blinds are fit into a 12-hour window of time, as a player would you prefer longer levels with more aggressive blinds, or slightly shorter levels with more gradual blinds? As an example, would you rather play with 50-100, 75-100, 100-200 going up every 30 min, or 50-100, 100-200 going up every 45 min?
3. # Players
If more tables/players are added, the increased number of chips in play means more blind levels are needed to finish the tournament. Is the increased prize pool (and number of opponents) worth the increase that would be required either in the blinds (shorter or more aggressive) or day length (a longer tourney)? Would I be better to stay with my normal 40 players and provide lots of play, or reduce the play but increase the prize pool by adding tables?
4. Break Length
Assuming 40 min blinds, I was planning a 15 min break every 3 levels (2 hours). Is this enough? I'm a smoker, so I know the desire to duck outside. However, if you have more breaks, you obviously need more aggressive blinds. The breaks can't be significantly shortened due to hosting issues (chip-ups, etc.). Also, is a 1 hour break for dinner sufficient?
Obviously this is all personal preference, and everyone will have different priorities, but I'd be interested in hearing what others think. I know that I can't please everyone, but I can try
1. Day Length
How long is too long? My plan was for about 12 hours of poker, which would be starting at noon and ending by 1am. Is this too long, and/or is longer acceptable/preferable? The conflict here is that to end around midnight means either shorter blind levels or more aggressive blind increases.
2. Blinds
Since the blinds are fit into a 12-hour window of time, as a player would you prefer longer levels with more aggressive blinds, or slightly shorter levels with more gradual blinds? As an example, would you rather play with 50-100, 75-100, 100-200 going up every 30 min, or 50-100, 100-200 going up every 45 min?
3. # Players
If more tables/players are added, the increased number of chips in play means more blind levels are needed to finish the tournament. Is the increased prize pool (and number of opponents) worth the increase that would be required either in the blinds (shorter or more aggressive) or day length (a longer tourney)? Would I be better to stay with my normal 40 players and provide lots of play, or reduce the play but increase the prize pool by adding tables?
4. Break Length
Assuming 40 min blinds, I was planning a 15 min break every 3 levels (2 hours). Is this enough? I'm a smoker, so I know the desire to duck outside. However, if you have more breaks, you obviously need more aggressive blinds. The breaks can't be significantly shortened due to hosting issues (chip-ups, etc.). Also, is a 1 hour break for dinner sufficient?
Obviously this is all personal preference, and everyone will have different priorities, but I'd be interested in hearing what others think. I know that I can't please everyone, but I can try
Comments
Nothing is worse than playing hours of solid poker to watch the blinds go from 1500/3000 to 3000/6000 in a jump for example. 40 players is a good number to me. But hey any increase in prize money is good. Personally I'd rather increase the buy in to keep around the 40 while giving the prize pool a boost.Â
Just a few of my random thoughts while I play a tourney on line.
2. I've found 1/2 hour blind levels to be plenty long. I've never tried higher, so that might be fun too. Wow. That was helpful.
3. I think you'll find that as you increase players, the time it takes to end a tournament grows on a logarithmic (I think that's the word... opposite of exponential) scale. Notice that my increase from 24 to 32 players *maybe* added one blind level to the over all time. i.e (Using the 20BB method to estimate the end, increasing blinds from 10,000-20,000 to 12,000-24,000 is the estimated ending level for 40 players and 48 players respectively. Personally, I'm liking the experience of large field tournaments, and I'd like to get more.
4. Break length is fine, though 1 hour for supper, may be cutting it close.
12 hours.... HELL YA!
2. Blinds
Nice and slow. (30-40 min)
3. # Players
# of players does matter to a point, I would say 40-60 will fill a day if the stacks start at 10,000+ and you start off with 25-25 blinds
4. Break Length
Brake of 10-15 min ever 4-5 levels is good, and yes a 1 hour dinner brake is a must for somthing like this.
Another thing I would add is make it a Freeze-out. For some reason you have alot more "good" poker. By the way I don't fall into the "good" poker no matter what kind of tournament it is. :P
Blinds-I'd prefer a shorter level with more gradual blinds, allows for a lot of play, 30 minute levels.
#players-its your house so, whatever you and Jenn feel comfortable with, the deep stacks and long blinds scream for a big field.
Break Length-I've been known to smoke...in an effort to keep the game moving, I'm not opposed to grabbing a smoke on my own time, same goes for the can, so, the odd 15 minute formal break and an hour for dinner sound more than reasonable.
If you need table tops etc, my 2 are always available for something like this.
Two lines of thought, one is to have ALOT of players and normal blind levels. Which will make for a twelve hour tourny. OR (the one I prefer), a longer tournament with deeper stacks, which leads to more skill/more post flop play.
As to 45- minute or 20 minute blinds I dont think it makes much of a difference, it is how rapidly they go up.
The best tournament I have ever seen is the Poker at the Plaza tourney (the one referred to in Harrington's book) where the stacks are 200-300BB throughout the tourny. You get to see Ted Forrest, Layne Flack, Negraneau, Deeb etc play/fold and maneuver through each hand.
This is poker
Definately. After using them in some of Rob's tourney's I really like them, and as he pointed out, they are almost required once you go beyond 3 tables.
Totally agree, Sensei
I was thinking it might be tight as well, so I may need to make it a bit longer, although I think 1 1/2 should be plenty (I hope).
Ummm, how do I put this ... only those who survive the first blind level (and dinner, etc.) get to play for 12 hours. Although you are probably referring to 11.99 hours at the cash game
It will be. I'm trying to create a "main event" style feel within the confines of a home game.
Shhh - I'm negotiating
I agree. Â Keep in mind that increasing the # of players also means you'll be increasing the # of players paid. Â So a 25% increase in the buy-in means a 25% increase in each payout, whereas adding 25% more players may result in only a 15-20% increase in most of the payouts.
Here's a little sneak peak for the tourneys I'll be running Friday nights from January to April 06. With 40 players each with 2,500 starting chips, I think you could use a schedule similar to this one, except make the rounds 30/40 minutes in length.
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~g2taylor/poker/KPS-Blinds.gif
/g2
When, where, etc...
Watch for a formal announcement early December. I may also host a house-warming tourney between Christmas and New Years.
/g2
Was doing some more thinking on this last night and came up with an interesting way to think about it. Once again, I'll use the 20 BB rule for estimating the end of a tourney. If we do this, and each player has 10,000 chips, then each player contributes 500 chips to the ending level of a tournament. Thinking of it this way, you can jot down the number of players that each level supports.
For example, using the old kwsop schedule may look something like...
500-1,000 (2 players)
1,000-2,000 (4 players)
1,500-3,000 (6 players)
[snip]
5,000-10,000 (20 players)
6,000-12,000 (24 players)
8,000-16,000 (32 players)
10,000-20,000 (40 players)
15,000-30,000 (60 players)
20,000-40,000 (80 players)
So, if you're blind levels are 30 minutes long and you normally have 40 players. You'll, on average extended the tournament 30 minutes if you add 2.5 tables and by an hour if you run 10 total tables. The number of players supported growed exponentially (number of levels v. players supported), which is why you may not need to actually shorten individual levels.
On a complete aside,(and more-so so that I don't forget it).. and, although I need to do more thinking about this, I think there's probably a correlation between the length of the blind levels and the number of BB's it takes a tournament to end as it allows for more opportunity to create more moments that players would move all-in on.
(BTW... Look at you creating buzz about an upcoming tournament! You are learning well young padawan.)
Thanks, I'll take a look. However, creating the blind schedule is half the fun
I was thinking similiarly, but more in relation to antes. The antes increase the pot odds throughout the tournament, thus more likely a player will play a hand and bust out.
LOL, thanks - didn't have time to build a labyrinth and clone a minotaur, so this was the best I could do.
I don't know what your talking about.... :P
Pot luck etc also works and I would contribute. Or collect for pizza etc.
I didn't notice the sign up page.... I would be in for this.