Tourney blind structure

rezdog

Hi, can anyone help, I am looking for blind structure for 8-16 ppl home tourney, starting chip count will be $10,000. I have had tourneys with $2,000 starting chips, but want to change it up a bit. buy in $50.00, lenght 3-4 hrs.

rezdog

forgot to add that the game is NL Hold'em

ScottyZ

If I was running a tournament, I would use something similar to the starting chips and blind structure (but double the time limits, and I would probably not use antes)

http://www.pokerstars.com/tourney-holdem-nl.html

and prize structure

http://www.pokerstars.com/tourney_prize_pool.html

used at PokerStars.

If you think you had good success in your previous tournament with the starting chips at $2,000 and want to change the starting chips to $10,000, simply multiply all the blinds (and antes if any) by 5.

If your intention is to make the tournament *last longer* by increasing the initial stacks, then don't change the blinds at all, or do something like multiply the initial stack by 5 and the blinds by 2 (for example)

I never understood why anyone would care about the absolute level of the starting stack. The only thing that really matters is the level of the blind structure *relative* to the initial stack size.

Theoretically, and tournament can have a small blind of 1 chip in round 1.

ScottyZ

rezdog

thank for the input, i used Pokerstar tourney blind structure for 2500 starting chip count then just add a 0 the the blind levels. Tourney last 2 hrs 45 mins without a hitch. thank again

rezdog

forgot to mention that starting chip count was $25,000. Not the $10,000, i had mentioned earlier.

ScottyZ

Glad to hear it worked out!

Now that you have a starting point that works well, it should be easy for you to tweak the blind structure (if you want) to make the tournament shorter or longer. Probably the easiest thing is to keep the same blinds and make the rounds a few minutes longer or shorter accordingly.

ScottyZ

professor

We had a very successful tournament here yesterday.
(Sorry you couldn't make it, Scotty. )

Congratulations, guys, for putting together a great event!

The blind structure was very simple and worked really smoothly -- here it is...

We had 24 players, starting with T300 each.
Blinds increased every 20 minutes.
I. 1 - 2
II. 2 - 4
III. 3 - 6
colour up whites (T1 chips)
IV. 5 - 10
V. 10 - 20
VI. 15 - 30
colour up reds (T5 chips)
VII. 25 - 50
VIII. 50 - 100
IX. 75 - 150
X. 100 - 200
XI. 150 - 300
XII. 200 - 400

A lot of players crashed between levels VI and VIII. (Including yours truly, 2 off the money.) The game finished on level XI after about 3 1/2 hours. (With
more or fewer than 24 players I'd suggest adjusting the initial stack size to keep the total number of
chips in play in the 6000-8000 range. More chips = longer tourney, of course.)

The whole day was great and it seemed like everyone had a really good time. Of course, four lucky --
I mean skillful! -- players had a better time than the rest of us.

ScottyZ

Yeah, wish I could have been there. Keep me on the email list for next time though.

I would suggest T500 in starting chips with exactly the same blind structure (regardless of the number of players). I remeber we have tried it both ways in the past (T300 and T500) and I think T300 is far too short of an initial stack, and T500 felt to me like it was about right.

24 players seems like a pretty good turnout... if you can handle 40, I'm sure it will get to that many after a couple more tournaments.

Any talk of making this a regular tournament? Monthly? More often?

ScottyZ

Anonymous

Where was the tournament held ? At your house or a different location ?

We have about 16 players attend our home tournaments but we can't
really expand more than that due to limited space/tables ?

Anonymous

Here is a silly question..how do you time the levels? Wrist watch? And do you just automatically change the blinds at that point or do you try and finiash the round (around the table) so the new button is the same as the button to begin the game. i.e. everyone has the same # of hands at each level on the button?

Is it too much bother to worry about that?

ScottyZ

The best thing is to use some kind of timer (microwave, wristwatch, stove, alarm clock) which will beep or give some kind of audible signal when the time is up. There's nothing worse than using a purely *visual* method to time rounds, because you'll invariably get into situations like:

"How much time is left in the round?"
"Ummm... it should have ended 4 minutes ago."
"Screw that! That means player X should have paid a bigger blind last hand!!"
[ScottyZ falls asleep zzzzZZZzzzzz]

When the timer goes off, the blinds increase at the end of the current hand. You do not have to wait until a complete orbit is finished, and therefore, players are not guaranteed the same number of hands at each blind level.

If you want to ensure equal distributions of blinds, you should use *per orbit* blind levels, and forget about time altogether. This is also a good idea if you have a slow dealer (or dealers). Don't forget to adjust your levels to account for the game becoming short handed, something like:

8+ players = 1 orbit per level
5-7 players = 2 orbits per level
3-4 players = 3 orbits per level
2 players = 5 orbits (i.e. 10 hands) per level

You could also use something like 10 hands per level, but then you lose the guarantee that the players will pay the same amount in blinds at each level (when the game becomes 9 handed or less). But again, this might be good if your dealer(s) is slow or inconsistent.

The definition of exactly when a hand begins is a house rule. I prefer defining the start of the hand as the first riffle in the dealer's shuffling routine. This is common, but I've seen other methods too (e.g. dealing the first card could be another choice).

ScottyZ

rezdog

go buy a digital cooking timer, $10.00, at Canadian Tire. Timer beeps at every 5 minutes, so if level are 20 minuts long, you have 5 minute warnings. I tried the "per orbit" forget about it. Tend to lose track of rounds, especially after a few cold ones.