Hosting my first tourney

Anonymous

Need some advice as I am hosting my first tourney Fri night. should be 8 guys, $50 buy in, $200 in chips, no re-buys. Hoping for it to last aprox 3.5 hours. Questions are what to start the blinds at and how often the schedule should be. Does it make sense to say start at 30 min, then switch to 20 min, when we are down to four guys??

ScottyZ

Here's an excellent site for this sort of thing:

http://www.homepokertourney.com/

Check out

http://www.homepokertourney.com/blinds.htm

for a specific example of a blind structure. (They base the blinds on 1,000 chips, but just divide everything by 5 if you'd rather have initial stacks of 200.)

Does it make sense to say start at 30 min, then switch to 20 min, when we are down to four guys??

Sure, why not? Just make sure everyone is aware of this before you start, since this is somewhat non-standard.

ScottyZ

MiamiKeith

Eights wrote:

Need some advice as I am hosting my first tourney Fri night. should be 8 guys, $50 buy in, $200 in chips, no re-buys. Hoping for it to last aprox 3.5 hours. Questions are what to start the blinds at and how often the schedule should be. Does it make sense to say start at 30 min, then switch to 20 min, when we are down to four guys??

Why would you want to do that? I'd say keep the levels a constant time.
20 min per level is good. Something like this:

1-2
2-4
3-6
---- colour up to red chips now
5-10
10-20
15-30
---- colour up to green chips now
25-50
50-100
75-150
100-200 (can colour up to blacks, but not really necessary)

After 3 hours you are at 75-150, and 3hrs 20 min you are at 100-200. These are VERY big blinds for only 1600 chips on the table. The 75-150 level will get you heads up in a hurry... if not, a couple of hands of 100-200 will get you there.

If you feel that the limits are rising too fast, and want people to get some more play (say, turn it into a 4 hour tourney) add the 4chip-8chip levels for white and red (4-8 and 20-40).

If you want to speed things up (get people eliminated faster), ahain, add the 4chip-8chip levels, but REMOVE the 3-chip 6-chip levels (3-6 and 15-30). The white chip change won't make much difference, but the red-chip change will. And I think it's best to leave all 4 green chip levels intact... you don't want the blinds skyrocketing at this point when most people will already be critical.

Keith

Unknown

Here's a copy of the rules I use for my single-table tournaments. The blind structure is weird, but it works. The rebuys are only for half the amount of starting chips because I don't have enough chips for multiple full rebuys, but oddly enough, that works too. Hope this helps. (The tournaments generally last 4 or 5 hours or so, but it varies).

BATHURST INVITATIONAL POKER CLASSIC RULES
(NO-LIMIT) – FINAL EDITION

Buy-in: $100, or whatever is agreed upon by the table. Each player starts with T1500.

Rebuys: ½ the amount of the buy-in gets you T750 chips if you bust out. This option is
available to you twice--if necessary--and only within the first two hours and twenty minutes of the tournament. After level 7, if you bust out, you’re out.

Payout: 55%, 30%, 15%.

Starting Chips and values: T1500 chips. Purple = T100, Green = T25, and White = T5.

Level Blinds (small/big)

1 10/15
2 15/25
3 25/50
4 50/75
5 50/100
6 75/150
7 ***last rebuy level*** 100/200
8 150/250
9 200/300
10 200/400
11 250/500
12 300/600
13 400/800
14 600/1000
15 1000/1500
16 1500/3000
17 2000/4000

- The levels will increase every 20 minutes.
- If the timer goes off during a hand or during the dealing of a hand, we will wait
until the hand is completed before re-setting the timer and raising the level. A hand officially starts the moment either of the blinds are posted..

SEATING

- We will each draw a card (A through 10) from a pile of face-down cards in the
middle. Your number is your seat, ace obviously being seat #1. Before that,
the one-seat will be designated.
- After the seating is determined, we will high-card for the button. In the event
of a tie, the winner is the card that ranks highest in the reverse-alphabetical
order of suits. (SHDC). The clock will then be started for the first level.


DEALING

- First, the small and big blinds must be posted.
- The person to the dealer’s left cuts the deck before the hole cards are dealt.
- A card is burned before the flop, turn, and river are dealt.
- Mucked cards cannot be retrieved from the pile.
- If a card is exposed during the deal it will be declared dead, and is
replaced in the player’s hand with the last card of the deal. If a card is exposed
within the first 5 cards dealt, it will be a complete re-deal.
- If a burn card or a mucked card is exposed, the card will be made available for
the table to see. The hand is not re-dealt.
- If a community card is exposed before it is meant to be shown, the card
remains as is. It will not be burned.
- When it’s down to 2 people, the dealer is the small blind. Preflop, the dealer
acts first. After the flop, the dealer acts last.

BETTING

- The minimum bet in any round is equal to the size of the big blind.
- A raise must always be at least the size of the previous bet or raise.
- Any player can bet all of his chips in any round of betting. (All-in).
In the event that 1 or more players go all-in in a multiway pot, side pot(s) will
be created.
- In order to prevent the confusion that is possible in no-limit betting, please
don’t splash the pot. Stack your bets and slide them towards the middle.
- Please do not check, bet, fold, call or raise out of turn, for obvious reasons.

OTHER

- If two or more people are knocked out in the same hand, the person who started
the hand with the most chips is awarded the better finishing rank.
- Please do not hold up the game while the clock is running, to allow everyone a
fair shot at getting the most hands out of any particular level.

Regards,
all_aces

HellmuthFan

We would play these types of tournaments at school and the blind structure almost mirrored that of what Kieth posted. But we would start with 300 in chips.

ice

good luck on hosting your first tourney! After a few tourneys, you'll work out the kinks. Main thing is to make sure you set up a structure and everyone knows before hand. Keep the levels the same amount of time and as a rule if you want the game to end in 3.5 hours, make the blinds at level 3.5 hours approx. equal to the starting chips amount for one player.