Home Game Format: Advice Needed
Will be hosting my first home game soon. These games are very friendly and have anywhere from 5 to 8 players.
I would like to know if this is a reasonable format or if anything looks out of whack here.
I've downloaded The Tournament Director and have come up with the following;
One $4 buyin T1500 starting chips
Two $3 rebuys T1500 each (player can buy in after busting out only)
(yup a whole $10, like I said, a friendly game)
Length approx 3 hours
30 minute blind levels as follows
20-40
40-80
60-120
80-160
150-300
250-500
Top two pay (70%-30%)
Chips (I have a 500 chip set "thanks Woodman")
W - $10 (150)
R - $20 (150)
B - $50 (100)
Bl- $100 (50)
Gr- $500 (50)
Do I have enough chips? I do have access to more if needed.
Any advice from the more seasoned home game players out there would be appreciated.
Cheers
Al
I would like to know if this is a reasonable format or if anything looks out of whack here.
I've downloaded The Tournament Director and have come up with the following;
One $4 buyin T1500 starting chips
Two $3 rebuys T1500 each (player can buy in after busting out only)
(yup a whole $10, like I said, a friendly game)
Length approx 3 hours
30 minute blind levels as follows
20-40
40-80
60-120
80-160
150-300
250-500
Top two pay (70%-30%)
Chips (I have a 500 chip set "thanks Woodman")
W - $10 (150)
R - $20 (150)
B - $50 (100)
Bl- $100 (50)
Gr- $500 (50)
Do I have enough chips? I do have access to more if needed.
Any advice from the more seasoned home game players out there would be appreciated.
Cheers
Al
Comments
- you probably want to put a cap on when players can rebuy until (usually 1 - 1 1/2 hours, so at end of level 2 or 3 in your levels)
- with the current blind schedule, and assuming normal rebuys (assume 1/3 take none, 1/3 take 1, and 1/3 take 2, for simplicity 1 each), you'll have 24000 chips in play so your final level would have 48 BB in play, so it may just keep going (never-ending game)
- because of how slow your blinds are, you are jumping a bit quick at level 5 - smoothing it a little would avoid a bunch of people busting out at once
- Zithal will probably comment on your blind schedule (and suggest another one
- for a single table, you have plenty of chips
Good luck with your first game, and try to win one at home early (it can get frustrating hosting and losing, repeatedly
I would never do that...
Awesome! Great to see another host-in-training on the boards. Starting small is the best way to do things. Have a few games, work out the kinks, repeat. You also have a number of *excellent* resources here to help you; Beanie42 and g2 in particular have been running stellar home tourneys.
I like it small. Start small and grow into your players. It's easier to add a buck or two to the buy-in than to subtract it.
Decent schedule, though with only 5-8 people you'll get a lot of loose play. I agree with Beanie to flatten out the blinds a bit. Give your players a little more room to play. On average, each player will re-buy once which will put between 15,000 and 24,000 on the table. I'd be tempted to make the final level 500-1,000 just to make sure the tournament finishes. An alternate schedule with a little more play (and your chip values) is...
1: 10-20
2: 20-40
3: 30-60
4: 50-100 **take a quick break and race off the (10) and (20) chips.
5: 100-200
6: 200-400
7: 400-800
That's plenty for the players you have. Here's the trick on work out stacks. You want players to start with about 30 total chips and no REALLY big ones. Divide each denomination by the number of players to get the max total that each player could get. In this case, I'd plan for a total of 10 players (the math is easier) which give you... 15 total of the 10's and 20', 10 total of the 50's, etc.
Working from the lowest chip up gets you your chip distribution.. eg.
10 x $10 = $100, 10 chips ($1,400 left to go.)
10 x $20 = $200, 20 chips ($1,200 left to go.)
6 x $50 = $300, 26 chips ($900 left to go)
4 x $100 = $400, 30 chips ($500 left to go)
1 x $500 = $500, x chips ($0 left to go)
Rebuys = 3 x $500
(Note that I tried working out the stack without including a 500 chip, but it didn't work out nicely)
As you continue to play, I strongly recommending the chip denomination that you'll find in a casino. They are $5, $25, $100, $500, $1,000. There are lots of distrubitions that use this as the basis (esp on homepokertourney.com)
This will really give you game a good casino feeling and make players more at ease if they play online or at a casino. If you go this way, you'll probably want to adjust your blinds, but note that
8 x $25 + 8 x $100 = $1,000 to which you can add $500 chips to get starting chip count of $1,000 to $10,000 easily. Also if the 8 + 8 is your base and you use the chip colours you have 150 of to represent these values, you now have enough chips in the 500 set to run tournament of up to 18 players!!
Good luck with the tourney and let us know how it worked out!
OK, I am going to rejig this thing based on yours and Beanies advice and repost what I come with in the next couple of days. I like the suggestion for the chip denominations and will work that in.
Thanks a lot guys, much appreciated!
/g2
Allright guys, I have tweaked the format a little and have come up with the following;
Be honest, if something in here sucks then say so.
First off, thanks for the feedback on my previous schedule, it's really got me thinking about a proper home game format. I am still shooting for a three to three and half hour finish but 4 hours would not be a catastrophe. All our players are OK with an 8:00 to 12:00 game and they would be OK with a crapshoot at the end to finish it if needed.
Buyin = $5 for T1500
One rebuy in the first two hours $5 for T1500 (which still gives 10BB if bought in the 4th round)
Payout 1st = 70% and 2nd = 30%
If 5 people rebought that would put 19500 on the table
Chips (changed denominations as per Zithal's suggestion to reflect casino chip values)
W = $5
R = $25
Bl= $100
Bk= $500
Gr= $1000
Starting chips (28 chips each)
10 W = $50
10 R = $250 --> T300
7 Bl = $700 --> T1000
1 Bk = $500 --> T1500
Blinds (30 minutes each)
10-20
15-30
50-100 (Make blacks available as needed. Probably as rebuys happen.
75-150 (end of rebuy period)
100-200 (eliminate the $5 chips)(make greens available as needed from here)
150-300
300-600
500-1000 (OK let's settle this)
I tried as best I can to incorporate the suggestions. Never realised how confusing it can get.
The jump in the third level is MASSIVE!! In general, you want to aviod more than doubling the cost of a round of poker. I'm going to jot down my 1,000 chip count format for consideration. Since you're ok with 4 hours, I'm also going to suggest going to 20 minute rounds to make the format a tad more gradual (This way you can fit in 12 levels, instead of 8)
10-20
15-30
20-40
30-60
50-100
75-150
100-200
150-300
200-400
300-600
400-800
500-1000
Options to tweak it:
- Frop one of the higher levels and add in a 5-10 level at the beginning for more initial play. (I'd remove 400-800 in this case)
Thanks Beanie, I did check out homepokertourney, excellent site.
Will let you know how it all goes.
As an aside, our game this week lasted 6 hours and we ended splitting based on chip counts (just wanted to go home.......) Didn't want to rebuy at 12:30am but I didn't want to look cheap so I guess there is something to putting an end time for eligible rebuys.
Can't wait to host this game with a proper format and The Tournament Director.
We are all pretty new to this homegame thing and I think it will be a definite improvement.
Cheers
Al
Zithal the blind structure you suggested worked great. Three hours and it was all wrapped up and everyone was happy.
Sorry to say I didn't take it down but I came in 2nd, so in the money. Woohoo
Cheers guys and thanks
Al
Rob, you must still be in the tweaking process.....
stp