Improvements for the next tournament
Hey all,
Just wanted to get some feedback on some of the things you thought didn't go well. Feel free to make any suggestions that you believe would improve the game. Stuff that I'm already working on...
1) I have KEMs on order. Sticky cards suck
2) I'm going to firm up some of the house rules. Exposing a turn card before action is finished is something that caught me off guard. It did happen once in a previous tournament and I had my list of dealer errors and what to do, but couldn't find it when I needed to. Other items on this list include string bets and calling with a single coin.
Other things I'm looking for comment on..
a) Chipcount. Was it needed? (I'll be posting the chip results tonight, if anyone's interested)
b) The chips themselves? Should I work towards eliminated the whites and blues?
c) Chopping? For a tournament with this kind of buy-in should chops be allowed?
d) Blind schedule? Did it work, did it not? What was good, what was bad?
e) anything else you want to talk about...
Thanks upfront for any suggestions.. I'm always looking to improve the tournaments!
Just wanted to get some feedback on some of the things you thought didn't go well. Feel free to make any suggestions that you believe would improve the game. Stuff that I'm already working on...
1) I have KEMs on order. Sticky cards suck
2) I'm going to firm up some of the house rules. Exposing a turn card before action is finished is something that caught me off guard. It did happen once in a previous tournament and I had my list of dealer errors and what to do, but couldn't find it when I needed to. Other items on this list include string bets and calling with a single coin.
Other things I'm looking for comment on..
a) Chipcount. Was it needed? (I'll be posting the chip results tonight, if anyone's interested)
b) The chips themselves? Should I work towards eliminated the whites and blues?
c) Chopping? For a tournament with this kind of buy-in should chops be allowed?
d) Blind schedule? Did it work, did it not? What was good, what was bad?
e) anything else you want to talk about...
Thanks upfront for any suggestions.. I'm always looking to improve the tournaments!
Comments
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Edit: Nope.
Hope not all of your winnings going towards KEMs. I'm sure enough of us have them that we can bring them to the next event.
It's always good to know where you stand.
Blinds started to get a little rough when it was down to 10 people or so. (400/800) when Average stack would have been 3600 that's 30% of the average stack size to go through a round of blinds. Really hurt me when I had just posted BB the hand before we went to the final table and I went to the Final Table under the gun. 2400 chips to blinds in 5 hands sucked. But of course we all know that we can't have the tournament going all night, need high blinds to weed people out, they just seemed a little too high with regards to average chip stack with 40% of the field still around.
All in all the tournament was run well and went smooth.
Nice. Not only are these superior cards, but they will last you many, many tournaments before they become unplayable. The cards we originally had were already significantly warped and difficult to shuffle and deal at the time the Kems were put into play.
Here's what I like for cards exposed early (i.e. before the action is complete), say the turn card:
Leave the burn card, and shuffle the turn card back into the deck. This takes extra time, but it is *very* important to leave the card in the deck so that the odds calculations done players who have already acted on the current betting round are not altered. For example, if a player on the flop has called with pocket 6's based on having 2 outs, a prematurely exposed 6 needs to be shuffled back into the deck to be fair to the pocket 6's.
The "one chip is a call" rule is universal in casino cardrooms, and I'm surprised by how many players don't use this rule in home games. This should be the rule. As a player, you can always override this (or any) betting rule by clearly *saying* exactly what you are doing before moving any chips.
I don't think this is needed, unless you are worried about players adding/subtracting chips from the tournament. An easier thing to do is to simply get each player to write down the chip count of the player on their left before the break, and verify the count when returning after the break (modulo any chip race). This allows the players (and more importantly the organizer) to get out quicker for the breaks.
Yes, simply get rid of the whites & blues completely as long as you have enough reds, greens & blacks to do this. Esool will surely give you a hug for doing this.
Absolutely. Any deal should be allowed as long as *all* remaining players agree to the deal with no coersion or deception. "Partial" deals which are not agreed to by all players and/or side bets should not be allowed IMO.
Pause the tourney clock for discussion of deals, but feel free to impose a reasonable time limit for discussion.
Seemed okay removing the 40-80 for the main tournament (1,500 chips), but I'd say leave that level in for a satellite (500 chips).
No ante. It's a very good thing.
Change the 1,000-1,500 level to 750-1,500. Yes, this means leaving a few greens in play until then. If you hate that idea, make it either 700-1,500 or 800-1,500.
More to come... :cool:
ScottyZ
When the number of *tables* goes down, it is probably a little too complicated to preserve positions relative to the blinds. So a full re-draw of seats seems okay to me.
However, when moving a single player, there is an easy way to do it. Pause the tournament. Take the player who would have been UTG next hand at the table with too many players and put them UTG at the table that needs a player.
ScottyZ
1 Kem Cards ( yes)
2 rules ( It is hard to have rules for every possible situation but as long as your rullings are consistant throughout the event the players should be happy)
3 Chip Counts (I liked this but I realize that with more players this will become very hard to keep doing. I do like Scotty's idea about counting the player chips beside you to speed things up.)
4 Chips ( get rid of the $10 and $50 chips)
5 Blinds ( I love a slow increase in the blinds like you had. I would also have liked to see a cap on the blinds at some point maybe at 300-600. With 30k in play it would be nice to keep the blind levels low. We started with 1500 and blinds were 5-10 avg stack had 150xbig blind. we finished with avg stack 10 000 blinds 500-1000 so avg stack has 10x big blind)
Why not start with 3000 or 5000 in chips have 1/2 hour levels and blinds like this.
small Big
25 25 This eliminates the need for $5 chips. You could use the red
25 50 chips as $25 chips or larger.
50 100
75 150
100 200
100 200 with 25 ante
150 300 25
200 400 50
300 600 75
400 800 100
500 1000 100
600 1200 200
800 1600 300
1000 2000 400
Well you get the idea. Having antes in a no limit tourny is important. Most no limit tournaments introduce antes at some point so it would be good practice.
6 Chops ( I usually agree that chops should be allowed but I think that in the spirit of competition of this forums members we should have no chopping at these events. Lets have a winner not a deal.
I might recommend slowing down the increase in blinds later and adding in antes. Thus making sure there is enough money in the pots to make it worth people taking shots at a pot, but also apply more uniform pressure on all players.
Otherwise the only other recommendation i have is that the next tournament be as soon as possible.
chugs
IMO, you've got to have highly skilled non-player dealers running the tables before you can even consider adding antes to the blind structure.
ScottyZ
Here is a wonderful format using 4 colours of chips total:
For Satellites: running time ~ 3 hrs (for 20-25 entrees)
Starting Chips: 3000 (8 green, 8 Black, 4 purple - 20 chips fit in racks very nicely)
For Main Events: running time ~ 5-6 hrs (for 20-25 entrees)
Starting Chips: 10000 ((8 green, 8 Black, 8 purple, 5 yellow)
Blinds (20 min levels)
25-50
50-100
75-150
100-200
150-300
200-400
(remove green)
300-600
400-800
500-1000 (Sats should end around here)
600-1200
700-1400
800-1600
(remove black)
1000-2000
1500-3000
2000-4000
2500-5000 (main events end during this hr)
3000-6000
4000-8000
Hey... who doesn't want to play a tourney where you start with 10000 in chips:D
Shuffling.
Some people are going to be less effective at shuffling than others, which is fine of course. However, I noticed some people could not (or simply did not) execute any riffle shuffles. (That's that kind where you split the deck in half and sort of interleave the two halves together.) The kind of shuffling where you repeatedly take some cards off the bottom of the deck and move them to the top simply does *not* mix the cards well enough.
Let me make it clear that I do not mean to belittle or embarrass anyone who doesn't shuffle well, nor discourage them from playing in these kinds of tournaments. I played poker for a *long* time myself without ever knowing how to shuffle the cards well. It takes quite a bit of practice actually, and I still don't even riffle the cards correctly every time. (Especially immediately after the adrenaline rush of a big hand.)
Anyway, the point is that, while people who can't shuffle well being able to play in these sort of events is perfectly fine, the cards still do need to be well shuffled in order to maintain the fairness and integrity of the game.
A standard casino shuffle uses 3 riffles as part of the shuffle. (professor: 7 riffles, while mathematically correct, is a little excessive)
What I would suggest is, if someone isn't comfortable with executing a shuffle which includes riffles, we could have someone else at the table shuffle the cards for them.
Also, to respond to Astroboy, I don't think the blinds were too big, or the rounds too short. The tournament was about 6 hours in length as it was. The blinds are going to get *very* big during the late stages of any tournament (especially when there's no ante). While I'd certainly agree that there was little "play" left in the unlra-late stages due to the large blinds, the trade off was that there was a *lot* of play in the early and middle stages.
I think the blind structure was just about right for a 5-6 hour tournament actually.
ScottyZ
all_aces
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also sucks @ shuffling.
I know it might be a bit premature but do you have a preposed date for the next tourny?
stp
While 8 (exact cuts/etc) riffles will put the deck back to where it started.
(at least that's what I remember seeing a math scientist guy say a while back)
Something along the lines of restoring the deck to its original state after a certain number of perfect riffles does ring a bell to me too, but I can't remember it exactly.
ScottyZ