Need Advice for Home Tournament

[Invigilator]

Hi all,

This one is for all the aspiring tournament directors.

I have been running the best darn home tournament for the past several months and have been refining the experience from time to time. It may be picky, but I am wondering about starting chip denominations.

It might not make a difference either way, but I wanted to hear some constructive thoughts.

10,000 in chips each. 12-16 people

the blinds are..

100-200
200-400
400-800
800-1600
1000-2000
1500-3000
2000-4000
3000-6000
etc.

But THIS is my question. Given the number of people (and thus chips in play) as well as the eventual need to combine tables, which chip breakdown would you start with?...

1 X 5000
3 X 1000
2 X 500
10 X 100

OR

1 X 5000
2 X 1000
3 X 500
15 X 100

OR

something esle

A bit anal? sure. But I want to introduce a set up and avoid changing it month to month if possible. I would also like to avoid colouring up as the night goes on, but I will if need be.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

R

[lightfungus]

You need more chips than that IMO. Perhaps a couple more 1k chips and save the 5k for coloring up. But if you don't have that many then the second setup is better I think.

[Invigilator]

I know what you mean. When we have one table affairs, having more 1000's per person works out. I am looking at as many as 20 people this Friday which is a bit bigger than I normally get out.

Thanks again

[Akverno]

I've played a ton of different home games, all with different chip structures. I would start with fewer chips if possible and color up at second break to allow for max players and more space at the table. I prefer this style, but I know most home game players prefer to have more chips in front of them to play with.

I prefer set-up number 1, although most of the home games I play in start with half / quarter of that in chips and the blinds start significantly lower.

There are some details that would be nice as well, we need to know how often blinds increase and if an ante is ever involved.

My usual home game starting chip count and structure is as follows:

2500 -

3 x 500

8 x 100

8 x 25

25/50
50/100
100/200
250/500
500/1000
etc.

blinds move up every thirty minutes, no antes at any point.

We adopted this structure because we ended up getting nearly 30 people some weeks and didn't have a vast number of chips available and space was at a premium.

[Robbie Robb]

I've been running a monthly home game for about a year and a half now. The first year or so was spent constantly tweaking chip counts and blind structures. We've NOW, in the past few months, finally found something that seems to work well. We usually have between 12-15 players but can accommodate 20 players.

Starting Chips: 2500
Value - Count
10 - 20
25 - 12
50 - 10
100 - 10
500 - 1

Blind Structure:
10/20
20/40
30/60
40/80
50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300
200/400
250/500
300/600
400/800
500/1000
600/1200
750/1500

Blinds go up every 20 minutes. No antes at all. We don't have a formalized color-up process but usually get exchange out the reds during the 75/150 or 100/200 level.

With this structure our 15 person game lasted about 3.5 hours last month. There is some talk that the players would like a little bit quicker beginning to the game so we may reevaluate the lower blinds and maybe tweak that around a bit.

[Reel Deal]

I think a lot of this depends on your crowd. I play with a crowd that wants the games to go fairly quickly so those that get knocked out early don't have to wait around forever for the next game.

We usually have 8-10 guys and they want to get in 3-4 SnGs each night. So, with that in mind we had to find a set-up that kept each SnG to about 1.5 hours (that way guys that get knocked out early aren't sitting around for a long time waiting for the next game to start). Thus we've set up our blinds to move up fairly fast (12-13 minute levels). We start with 3,750 in chips (five $50 chips, ten $100 chips, and five $500 chips) and 50/100 for the first level. We then allow unlimited re-buys for the first two levels.

Basically it we're playing a turbo, re-buy SnG. Being one of the better players it's not my favorite format b/c you can get short pretty quickly, but with the rebuy period it makes for some interesting plays and also with 2-4 rebuys each game it adds enough chips to the table to keep the later rounds from being push-or-fold poker (and makes for some nice sized pay-outs).

[Invigilator]

Thank you for all your replies.

The reason I did not mention anything about lenght of levels, is because that is my time control variable.

We start at 8 pm and try to be done before midnight. Once I know how many chips are in play in the tournment, I adjust the blinds (sometimes) and the level length (more often) to create a situation where the big blind represents 10% of the chips in play by about 11:30 at night. That usually means that we are in heads up play by then.

The set I got is very flexible for starting amounts and the number of people we can accomodate. Time is the critical factor for most of my guests. For this monthly event there is only one tournament. It is kind of like a league. For those with nothing better to do once knocked out we have side games, board games, Euchre and general partying.

The game is tonight. Maybe I will have a significant hand to post tomorrow.

R

[Invigilator]

The Poker Night went well. Thanks again for the feedback. I was a bad host; I won. On the final hand, we both rivered 2 pair, but mine was a bit better.

I am definitely going to repeat this structure next month.

R