Home game help

[PShabi]

NL tourney players, give me some help here. I've posted about this before, but I need some help again with my home game. I'd like to spice things up a bit.

Right now, it's 6 or 7 players, sometimes 8. None of these guys are online playes and don't have a lot of dough. So we play a $20 freezeout. We prefer a long game and have it set up to last 3.5 hours on avg. Getting down to 3 wouldn't be terrible. But the game does get slow occasionally, so that may be a cause too.

Anyway, I want to go to a rebuy format. Give me some feedback on a structure. Here's what I'm thinking so far:

$5 rebuy tourney, but I'm treating it like everyone is smart at the beginning and takes an initial rebuy. So, it's a $10 buy w/ $5 rebuys.

$10 gets you 2k in chips and $5 rebuy gets you another 1k. Rebuy at 1k or less. Sound resonable?

Now, we like to go with 3 denominations in chips when we play. I do not want to change this to avoid confusion.

We have 25, 50, and 100 t$ chips. What would you suggest running the blinds at? We usually play longer levels also. I don't really want blinds changing that often.

What about 30 minute rounds of:

25/50
50/100
75/150
100/200
rebuy ends; probably an option to add-on as well.

15 minute rounds of:
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000

How fucked up is that? That's basically what we do in our normal game right now and we start with 2500 in chips. That's about 3.5 hours. In the rebuy, when it gets late, there will most likely be way more chips in play. So this may take way too long. Hmm, what if I drop the 3rd round altogether?

Help please.

[thrash1294]

In my home game we allow 1 full re buy for the first hour only. we start with 1k and the rebuy is 1 k no addons.Works out well If someone gets busted out early.

[Akverno]

My old home game format was 1500 starting chips, blinds start at 25/50. Go up either every fifteen or twenty minutes. Rebuys allowed within first orbit (only reason we allowed rebuys was the off chance that a huge hand happened within the first orbit and a guy didn't want to sit around for two hours for the rest of us to finish). Games usually lasted an hour and a half, but that was when we only had four, when we had six and above it lasted right about three hours.

Edit: We stole the blind levels and starting chip counts from the Palm Beach Kennel Club tourney. Eight chips at 25, eight at 100, and one 500.

[drewjax]

I just finished a weekly home game that I hosted (due to upcoming baby!!)
We usually had about the same number of players. We had some players who had a bit of a drive, so we allowed 1 rebuy within the first 2 hours (or 4 levels). I hate crapshoots, so I actually started with 5000 chips, and started at 25/50. 100bb is alot, but we still finished in about 4 hours (never longer than 5). Even with deep stacks, you know how these tourneys can be, donk/push fest. There was plenty of action. Usually a couple of rebuys (we allowed one donkey unlimited rebuys, and he would rebuy several times in a couple hours).
Everyone seemed to enjoy playing, and usually the better players would finish in the money.
As far as chips go, I have a zillion of the dice chips, but got a 300 set of Desert Sands. I give 8x$25, 8x$100, and 8x$500 for chips. Really a simple tourney, great structure which could be shortened easily if you found they went too long.

[Robbie Robb]

Hey Shabi,

I've been trying to post this since yesterday .

Have you checked out the computer program "The Tournament Director"? It's a free program that makes suggestions based on parameters you provide, or you can input your own settings regarding levels, blinds, rebuys, etc. For multi-tables it will also keep the tables balanced as people are eliminated. Very cool little program and it's free (as in beer!)

Lots of other features too!

[drewjax]

Tournament director is a good program, if you have access to a cpu or laptop that can be viewed by the players. I actually ordered 'The Poker Genie' thru pso using points. Its a great little gadget. Similar to TD, you can set your own tourney info, or input chips/player info, and it will come up with structure for you.
One of the best deals out there, imo, is to do a pso upgrade promotion, and get 9000 pts (~$90). This will get you a PokerGenie and a double deck setup of copags, with no shipping. This can really enhance a home game. Copags so the drunken slobs dont ruin the cards, and a Genie so you dont have to answer "what are the blinds?" every 6 hands.

Use 'drewjax' as pso referral!!
I'll get a whoping $10..