01- 2-04, LearnTexasHoldem:
Tourney Structure...
Top 3 Beginner Rooms
5-10
10-20
25-50
50-100
100-200
200-400
400-800 -capped
Blinds increased every 15 minutes. The games lasted about an hour and half exactly, however with 2-3 players left and the blind structure capped, it seemed the blinds were too high and there wasn't much strategy anymore. Next time I want to do 2 tournaments and have them last about 2 hours. My thoughts were to start with $800 each, increase blinds every 20 minutes and cap it at 200-400. Are there any formulas for this and are there any rules of thumb to consider. Appreciate your input.
Note: We went from 10-20 to 25-50 instead of 20-40 mostly because we used chip denominations of 5,25,100 and it made it easy.
Answer: Thanks for the question David. First of all let me say that there probably are formulas for the blind structure that takes into account the amount of entrants as well as the size of the chip pool but I don't know them. It sounds like your structure worked out well though for your allotted time. I'm not sure if I would lower the cap if you are increasing the initial chip amount and wanting the tourney to last for two hours.
If you have 10 people starting with $800 each, that means the final two people will have a combined total of $8000. That's fine for the final showdown at 400/800 blinds. When you get to that point it is supposed to force people to play and sometimes luck plays a bigger factor then skill. And you have a good idea that a lot of people should use, holding more then one tournament in a night. I think people enjoy playing three shorter tournaments over one long one.
Everyone gets to play more instead of watching and you'll have three winners at the end of the night instead of just one. Lastly, don't be afraid to change the rules some to suit your needs. Poker is for fun and there is nothing stopping you from mixing it up. If you want to play the first five rounds at 15 minutes each and then the last ones at 10 minutes, great. If you want to play limit holdem until the final heads up showdown then no limit, great.
It's your game so do whatever you like with it. Some of the biggest games in the world are crazy ones, not really structured like you would think. You'll have holdem one hand, the next razz, then baseball, etc. My rule is, it is my house, my rules =)
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