I’ll respond like Trigs did with hopefully some additional info. You’ve got a lot of good info from others. Like Trigs, I didn’t know what you meant by heads-up stacks, so I didn’t address that.
Antes
For years, I ran tournaments with antes. We experiment with new structures in the summer, and one year I planned a single tournament without antes. Players loved it! I got by far more positive comments from that than any other thing I’ve done. I never went back to antes.
When we did them, we were using 30 min blinds with a planned 4-hour tournament. Antes started in either the 2nd or 3rd round, and were about ¼ of the BB.
Managing a tournament without them is
much easier IMHO, but YMMV.
What to think about: If you live in a place where players have many options, the more you cater to what your players want, the better your attendance will be. I can live with a lot of things, but make decisions based in significant part on player surveys. It’s not a vote with majority rules as I look at a lot of things, but if most players won’t want it, I don’t do it.
Chip Denoms
I’ve spent a lot of time looking at this. I’ve looked at everything as the lowest T-value from T.25, T1, T5, T25, and T100.
I looked at, starting in the middle, at the following:
100/500/1,000/5,000/10,000/50,000
100/500/1,000/5,000/25,000/100,000
100/500/2,000/10,000/50,000/250,000
I looked at starting stacks with total starting BB of 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500.
Conclusions:
I defined efficiency as using the least number of chips that you would have to purchase, i.e., your bang for the buck.
- 25/100/500/1,000/5,000/25,000/100,000 is more efficient in more structures than any other.
- 25/100/500/2,000/10,000/50,000 is the second most efficient. Some really like this structure, and they aren’t wrong, but it’s not quite as efficient. However, in some structures, it’s more efficient. To me, I don’t buy a chip set for a single structure. Things will change over time. For example, in our “standard” tournament through the years, we’ve used 200BB, 300BB, 400BB, and 500BB. We’ve used average chip increases from 33% to nearly 100%.
- The only place I found a 2x value made any sense was the 500/1,000, and what makes it highly efficient is that you can use way fewer 500 chips because of that 2x jump. It’s also values common to work with. 25/50; 50/100; 5,000/10,000 – none of those make any real sense from an efficiency standpoint.
- The more higher value chips you have, the more flexible your set will be, at least up to a point. My tournament sets have 25/100/500/1,000/5,000/25,000/100,000. The 25,000s get at least some play in almost every tournament. We start with 40,000 chips though (400BB starting at 50/100). They also get at least some play in another structure that starts with 10,000 and 25/50 that is a rebuy tournament. BG commented that there is a point where the number of players can cause some efficiencies to come into play, and he’s right (about that and most other things).
- How aggressive blinds are is a major factor in tournament quality. You can develop a good structure for most normal tournament lengths by adjusting how aggressive the blind structures are. Depending on where else your players have played, they might prefer gentle increases to downright brutal increases. I’ve used very playable 4-hour structures with 200BB, 300BB, 400BB, and 500BB for anywhere from 10-40 players.
- Another major factor in tournament quality is the pace of play. Take a single structure. If your group does an average of 2 minutes per hand, it will be a much better structure than if the group does 3 minutes per hand. The pace can turn a great structure into a luck fest. So calculate for that as well. The truth is the total number of hands played in a 1-3 table tournament make a difference. It’s hard to say the exact number of hands, but I’d set a goal of at least 100. Many fewer than that is a luck fest (some might call it a turbo, but the terms turbo, normal, etc., mean nothing without being defined). I define luck fest as a tournament where skilled players will have a much higher variance because they can’t get in enough hands to truly allow skill to beat lucky players as consistently. I prefer tournaments where it is very hard for a poor player who gets really good cards to win. The more hands seen, the harder it is for the lucky guy to prevail.
I have a spreadsheet I use that will tell you how good the structure is. I’m happy to share it with anyone.
What to think about: Time spent learning about good structures and developing them is worth the effort. I’ve never used a program that does blinds for you. I use 2 formulas to determine a range of times that a tournament will end. I pick the preferred ending time and am pretty good at developing a structure that will end one blind round on either side of that. It’s way more science than art. I prefer a steady blind increase and steady blind times. It’s easier to figure out when those are constants, but I’ve helped develop tournaments with slow start, aggressive finish tournaments, and aggressive start, slower finish too. All are workable – it’s a matter of preference.
Beginning Stacks
- I’m a fan of 5 values to start, though 4 works in a 200BB tournament. Only 3 values is going to require a bigger chip set or fewer starting blinds. Since at least in my neighborhood you have a buy chips, the fewer you can buy to get the job done the less it costs. You need enough to have a truly playable structure.
- Some people like a mountain of chips on the table. I don’t. The more chips you have, the harder it gets to manage the chips. People may be fascinated watching the WSOP Final Table at the huge chip stacks, but there are hundreds of millions in chip value on the table that were accumulated after several days of playing 12-hour days. The average FT stack is 40,000,000+. None of them started with anywhere near that. They start with 22-35 chips or so (for years the WSOP used 25 chips, and then 22 chips in the starting stack).
- Don’t have a single chip be half the starting value if possible.
- My experience is 10-12 chips of the lowest starting value is ideal. Fewer and many more requires more change making. For a while, we started with 16/16. My theory was that since I had the chips, it would be easier. What I soon realized was that in most games, I wound up with a mountain of the 25s. Other people used them until they were out. They overused them. My own habits are generally to make bets with the fewest chips possible using the highest value chips that don’t require making change, if possible. (Should I tell the world that one tell many players have is when their hand is weaker, they use more smaller value chips and when their hand is strong, they use higher value chips? I probably shouldn’t mention it.) So I found 16 was too many, they were overused, and it didn’t stop the change making at all – just shifted it. With 12, we have less change making. Maybe our group is weird, I’m not sure.
What to think about:
- Cost of the chip set! Get at least 10-12 for each starting stack of the lowest 2 values, but not a lot more. Remember those values go out of the tournament the quickest, so they will see less play.
- Game management vs. game play. What is the most efficient from a chip management (like casino management) does not necessarily make for good play. For a table of 10, I found we could use 300 chips, but that’s not the best play. It did make setting up and putting up chips quicker.
- What I do is use the 4x25 boxes. Two starting stacks are in each box. I have 5 boxes on the table, plus 1 color up box. In my color up box, I have about 3x100s, 2x500s, 20x1,000s, 50x5,000s, 15(or 20)x25,000s, and 10 (or5)x100,000. Some would never color up 25s with 100s. We don’t do it much, but we use the round up method and it’s a little faster to sometimes do that. We try to get players to turn in higher value chips too. If a guy has 5x25s, I’ll ask him to toss in 3x100s and give him a 500. If he has more than 2x500s, I’ll ask him to toss one in and get a 1,000. Whether you use boxes, racks, or some type of trays doesn’t matter. What does matter is having the starting stacks easily identifiable so others can help you pass them out. That’s critical when you have multiple tables, especially in a set up like mine where the tables are not in the same room.
Chips in Play
I prefer, especially toward the end, that for each denom on the table, the maximum number is the # of players x 10. So with 4 players, no more than 40 of a denom. If we have more than that, I start coloring up through the pot.
One player commented once that even though I didn’t give out a lot of chips compared to other games with the same value starting stack, the structure allowed people to play for the same amount of time. One secret is to have more values in play. That really works well if the chips are denominated.
“So the values on the chips are the actual values?” Yes! I really heard this recently. My answer was “Yes, it’s a really sneaky system.”
What to think about: The more chips, the more management is required by individual players and by tournament management. I don’t see how having too many doesn’t slow the game down unnecessarily. That’s not as big a deal in a cash game as it is in a tournament where slowing the game down affects how the tournament plays.
Prize Pool
There are many schools of thought on this. None are necessarily wrong.
Is your group a recreational group like ours (payout 25-33% of players), a professional tournament style (10% of the players), or something in between? Expect to hear criticism no matter what you do.
What to think about: If your more competitive players get their way, you are likely to run off the donators (losing players). Once you run them off, it becomes a vicious cycle. If that’s what you want, great. Just remember that donators want something out of the game other than winning. I try to find out what those things are and make sure those things are part of our game! Long-term donators who will keep coming are hard to find and of great value to the game. Frequently losing too many of them will destroy your game.
That means you really need to think long and hard about who is making suggestions. If it’s a guy looking out only for his pocket book, he may not mean to, but he will kill your game.
Rebuys-Add-ons
There are freeze outs (no rebuys or add-ons, at least generally), re-buys (limited or unlimited), add-on (common in limited rebuys), and re-entries. Brief comments on each:
Freeze outs – Generally the easiest to manage. Go all in and lose, and you are out. Mine are primarily freeze outs because 25-35% of my players will not play in a rebuy event. They want to know the exact cost, no variables, and they don’t like KO’ing someone and them getting back in.
Rebuys (sometimes called reloads) – I think it’s best if they are limited to a specific number of a specific time, and maybe both. Multiple rebuys helps most those who have large bankrolls and hurts those with smaller bankrolls. I’ve watched players keep rebuying until they in essence bought their way into the money. I’ve even seen them do it when they could no longer likely actually come out ahead. That kind of thing annoys many players.
Add-ons – Some do an add-on at a certain point. I’d personally like to see if that’s an option getting those chips on the front end.
Re-entry – A Re-Entry tournament is one in which a player knocked out may re-enter the tournament within the time limit specified by the Tournament Director prior to the start of the tournament. A Re-Entry leaves his seat and enters again as a Late Registrant for seating, but receives a full chip stack, less anything like early bird or other bonuses.
I did a rebuy in June limited to single rebuy. At the break, anyone with a chip stack of less than the starting stack had the option of turning it in and buying a full stack. No one took advantage of it. Some asked, “Why not an add-on for those who didn’t rebuy?” No one complained about it, and I announced in advance. But it was not a rebuy or add-on – it was rebuy only.
There is nothing wrong with rebuys. I personally like to have the option of 1 rebuy. But there is a surprising number of players who won’t play in them.
What to think about: Is the rebuy a second chance, or is it going to be unlimited chances limited only by time? Just know that the more there are, the more it favors bigger bankrolls, and some players won’t play. They may never tell you why they don’t come unless you survey players generally.
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