Tourney Biggest tournament you have organized (1 Viewer)

[Far_Mur_Jo]

So, how big is the biggest amateur tournament you have organized?
A few years back me and a couple of friends set out to organize a charity tournament - the first 3 spots would get cash quadruple, triple and double to their entry fee, respectively and everything else we gave to a local foster home. We mostly relied on word of mouth to get contestants and I was amazed at how many people turned up - there were over 60 people there and we actually had to go buy a couple of extra sets of chips.
Have you organized any tournaments? How many people showed up?

 

[bauss]

I've organized a tournament with 27 players, and that's also the largest live tournament that I've participated in. The top 4 were paid, and it was a $20 buy-in(no rake). It was fun, and I'm planning on playing in more tournaments at the casino.

 

[UW85]

**NOTE: I had a bunch more pics but the site only allows you to post 10 pics I guess with a single reply so I had to delete a bunch (just saying in case some of the text seems to be missing a pic showing what I'm talking about)

Just a bit of story...showing a little of what it takes to run a 80+ tournament for a buddy who lost his son to cancer -- LINK to site.

#1) Load your truck -- living in Washington you must also build something to haul your tables in so they don't get wet: 6,000 poker chips, 20 decks of cards, buttons, tables, a couple Mackie 450's & stands, mixer, mics & some tasty beverages.

#2) Find a place you can set up 8 or 9 (or more) tables: -- this venue is bigger (and 1/2 the cost) as the one we've used the previous 4 years! Shop around!



#3) Bring a friend (or lots of friends) & set it all up -- helps to have a projector, monitor, PA, iPod for background music



#4) Make sure the friend of a friend who agrees to bring his tables knows what time it starts -- thankfully there was a meal early and all worked out to get the show on the road.



#5) Have someone who REALLY likes to be organized do all the work to check in people. Also, hire some cheap help (sons/daughters of others) to work the prize/raffle table:



#6) Game on -- also shows a shot of the way I organize table players as they go out & knowing when to break a table -- worked PERFECTLY -- key is to train the dealers to alert you hen a person goes out....



#7) Keep going (started with 70) until there is a winner!



Considering the economy and all, the father (holding trophy shaking the winner's hand) was pretty happy -- we made about $4,000 and not too much came out of that for expenses. We hope to have closer to 80 players next year.

Certainly there are just a "few" details I left out & if anyone ever needs any advice, just hit me up. I'm not an expert, but the way I do it works pretty darn well.

PS: Starting stacks of 20,000 ($25/$100/$500/$1000 chips), 20 min blinds, w/a couple 10 min. breaks it lasted about 6.5 hrs.

 

[Far_Mur_Jo]

UW85, that was a really professional tournament! We kicked it a bit more casually - the venue was a really large pub and there was no actual spread, besides a complimentary drink, but that was part of the arrangement with the pub, because they had to close doors for the day at quite the nominal cost, so they had to make some cash out of it, too. I'd love to dump some pictures, but I was too busy during the event to take any, some of my friends took a lot of shots, though, I'll have to come back with those.

 

[ReeseChip]

UM85, great pictures. The tournament sounds like great fun and look at all of them cupcakes! That's a great tournament structure. Do you remember the payouts?

 

[djarum1]

I didn't organize any, but I've participated in a three-day one that a friend of mine put together. Had about 75-100 different people in those three days, friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends, and so on. Didn't make it too far, but a lot further than I thought I would. And ended up a couple dollars ahead!

 

[gbets]

great pictures , so organized

 

[T_Chan]

I started doing poker table rentals earlier this year. So far I've run some bigger games with 50 players, 42 players, 65 players, and just the other day a tournament with 56 players. In late november I'm going to be running a game with 100 players which sells out every year. This will be my first year hosting it as they used to just use office tables with garbage bags taped to the tops :S

These pics are from the other night. They had it catered with a DJ too.

 

[Tommy]

Cool. What kind of chips are they using?

 

[T_Chan]

I always bring my own chips. They're a generic chip which I'm in the process of relabelling. I believe it's a monte carlo yin yang?

 

[bergs]

I ran a 47 person 10K NLHE tournament in my old 1200 square foot condo. I wouldn't run another tournament this large again in my home or while I played in it - it's just too much work and it ends up being an absolute grind (and let's face it - you're pissing away your buyin because with all the distractions you're never going to play your A+ game).

I think the last Bounty Battle event at Chicken Rob's that I ran was 27 people. We usually get 25-30 for the annual Bounty Battle main event.

 

[Mr Tree]

Annual Shootout at the post is a 50 person 25K NLHE event. Last year I managed to take second even while running it. In all honesty though I was so busy that I spent the first three hours basically folding which probably saved me from my normal early exit

 

[spikeithard]

Most was 16 for me in my fairly small but not too small first floor apartment condo. I would say I am about 750-850sqf

 

[Poker Zombie]

I have a 26 player event the weekend after next (the reason I'm missing DCS IV). It puts me at maximum (2 tables of 8, one of 10). Before this, the previous record was 22. FWIW, we stop inviting at 18. After that, it spills to 3 tables (hard to manage in 2 rooms) and the starting stacks begin to suffer (just not enough chips to go around).

 

[H|Q]

I've helped set up and tournament directed the first two years of the Cincinnati Reds Community Fund Celebrity Tournament. It had 600 folks both years. 60 tables of 10 with a few cash tables.

 

[bigdonkey]

A friend of mine who knows everyone set up a 75 player tourney. He recruited, arranged for location, equipment, food and collected entry fees. He brought me in to handle TD duties. So i ran a 75-man, but didnt exactly organize it.

 

[Trihonda]

30 player MTTD main event. I played, and just like @Mr Tree I ran pretty deep.

On a couple occasions, I helped run an established bar tourney that had around 40 entries.

I play a weekly bar tourney with dealers and a dedicated TD that typically gets 70 entries.

Otherwise, I've competed in large scale multi-day events, but never hosted any tournament like that.

 

[T_Chan]

12 tables of 9 players each.

I was just the hired help though, I didn't organize the event. My tables, chips, cards & buttons plus some other accessories like seating cards. I ran the game as TD as well.

 

[krafticus]

My monthly game for 3+ years ranged from 35 players to 47, most of the time being right at 40. The last year, it got to big to run and play, so I had volunteers running it. It was a points based "league", so I gave the volunteer the average of the top 5 points as a reward. That worked great for 1 year, but as the game started to dwindle, so did my need for help.

Last and smallest game, before my big year end game was 21 people. Final game was close to 40

 

[Rhodeman77]

39 player team tournament at my house. 13 teams of 3 players. It created some issues with moving players so no team had extra players together before it was required but it went smoothly and only ran about 30 minutes longer than a normal tournament of that size.

Though I would never have that many people in my house again for a tournament.

 

[ryanb]

250+ people in ATL. Used to also run a private game that had about 30+ people every wednesday.