Held my first bounty tournament on Saturday (my fourth time hosting) and it went down a treat. The guys loved the bounty concept so I will definitely be doing it again at some point. I think having that extra pot of money to play for gives those who miss the bubble a chance at some consolation.
We were 8 handed, so a full table for my table topper. I tweaked my previous schedule ever so slightly to keep the majority of blind raises at 33/50% (I changed L12 from 1K/2K to 1100/2200 which I know not everyone will like, instead preferring the more aesthetically pleasing 1K/2K, but it's consistent and keeps the T100s in play a little longer so they can be coloured up along with the T500s at the fourth and final break) and had a break scheduled for every hour of play.
Buy in was £10 for 10K and the bounty was £5 (last tournament winner had a scratch card bonus bounty on him). Two £5 5K add-ons per player were allowed during levels 1–6 (two hours of play) and could each be used only when a stack was at 5K or below (both could be used together for a full rebuy if felted). Somewhat surprisingly the add-on take up was 75% - up 25% from last time. Maybe I set the tone when I went all in with 7-2 on the first hand trying to bluff my way to a quick double up and catch the 7-2 bonus
Not a good start! Both add-ons immediately gone and under pressure!Speaking of bonuses, we had 3: Magnificent Seven, for winning with a pocket pair of 7s; The Whipcracker for pulling off a win with 7-2o; and Smoking Guns, for felting 2 or more players at once, all paying out £5 each. Only the Whipcracker paid out after two failed attempts to win it (my early one and another player's attempt mid tourney after he got sucked in by pairing up his deuce on the flop but was easily crushed by pocket queens). Down to 3 handed and now chip leader I put in a standard 3BB raise with the WHIP planning to fold a re-raise or any dicey post flop action but it was enough to steal the blinds and take the £5 bonus.
We had a royal flush pretty early on, a first for all of us. The guy who hit it had barely played poker before and it was his first time with us. He ran so good for the first couple of hours and seemed to get dealt pair after pair, including JJ, QQ, KK and AA
- it was enough to make him chip leader and secure 2nd place even when his luck ran out.Miraculously I came 1st after my disastrous start, playing the bulk of the tournament incredibly nitty and letting the field eliminate itself for the most part (I only eliminated 3rd and 2nd myself).
For the second time in a row we finished on L17 - 5K/10K (not even on the official schedule), this time with 15BB on the table, so I'm starting to think I should expect this and plan for it rather than the 40–60BBs we were getting down to last year or even the 'standard' 20.
In total we played 4.5 hours of poker and had 40 minutes of scheduled breaks, which is a little bit on the long side for my liking, compounded by the fact that I kept pausing the clock during breaks because people were enjoying chatting round the fire—we play in the (still unfinished and looking like a shipping crate) summer house which has a fire pit outside—and yes, it's nice and sociable and I don't want to lose that, but we ran way over and a couple of people had to leave before the end (luckily they were already eliminated), so I think I need to up my game as TD. Maybe a slightly earlier start than 8pm (though not always possible with family commitments) coupled with a more strict break schedule will have us finishing around 1am (rather than after 2
).Thanks for reading. All comments are welcome!
In all fairness the bathroom is a bit of a walk back up to the house so I think there's a risk of missing quite a bit of action if they can't hold it in! We did used to have less frequent breaks but we felt it wasn't enough. However, if we can't stick to 10 mins per hour it will have to be reconsidered! I'll see how the next one goes.
