I've just start hosting a tournament which plans to meets once a month for what ends up being 12-16 players at a time. Most are just casual players and just about everyone headed out once they had busted even though we are all friends and enjoy the company. The schedule called for 15 levels, 20 minutes each (5 hours total), starting with 250BB stack. Last nights game finally hit heads up at the 6 hour mark, going over schedule. I liked the idea of keeping the opening blinds low, allowing for some deepstack play and giving everyone a chance to hang around. I don't want to create a shove-fest but by level 15 last night (5 hours) in there were still 5 players at the table with only 42 big blind between the 5.
Is it better to have the blind levels start higher to eliminate the deep stack play? Maybe reduce the number of levels but make them 30 minutes each where the level increases are more significant? Either way, I thought 42 big blinds at the final level would bring the game to an end quickly but it lasted over another hour. We kept that level for the final hour because none of the remaining players wanted to shove and pray. Is this unavoidable or do you think the cards were just hitting that way for us last night to make the game go long?
Is it better to have the blind levels start higher to eliminate the deep stack play? Maybe reduce the number of levels but make them 30 minutes each where the level increases are more significant? Either way, I thought 42 big blinds at the final level would bring the game to an end quickly but it lasted over another hour. We kept that level for the final hour because none of the remaining players wanted to shove and pray. Is this unavoidable or do you think the cards were just hitting that way for us last night to make the game go long?
