Tourney First 18 Person Home Tournament Help (1 Viewer)

[gabagooler]

Hello y’all, new member here but have been browsing the forums for over a year already.

Was looking to get some help on setting up my first two table tournament for my home games. All of us have only played cash games at my house weekly so everyone is excited for a big tournament. I got new chips for the tournament to separate it out from my cash chips and was needing advice on starting stack and blind structures, etc.

Mainly, I just want everything running smoothly and effectively so I want to know if in need to get more chips or make the stack sizes bigger or change the amount of chips people have for each denomination. Currently, the chip set I have is as follows:

125 x $25
250 x $100
175 x $500
75 x $1000
25 x $5000

My tournament is 18 people, 9 players each table. I currently have my starting stack at $5000 for each player starting at 25/50 in the blinds. Am planning to have a few rebuys depending how people feel that day, got some gamblers for sure. Time limit looking for about 5 hours or so, doesn’t really matter as we just like to play the game and watch.

Any help would be appreciated! Whether I need to up the starting stack or buy more chips. Just want things to run smoothly and not have any trouble making change and coloring up and rebuys, etc. Thank you for the help in advance.

 

[joeyshin]

I’m running a 3 table T20k tourney next week.

Starting stack is 8/8/6/6/2. With 25/100/500/1k/5k chips. Blinds start 25/50 which is 400bb


Honestly I think 5k in chips should start at 5/10 blinds. T10K chips start at 25/50. Is 200bb. But starting 25/50 and only 5k chips is 100bb. Which is pretty short.

I think you need to start with 10k in chips.

 

[gabagooler]

I’m running a 3 table T20k tourney next week.

Starting stack is 8/8/6/6/2. With 25/100/500/1k/5k chips. Blinds start 25/50 which is 400bb


Honestly I think 5k in chips should start at 5/10 blinds. T10K chips start at 25/50. Is 200bb. But starting 25/50 and only 5k chips is 100bb. Which is pretty short.

I think you need to start with 10k in chips.

Appreciate the feedback. Was thinking 5k in chips might be too little so I was thinking of upping it to 10k. We only played cash games thus far and usually just buy in for 100bb but I’m guessing tournament might be different.

 

[joeyshin]

Appreciate the feedback. Was thinking 5k in chips might be too little so I was thinking of upping it to 10k. We only played cash games thus far and usually just buy in for 100bb but I’m guessing tournament might be different.

Yeah. 10k would be fine. Also what’s your starting stack breakdown? Make sure you leave enough $100s and $500s and $1ks for color ups.

 

[JustinInMN]

Mainly, I just want everything running smoothly and effectively so I want to know if in need to get more chips or make the stack sizes bigger or change the amount of chips people have for each denomination. Currently, the chip set I have is as follows:

125 x $25
250 x $100
175 x $500
75 x $1000
25 x $5000

Well you just a shade light on T25 chips for 18 players. But I would build your stacks this way:

15 stacks of 8/13/7 of T25/100/500
3 stacks of 0/15/7

If you got 25 more T25 chips, you would have 18 identical stacks of 8/13/7 at your disposal.

Any re-entries get 5*T1000 (you would have enough for 14 of these, and set 5 of these aside for the T25 color up) or 1*T5000 (over 20 of these, plus set a few of these aside to introduce with the color ups of the T100 and T500 chips. Since I am mentioning color ups, this is something you need to know how to do as a host, if you aren't familiar with this process, click here.)

The above should work pretty well for you now. If I were to revamp your set, I would suggest adding the following
100 * T25
125 * T1000
25 * T5000

This would enable you to do 18 player 12/12/5/6 stacks for a T10K start, or in a pinch 28 player 8/8/4/7 stacks.

I currently have my starting stack at $5000 for each player starting at 25/50 in the blinds. Am planning to have a few rebuys depending how people feel that day, got some gamblers for sure. Time limit looking for about 5 hours or so, doesn’t really matter as we just like to play the game and watch.

So assuming you get 18 players and about 9 rebuys (usually an overestimate) you would have about 27 entries at T5K each in play or 135K. The rule of thumb is that the tournament will end no later than the level when the total chips in play represent 20x BB. In this case, about when the BB exceeds 6K.

So I am a fan of playing these levels.
25-50, 25-75, 50-100, 75-150, 100-200, 150-300 (color up T25)
200-400, 300-600, 400-800, 600-1200, 800-1600 (color up T100)
1000-2000, 1500-3000, 2000-4000, 3000-6000, 4000-8000 (likely last level)

So we count 16 levels in a 300 minute window. Let's take 30 minutes away for breaks. Divide 270 by 16 and you get a level length of just under 17 minutes, you could probably stretch that to 18 minutes and still end up okay.

Hope this helps,

 

[joeyshin]

You might need another barrel of T25 chips since you only have enough to start with 4. You’ll be making change a lot in the early levels

 

[joeyshin]

Well you just a shade light on T25 chips for 18 players. But I would build your stacks this way:

15 stacks of 8/13/7 of T25/100/500
3 stacks of 0/15/7

If you got 25 more T25 chips, you would have 18 identical stacks of 8/13/7 at your disposal.

Any re-entries get 5*T1000 (you would have enough for 14 of these, and set 5 of these aside for the T25 color up) or 1*T5000 (over 20 of these, plus set a few of these aside to introduce with the color ups of the T100 and T500 chips. Since I am mentioning color ups, this is something you need to know how to do as a host, if you aren't familiar with this process, click here.)

The above should work pretty well for you now. If I were to revamp your set, I would suggest adding the following
100 * T25
125 * T1000
25 * T5000

This would enable you to do 18 player 12/12/5/6 stacks for a T10K start, or in a pinch 28 player 8/8/4/7 stacks.



So assuming you get 18 players and about 9 rebuys (usually an overestimate) you would have about 27 entries at T5K each in play or 135K. The rule of thumb is that the tournament will end no later than the level when the total chips in play represent 20x BB. In this case, about when the BB exceeds 6K.

So I am a fan of playing these levels.
25-50, 25-75, 50-100, 75-150, 100-200, 150-300 (color up T25)
200-400, 300-600, 400-800, 600-1200, 800-1600 (color up T100)
1000-2000, 1500-3000, 2000-4000, 3000-6000, 4000-8000 (likely last level)

So we count 16 levels in a 300 minute window. Let's take 30 minutes away for breaks. Divide 270 by 16 and you get a level length of just under 17 minutes, you could probably stretch that to 18 minutes and still end up okay.

Hope this helps,

^^^^^^this is right

 

[JustinInMN]

Appreciate the feedback. Was thinking 5k in chips might be too little so I was thinking of upping it to 10k. We only played cash games thus far and usually just buy in for 100bb but I’m guessing tournament might be different.

To be honest you are probably too short on T1000 chips to up this to T10K. Another approach might be to play a 25-25 level at the start.

Maybe 6K or 8K would be a little more comfortable if you took my suggested stack breakdowns and just added T1000 chips to make the right amount.

 

[GetUrShineBox]

Welcome!
I personally would want a minimum start stack of at least $10,000 with blinds starting at 25/50 for a tournament lasting 5 hours so I'll give you two options/opinions.

For starting stacks of $10,000 I would give out a breakdown like this:
12- $25's (need 216 chips, so I would have a total of 250)
12 - $100's (need 216 chips)
7 - $500's (need 126 chips)
5 - $1000's (need 90 chips)

For the first 8 rebuys you can use up the remainder of your $25's, $100's, $500's and give out
4 - $25's, 4 - $100's, 5 - $500's, 6 - 1000's (if you want less chips on the table then you can just use 5 - 1000's and 1 - 5000)
After 8 rebuys you can just use 5 - $1000's and 1 - $5000 and people can make change.

This option will require you to buy 125 more $25's, around 125 more $1000's and 25 more $5000's.

For the blind levels it should be something like this if you think you will get around 12 rebuys which would be $300,000 total chips in play.
25 minute levels. (You can certainly adjust this a little)
I would do a break after level 6 and color up the 25's, 100's, and most of the 500's with 1000's and 5000's.

Level	Small Blind	Big Blind	Round Start Time
1	25	50	+0:00
2	50	100	+0:25
3	75	150	+0:50
4	125	250	+1:15
5	200	400	+1:40
6	300	600	+2:05
7	500	1000	+2:30
8	1000	2000	+2:55
9	1500	3000	+3:20
10	3000	6000	+3:45
11	4000	8000	+4:10
12	7000	14000	+4:35
13	10000	20000	+5:00
14	20000	40000	+5:25
15	30000	60000	+5:50

If you want to keep the starting stack at $5000 then the breakdown can be:
12- $25's (need 216 chips, so I would have a total of 250)
12 - $100's (need 216 chips)
7 - $500's (need 126 chips)

For the first 8 rebuys you can use up the remainder of your $25's, $100's, $500's and give out
4 - $25's, 4 - $100's, 5 - $500's, 2 - 1000's
After 8 rebuys you can just use 5 - $1000's
This option will require you to buy 125 more $25's, around 25-50 more $1000's

For the blind levels it should be something like this if you think you will get around 12 rebuys which would be $150,000 total chips in play.
25 minute levels. (You can certainly adjust this a little)
I would do a break after level 5 and color up the 25's. Then another break after level 10 and color up the 100's and 500's

1	25	50	+0:00
2	50	100	+0:25
3	75	150	+0:50
4	100	200	+1:15
5	150	300	+1:40
6	200	400	+2:05
7	400	800	+2:30
8	600	1200	+2:55
9	1000	2000	+3:20
10	1500	3000	+3:45
11	2000	4000	+4:10
12	4000	8000	+4:35
13	5000	10000	+5:00
14	10000	20000	+5:25

Good Luck!

 

[ES_Threeper]

Working with your current set, you could do the following starting stacks.....

Starting Stacks - Players 1-13
Denom	Quantity	Value	Total Used	Remaining
25​	8​	200​	104​	21​
100​	8​	800​	104​	146​
500​	6​	3000​	78​	97​
1000​	1​	1000​	13​	62​
5000​	0​	0​	0​	25​
Total	23​	5k

Starting Stacks - Players 14-18
Denom	Quantity	Value	Total Used	Remaining
25​	4​	100​	20​	1​
100​	9​	900​	45​	101​
500​	6​	3000​	30​	67​
1000​	1​	1000​	5​	57​
5000​	0​	0​	0​	25​
Total	20​	5K

For rebuys 1-10, give out (5) 1k chips. Any rebuys after that get (1) 5k chip.
Any of the suggestions above about blind levels work. Just add a 25/25 as the first level and you just doubled your starting bb amount.

 

[gabagooler]

Yeah. 10k would be fine. Also what’s your starting stack breakdown? Make sure you leave enough $100s and $500s and $1ks for color ups.

Yeah I think I’m just going to restructure and buy more chips so the players can be more deeper stacked with a 10k stack instead of the 5k which does seem too short. Looking to add additional 25 barrel and 6 x $1000 and 1x $5000

 

[gabagooler]

Want to thank everyone for all the assistance! It’s been a tremendous help looking at all the numbers and break downs. Currently at work right now but looking forward to going home and reading these more in depth to piece together a great tournament for my pals!

 

[joeyshin]

Can we see the chips you have? We can help you find more

 

[JustinInMN]

Can we see the chips you have? We can help you find more

May be the ones in his profile pic. I've played with these, they are okay, but to be honest, they made the green too dark and close to black for my liking.

 

[joeyshin]

are those monte Carlo’s?

 

[ES_Threeper]

Stack depth is actually relative. It depends more on duration of the blind levels and how aggressively the blind increases are. You can easily play with the blind structure to achieve whatever your goal is. Softer blind increases and/or longer levels = less rebuys + more play time for your nitty players. More aggressive blind increases and/or shorter levels = more rebuys (larger prize pool) but will turn into an all-in fest around the 250/500 blind level.

 

[gabagooler]

May be the ones in his profile pic. I've played with these, they are okay, but to be honest, they made the green too dark and close to black for my liking.

I was thinking the same thing! The greens are definitely a little too close to the black but I already have a load of them so I’m just going to buy more. Maybe upgrade to another chip set later on when I get more disposable income haha.

 

[JustinInMN]

I was thinking the same thing! The greens are definitely a little too close to the black but I already have a load of them so I’m just going to buy more. Maybe upgrade to another chip set later on when I get more disposable income haha.

You could also consider shelving the greens and design future tournaments around a T100 base. Plenty of threads on that to search on PCF.

 

[Tonystark137]

I’m running a 3 table T20k tourney next week.

Starting stack is 8/8/6/6/2. With 25/100/500/1k/5k chips. Blinds start 25/50 which is 400bb


Honestly I think 5k in chips should start at 5/10 blinds. T10K chips start at 25/50. Is 200bb. But starting 25/50 and only 5k chips is 100bb. Which is pretty short.

I think you need to start with 10k in chips.

Damn I'll be out of town