Tourney Hosting first 2-table tournament - advice please! (1 Viewer)

[jrs146]

Hi All,
I'm hosting my first two table tournament and my first tournament hosting in a LONG time.

I'm expecting around 18 people. $100 buy-in with a $20 bounty. Rebuys are allowed.

I would classify this as a "fun" tournament rather than just playing to win

I, as the host, am paying for all the food/drinks/ etc.

I plan on having 1-2 dealers attending

I'd love for some assistance with a few basic structure questions:

• I was going to start with T20,000 starting stacks with a base of T25. - Does anyone have a suggestion for a good blind schedule.? Approximate time for tournament would be 4-5 hours. This is a casual game so I'm okay starting with lower blinds to build up some fun along the way. Some of the players will be inexperienced.
  • Also, I was considering having an extra initial "add-on" for people to tip the dealers with. Any suggestion on this? $20 for an extra 5,000 chips?
• How long should I allow re-buys for? (I was not planning on any add-ons. They'd have to go all-in to get another re-buy if they still had chips left)
• Any suggestion for payout structure? (I plan on counting re-buys towards the number of payout slots)
• Anything else important I'm missing?

Most importantly, I plan on using my new set of Jack Tournament white label chips. I'll be sure to snap lots of pics!

 

[Mojo1312]

20,000 chip starting stacks using a T25 as your base chip with an optional T5000 add-on will require an aggressive blind structure if your goal is to have the tournament end in five hours or less.

 

[jrs146]

20,000 chip starting stacks using a T25 as your base chip with an optional T5000 add-on will require an aggressive blind structure if your goal is to have the tournament end in five hours or less.

Yeah I was thinking that. I'm open to options. I just like having lots of chips on the table and more colors! Also, maybe give some time for newer players to dip their toe in?

 

[BPTDirector]

$100 buy in is not a casual game amount in my opinion. You may want to cut that in half.

 

[longflop]

20,000 chip starting stacks using a T25 as your base chip with an optional T5000 add-on will require an aggressive blind structure if your goal is to have the tournament end in five hours or less.

I agree. We start with 5,500 chips and a 25/50 first level blind and the tourney takes about 4 hours to finish. This is our blind schedule for 20 minute levels:

25 50
50 100
75 150
125 250
200 400
300 600
500 1,000
800 1,600
1,500 3,000
2,500 5,000
4,000 8,000
6,000 12,000
10,000 20,000

I limit rebuys to one per player at any point before the start of the 5th level. Our buyins are $20 with $20 rebuys. It is truly a social tournament. Not deep stack high roller poker, but the guys keep coming back.

I don't know how comfortable your group would be rebuying for $100 if they are inexperienced players. If I were you, I would cut the buy in in half, or even less maybe $40, for the first one. Make sure that everyone has a great time while you iron out the kinks of how you are going to host poker nights. That way, you will keep the crowd coming back and can turn it into a regular game. Then way you can grow it in the future. Its easier to raise the buy ins for future games than it is to convince people to come back.

Just humor me with the $40 buy in. Let's assume 25% rebuy rate, so you get 5 rebuys, thats a $920 pot. Pay 5 spots $50, $100, $150, $200 and $420. Along with the bounties, thats a good way to spread the money around. Plus, the inexperienced players lose $80 at most, which is a good night out. That would be easier to swallow and come back then $200 loss or more.

Also, as soon as one table opens up, start a $.25/$.50 circus cash game.

 

[jrs146]

I agree. We start with 5,500 chips and a 25/50 first level blind and the tourney takes about 4 hours to finish. This is our blind schedule for 20 minute levels:

25 50
50 100
75 150
125 250
200 400
300 600
500 1,000
800 1,600
1,500 3,000
2,500 5,000
4,000 8,000
6,000 12,000
10,000 20,000

I limit rebuys to one per player at any point before the start of the 5th level. Our buyins are $20 with $20 rebuys. It is truly a social tournament. Not deep stack high roller poker, but the guys keep coming back.

I don't know how comfortable your group would be rebuying for $100 if they are inexperienced players. If I were you, I would cut the buy in in half, or even less maybe $40, for the first one. Make sure that everyone has a great time while you iron out the kinks of how you are going to host poker nights. That way, you will keep the crowd coming back and can turn it into a regular game. Then way you can grow it in the future. Its easier to raise the buy ins for future games than it is to convince people to come back.

Just humor me with the $40 buy in. Let's assume 25% rebuy rate, so you get 5 rebuys, thats a $920 pot. Pay 5 spots $50, $100, $150, $200 and $420. Along with the bounties, thats a good way to spread the money around. Plus, the inexperienced players lose $80 at most, which is a good night out. That would be easier to swallow and come back then $200 loss or more.

Also, as soon as one table opens up, start a $.25/$.50 circus cash game.

Harry

$100 buy in is not a casual game amount in my opinion. You may want to cut that in half.

I appreciate the feedback on the buyin. I thought about this a lot and actually spoke to many of the players. I think everyone is comfortable with the $100 plus $20 bounty. It may lead to less re-buys so that's something to watch out for.

 

[buzzmonkey]

I would either do a freezeout and drop all of the rebuys/add-ons, or lower your starting stacks to 8-10k.

 

[GetUrShineBox]

I would use something along the above I posted but maybe add an extra 2 levels earlier on. There will be approximately $440,000 on the table w 22 buy ins so once you get to level 13-14 it should probably be over which is closer to 4 hours than 5.

 

[philhut]

$100 buy in is not a casual game amount in my opinion. You may want to cut that in half.

Everyone has their own limits and group interest..... some players do not consider the game serious enough to play properly unless there is a "interesting" amount of $ to play for. This is of course the trap of gambling the stakes must be "interesting" for the individual hence the range of $1-Infinity betting options and limits.

$100 was the amount the first group that I played with bought in for always....it was only later in life that I played lower stakes with others...otherwise I only knew min $50 to $100 rebuys and $500 @ Casino's with unlimited or *rebuys till a certain level of blinds. I won the first 3 tournaments I played in a group of 30+ mostly decent players.....but then I went on a long drought so any profits went back into the kitty over that time lol.

I am mostly happy with a $20-50 buy in now depending on the crowd with rebuys....for $100+ I'd rather a single buy in.
I find bounties only fun with a regular group that is comfortable joking around otherwise for a new group it doesn't add much.

poll the group at the game for interest of buy in amounts at a follow up game....if players are happy with $100 stay there....if you notice the game is off because of the buy in suggest $50-60 buy with with unlimited rebuys till the 3rd round or something.

 

[jrs146]

View attachment 777271

I would use something along the above I posted but maybe add an extra 2 levels earlier on. There will be approximately $440,000 on the table w 22 buy ins so once you get to level 13-14 it should probably be over which is closer to 4 hours than 5.

This is great thank you! When would you color up?

 

[GetUrShineBox]

Color up the 25’s after level 5. Maybe you can make that the end of the rebuy period too.
then color up the 100’s and 500’s after level 10 or just the 100’s after level 9 if you want to Leave the 500’s on the table.
Good Luck!

 

[jrs146]

Color up the 25’s after level 5. Maybe you can make that the end of the rebuy period too.
then color up the 100’s and 500’s after level 10 or just the 100’s after level 9 if you want to Leave the 500’s on the table.
Good Luck!

Awesome thank you!!

 

[jrs146]

What payout percentage do most people use?

 

[buzzmonkey]

What payout percentage do most people use?

I have a spreadsheet I use to get me rough numbers and then make adjustments depending on how small of a bill I want to pay out (5s, 10s, etc.)

• 2-5 is winner take all
• 6-9 is top two (70 / 30)
• Then every 9 places I add a payout.
  • 50 / 30 / 20
  • 50 / 25 / 15 / 10
  • 45 / 25 / 15 / 10 / 5

 

[jrs146]

I have a spreadsheet I use to get me rough numbers and then make adjustments depending on how small of a bill I want to pay out (5s, 10s, etc.)

• 2-5 is winner take all
• 6-9 is top two (70 / 30)
• Then every 9 places I add a payout.
  • 50 / 30 / 20
  • 50 / 25 / 15 / 10
  • 45 / 25 / 15 / 10 / 5

Any chance you’d share the spreadsheet?

 

[BGinGA]

I tend to pay the top 20%-25% for 20 players (i.e., top 4 or 5) with relatively flat structures:

5-10-30-55% or 5-10-15-25-45%

Nothing wrong with tightening it up and paying fewer places with bigger prizes, however:

10-30-60%, 15-30-55%, or 20-30-50%

 

[buzzmonkey]

Any chance you’d share the spreadsheet?

It won't let me attach a spreadsheet. I'll see if I can put it on one of my cloud drives for you.

 

[longflop]

actually spoke to many of the players

Thats the most important part. If they're good with it, I'm good with it. Have fun man and run good!

 

[jrs146]

It won't let me attach a spreadsheet. I'll see if I can put it on one of my cloud drives for you.

Awesome thanks!

 

[GetUrShineBox]

I tend to pay the top 20%-25% for 20 players (i.e., top 4 or 5) with relatively flat structures:

5-10-30-55% or 5-10-15-25-45%

Nothing wrong with tightening it up and paying fewer places with bigger prizes, however:

10-30-60%, 15-30-55%, or 20-30-50%

I’d go with any of these that @BGinGA suggested but I just slight tweak with a round up/down approach to make it easier on yourself and dealing with small bills. For example if the pot is $2200, 45% is $990 so I’d make it $1000 for sure. 5% is $110 so I’d just make it $100 so that person gets their money back.

 

[BPTDirector]

What I’m saying is my guys are very competitive for $30, so for $100 buy in expect pretty heavy competition.

 

[legonick]

I'd think you'd want to pay a wider field with a larger buy-in. Takes a tiny bit of the pressure off. If it were a $250 winner-take-all tournament, many people might not play. But if it were a $250 50/50 tournament, that might get people who shouldn't be playing with that much to take a chance since, hey, it's "easy to cash". Those forces at play, but at a much smaller level. TLDR: With higher stakes, I'd think it'd be good to pay more people less.

 

[Szczesnk]

Hi All,
I'm hosting my first two table tournament and my first tournament hosting in a LONG time.

I'm expecting around 18 people. $100 buy-in with a $20 bounty. Rebuys are allowed.

I would classify this as a "fun" tournament rather than just playing to win

I, as the host, am paying for all the food/drinks/ etc.

I plan on having 1-2 dealers attending

I'd love for some assistance with a few basic structure questions:

• I was going to start with T20,000 starting stacks with a base of T25. - Does anyone have a suggestion for a good blind schedule.? Approximate time for tournament would be 4-5 hours. This is a casual game so I'm okay starting with lower blinds to build up some fun along the way. Some of the players will be inexperienced.
  • Also, I was considering having an extra initial "add-on" for people to tip the dealers with. Any suggestion on this? $20 for an extra 5,000 chips?
• How long should I allow re-buys for? (I was not planning on any add-ons. They'd have to go all-in to get another re-buy if they still had chips left)
• Any suggestion for payout structure? (I plan on counting re-buys towards the number of payout slots)
• Anything else important I'm missing?

Most importantly, I plan on using my new set of Jack Tournament white label chips. I'll be sure to snap lots of pics!

If you want to stay in the 4 hour range I wouldn't start with much more than 100BB starting stacking assuming 30 or so minute level ups. I host around 12-14 people every month with 100BB starting stack and it takes all of 4-5 hours max. Add on for dealer seems like a good idea. But as someone who hosts monthly i don't like to make people feel obligated to pay more than what the buy in is as it may detract some from playing in the future.

With 18 people I would payout 4 places. 40, 30, 20, and 10 percent of prize pool.

If you want to stay in the 4 hour range I wouldn't start with much more than 100BB starting stacking assuming 30 or so minute level ups. I host around 12-14 people every month with 100BB starting stack and it takes all of 4-5 hours max. Add on for dealer seems like a good idea. But as someone who hosts monthly i don't like to make people feel obligated to pay more than what the buy in is as it may detract some from playing in the future.

With 18 people I would payout 4 places. 40, 30, 20, and 10 percent of prize pool.

I forgot to mention using a tournament manager app for blinds....starting stack....payouts etc. I use an app called blinds are up. I can cast it from my phone to TV so its easy for everyone to see and hear when levels are up.

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

@jrs146 Have you had your tournament yet? How did it go?

I'm researching the forum as I'm planning to host my first fairly large game over the Christmas holidays. Your first post hits very close to what I am planning. Probably 16-20 people - possibly a few more. Which would be super cool to me to have a three table tournament.

I also prefer a T25 base and a big starting stack in the 20K, or even up to 30K range. What stack size did you finally settle on?

It seems there are at least two ways to make a tournament fit into a desired length of time. If you don't want to reduce the stacks, then you can reduce the length of the levels. With 25K or 30K starting stacks, I can still fit my tournament into 4.5-5 hours by reducing the levels to 12 minutes. If I do end up with 3 tables, and a lot of re-buys, it will probably exceed 5 hours by a little bit. For those that play in a lot of casual home tournaments, do you prefer smaller starting stacks and longer levels, or big stacks and short levels?

I too will have a lot of inexperienced players, so I think the big starting stacks will allow most everyone to play for at least two hours, even if they don't want to re-buy. Plus I want to get a lot T5000 chips into play. They're one of my favorite chips in my set.

 

[Frode789]

It seems there are at least two ways to make a tournament fit into a desired length of time. If you don't want to reduce the stacks, then you can reduce the length of the levels. With 25K or 30K starting stacks, I can still fit my tournament into 4.5-5 hours by reducing the levels to 12 minutes. If I do end up with 3 tables, and a lot of re-buys, it will probably exceed 5 hours by a little bit. For those that play in a lot of casual home tournaments, do you prefer smaller starting stacks and longer levels, or big stacks and short levels?

Just my two cents.
You should not have less than ~18 min levels IMO for home games, to make sure you are doing a full orbit for all players per level. For my group, 18 min will not be enough either, because they are slow hah. And I guess this may apply to your group as well, if you have a lot of new players for that tournament. Of course if you have a dedicated dealer, then that time can be reduced, as they keep the hands/hr up much more.

So even though I prefer big stacks, I would take longer levels and shallower stacks with smooth progression, over super short levels and bigger stacks. Yes, the stacks are bigger, but in reality it will still feel more rushed as the levels are so short, and your total BB will reduce fast anyway. If 12 min levels, after 24 minutes the total BB of your stack would be halved anyway.

 

[Kid_Eastwood]

T20.000, 20 players, 5 hours max.
--> do not use T25

20' levels :

100-200
100-300
200-400
300-600 --> last level for rebuys
400-800
600-1200
800-1600
## color-up the 100
1000-2000
1500-3000
## color-up the 500
2000-4000
3000-6000
4000-8000
6000-12000
8000-16000
## color-up the 1000
10000-20000 # tournament shall end here If no rebuy
15000-30000
20000-40000
30000-60000

 

[Kid_Eastwood]

If you really want to use your T25.
Make 5.000 starting stacks.

25-50
25-75
50-100
75-150 --> last level for rebuys
100-200
150-300
## color-up the 25
200-400
300-600
400-800
600-1200
800-1600
## color-up the 100
1000-2000
1500-3000
## color-up the 500
2000-4000
3000-6000 ## the tournament shall end here if no rebuy
4000-8000
6000-12000
8000-1600)

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

@Kid_Eastwood Appreciate the input, but I know how to create the levels. I have spreadsheets up the waa-hoo that I've been tinkering with for over a year. My interest and questions here are more regarding the "why" than the "how." I want to discuss pros and cons and understand the thought process, not just be told what to do. I know that T100 is what is popular now, but I want to start with T25. I also want to eventually get my higher denom chips into play, so I want to have deeper stacks. I understand the concept of having the levels long enough to get in a full orbit, but is there really any major downside to not getting in full orbits each level? Also, with my shorter levels, I will probably push rebuy cutoff out to around level 8 or 9. Still in the same 30ish big blinds area where yours is.

This is my current 20 person structure that I am considering. Feel free to pick it apart and tell me WHY it's not going to make for a good tournament. Convince me to change it with reason and logic. Thanks!

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

And yes, I know that I won't really have 15 rebuys. I wanted to have a MAX number of chips. Less rebuys = less total chips = possibly shorter tournament.

 

[Kid_Eastwood]

Here the guy who created the thread wanted T20.000, 2 tables with a duration of 5 hours max.

I don't see a correct structure where it worths to use a T25 chip... Except reducing the starting stack as I suggested to 5000.