Sorry for wall of text, but there were so many great responses!
I think your move to 8 is a great choice.
Thanks! Yes, I find the tournaments more enjoyable because of the reasons I mentioned in #2
Have you posted your blind structure at all?
No, not yet. The reason is that I've tried a few different, quite standard, none are really controversial (except one, but I'll get back to that...), some even follow all of BGinGA's rules.
The one thing you can’t control is how people play short stacks. Many of the better tournament players know they need to make moves before they get under 10BBs or so, but that’s not often the case with rec players. If you get a handful of players that basically let themselves get completely blinded out, it effects the play of the rest of the table as middling stacks don’t want to get knocked out before one of the micro-stacks. So everyone tightens up until the shorties are gone, but now you’re a couple blind levels deeper and the play can’t open up as much.
I totally agree. Nits nurturing short stacks can really destroy the endgame. Beyond the reasons you mentioned, having too many short stacks at a table affects the few who have decent stacks too, because unless they get in a hand with each other, it's still all-in-or-fold poker.
Second deck - always having a deck ready to go after a hand really speeds things up.
Yes, yes, yes! (
@WedgeRock , do your job!) I started with this many years ago, and will NEVER go back to one deck!
Chip breakdown - adequate number of chips?
ehhh...probably the opposite...I could increase speed with fewer chips, but...what's the saying? MOAR chips!
Tournaments, by design, come to a conclusion at a certain level. That level is dependent upon the number of chips in play. It simply happens, you cannot avoid it, and you dont want to.
That level, for what it's worth is C/20=B. C= chips in play, B = the Big blind at the tournament's end.
I've seen this rule in many forms, all having the same math behind it. I view it as "when there's 20 big blinds left in play...", which is equivalent with what you wrote. But, my view of the logic behind it (and also my experience with it) is that if the tournament will last
no later than that level (because at most the players have 10 BBs each). But, if you and I were the final two players with, say, 50 BBs each, I'm pretty sure the tournament would end earlier. You'd probably beat me within a level or two! ;-)
Before I started trying to improve this stuff, my tournaments usually ended with 20-30 BBs left. Out of the last 5 tournaments I've held, four ended with 30-50 BBs left. The fifth was my fault, I was heads up against a player who had no experience playing heads up and was super tight, so I played small ball for 3 levels, slowly grinding the player down until there was nothing left. Tourney ended with ~25 BBs left in play.
What other adjustments have you tried?
This post is long as it is ;-) but ok, one more. This one is perhaps marginal, but I think it gets us down to 7 players a level earlier than we otherwise would, meaning more "play" for them:
It's the number of players at the final table. In my experience, the slowest play of the tournament (apart from maybe the bubble play) is when the final table has formed. The blinds are already high and the decisions tough. Having a full table make the play really slow. Therefore, I don't have 8 seats at the final table, I have 7. So, when 8 are left, instead of having 8 players nit it out on the same table, there are two action packed shorthanded tables of 4 each (with more hands per hour, and more incentive to get involved). We will sooner get down to seven than we would do if we have 8 at the FT. I got the idea at a friends tourney with 10 at the final table. We didn't make an orbit for two levels with all the tanking that was taking place. People who don't like short handed play will of course hate this idea...
