Tourney Tournament blinds structure adjustment based on number of players. (1 Viewer)

legonick

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I've been running this blinds structure for 8- or 9-handed tournaments. It's targeted at 3.5 hours not including breaks and uses the superior T100 base (OK off my high horse...).

The issue I've had with it, is sometimes when doing an 8-handed game, it seems to run well under 3.5 hours even with breaks. I think I need to tweak it for cases where I can only pull 8.

Thoughts on the best way to tweak it?

Or thoughts in general on this blind structure?

Thank you for your input! :)

Code:
Blind raising, 8 or 9 players, targeting 3.5 hours without breaks:
1  20  (0:20) 100  200
2  20  (0:40) 200  400
3  20  (1:00) 300  600
12 min. break
4  20  (1:20) 400  800
5  20  (1:40) 500  1K
6  20  (2:00) 600  1200
10 min. break
7  20  (2:20) 800  1600
8  20  (2:40) 1200 2400
10 min. break + color-up 100s & chip race
9  20  (3:00) 2K   4K
10 20  (3:20) 3K   6K
11 20  (3:40) 4K   8K
10 min. break + color-up 500s & chip race
12 20  (4:00) 6K   12K
13 20  (4:20) 10K  20K
14 20  (4:40) 15K  30K
10 min. break
15 20  (5:00) 25K  50K
 
I’m sure there are a lot better people to answer this but if you make level 6 700-1400 and
Make level 8 1000-2000
And delete level 9 that will save you 20 minutes. We use this.
Also that’s a lot of breaks.
 
I’m sure there are a lot better people to answer this but if you make level 6 700-1400 and
Make level 8 1000-2000
And delete level 9 that will save you 20 minutes. We use this.
Also that’s a lot of breaks.
I'm looking to add time, not remove it. When I run 8 it seems to go too fast. By save 20 minutes, did you mean shorten by 20 minutes?

It looks like a lot of breaks, but usually it wraps before too long, and we often skip or shorten the later breaks.

Like the last 8-handed game I think it ended on the 7th level. 1 player was dominating...he had the small-ball strategy and the luck to back it up...and it was heads up going into the 2nd break. The players took a short breather, then both agreed to skip the rest of the break. There was a good dedicated dealer at that point, a busted player, so that sped it up even more.

9-handed I feel like it's ended between the 1st and 2nd color-up breaks usually, which is about right, targeting that 3.5 without breaks number.

Huh in looking at this, it's a bit silly to have 2 color-up breaks. Could probably figure out a way to do 1 color-up session for 100s and 500s. Not really an issue though, and might make the color-up too confusing, so I'm not heartbroken if there are 2 color-up breaks, especially since you don't usually reach the 2nd one.
 
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Couple of quick notes:

For your first attempt to lengthen it, up your level time to 25 minutes and add a 100/100 at the beginning, see if that pushes everything back into the 3.5-4 hour range you're looking for. With those two adjustments, you will be entering the 800/1600 level at the 3:20 mark (excluding breaks).

If that's not quite enough, you can add the aforementioned 700/1400 level the next time, but I wouldn't make too many adjustments at first, or you might suddenly end up with a 5-6 hour marathon.

You could always add 5-10k to the starting stacks as well. A tournament will usually end when the big blind = 5% of the chips in play. For a T20000 starting stack, 8 handed with no rebuys, that will be at the 4000/8000 level, but with T10000, you will reach that at the 2000/4000 level. Make sure you take your normal amount of rebuys into consideration.

Let us know how it goes!
 
Couple of quick notes:

For your first attempt to lengthen it, up your level time to 25 minutes and add a 100/100 at the beginning, see if that pushes everything back into the 3.5-4 hour range you're looking for. With those two adjustments, you will be entering the 800/1600 level at the 3:20 mark (excluding breaks).

If that's not quite enough, you can add the aforementioned 700/1400 level the next time, but I wouldn't make too many adjustments at first, or you might suddenly end up with a 5-6 hour marathon.

You could always add 5-10k to the starting stacks as well. A tournament will usually end when the big blind = 5% of the chips in play. For a T20000 starting stack, 8 handed with no rebuys, that will be at the 4000/8000 level, but with T10000, you will reach that at the 2000/4000 level. Make sure you take your normal amount of rebuys into consideration.

Let us know how it goes!
The level times, of course! LOL. Yeah I think I'll try going to 25 minutes for 8 people. I'm not a huge fan of the "flat" blind levels yet. I haven't tried them out yet though, so I can't really talk. They just seem a bit weird and could confuse some newbies because they are used to "BB is double SB".
 
Add two minutes/level per missing player.

My thoughts on the stucture itself are not complimentary. I dislike blind level increases that are not uniform, and those with wide disparity in the amount of increase percentage throughout the event.
 
Add two minutes/level per missing player.

My thoughts on the structure itself are not complimentary. I dislike blind level increases that are not uniform, and those with wide disparity in the amount of increase percentage throughout the event.
Are you talking about the lack of a 1K/2K level?

What is your recommended T100 structure, and how would one "tweak" it for time? Say, a 3.5 hour tournament target. Also, do you have a recommended variation which doesn't include "funky" blind levels, like no 100/100 and no 100/300? Or at least, what's the defense of these "funky" levels?

I saw a post mentioning your structure here: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/15k-150bb-structure.49855/#post-975140

I did a lot of searching but honestly I got overwhelmed by the amount of content, or I'm searching for too wide of a subject.

Thank you for your time.
 
well under 3.5 hours even with breaks. I think I need to tweak it for cases where I can only pull 8.
Define "well under"

I would add a 100-300 level to avoid the early double. (Surely that is one of @BGinGA 's criticisms.)

Level 8 to 9 is a "near double" as well. Putting in a 1600-3200 in between would probably help.

You also have a similar "near double" from level 12 to 13. Putting 8K-16K in between would help. Or even better, revamping to 8K-16K, 12K-24K, 16K-32K to be consistent with the proposal I made above would help as well.

Personally, I just prefer levels based on multiples of 2-4, 3-6, 4-8, 6-12, 8-16 of each chip. (With possible 1-1. 1-2. and 1-3 levels at the start), this keeps all the increases between jumps of 25%-50%, the current structure proposed has a wider range (20% - 100% increases level over level, which is where I am sure @BGinGA 's criticism about "blind level increases that are not uniform".) If you use factors of 4-8, 5-10, 6-12, 8-16, 10-20, 12-24, 16-32 when introducing a new chip, you actually keep the increases in a tighter 20%-33% range. (This is the concept in the WSOP main event, for example.)

But my recommendations, the 100-300 level is a near must to avoid the double, and redraw levels 8-9 to avoid the 67% jump. You don't need a huge overhaul, but a few tweaks will make the jumps a little smoother and stretch the tournament out by a couple more levels.
 
@JustinInMN, yeah, I should have included that in the OP. 20,000 starting stack. 100 BBs.

Are there any good blind generators that you support?

I'm looking for a T100 tournament that runs ~3.5 hours (without breaks, ~4 hours with) that can be easily adjusted for less than 9 players (probably by adjusting blind levels, as recommended elsewhere). Everything said above is good points...those are too big of jumps. I'm not a huge fan of the funky 100/100 or 100/300, but that's the only way to prevent the early blind double, and a smoother structure is a good thing.

Edit: I guess I'm more in the mode of redoing the whole shebang and coming up with a consistent structure that doesn't vary, but the blind levels can be tweaked based on players to hit desired length.
 
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Trying to incorporate what you said, looking at the 2021 WSOP structure some, and looking at @Chris Manzoni's blind structure from his YouTube series...how does this look?


Code:
Blind raising, 8 or 9 players, targeting 3.5 hours without breaks:
1  ??  (??:??) 100  200  -
2  ??  (??:??) 100  300  50%*
3  ??  (??:??) 200  400  33.33%
4  ??  (??:??) 300  600  50%
--> 12 min. break
5  ??  (??:??) 400  800  33.33%
6  ??  (??:??) 500  1000 25%
7  ??  (??:??) 600  1200 20%
8  ??  (??:??) 800  1600 33.33%
--> 10 min. break
9  ??  (??:??) 1000 2000 25%
10 ??  (??:??) 1200 2400 20%
11 ??  (??:??) 1600 3200 33.33%
--> 10 min. break + color-up 100s & 500s
12 ??  (??:??) 2K   4K   25%
13 ??  (??:??) 3K   6K   50%
14 ??  (??:??) 4K   8K   33.33%
15 ??  (??:??) 6K   12K  50%
--> 10 min. break (optional, player's choice)
16 ??  (??:??) 8K   16K  33.33%
17 ??  (??:??) 10K  20K  20%
20K-40K
30K-60K
18 ??  (??:??) 12K  24K  20%
19 ??  (??:??) 16K  32K  33.33%
20 ??  (??:??) 20K  40K  25%
21 ??  (??:??) 30K  60K  50%

*SB only 100, lessens impact of 50% jump

Should we look at adjusting the 500/1K, 600/1200 & 1K/2K, 1200/2400 areas? Edit: I just love that nice 500/1K and 1K/2K level. So clean on the blinds when you are doing a chip breakdown of 100, 500, 1000, 5000.

Also, how do you guess at run time for this, so I can get the blind level time dialed in properly? My goal is to be around 3.5 without breaks, and with around 30ish minutes for breaks (usually runs a little under...first 2 seem to be full breaks, later ones the remaining players often opt to skip or cut it short, but it's good chance at a quick drink or bathroom break), puts me right at 4ish hours.
 
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Trying to incorporate what you said, looking at the 2021 WSOP structure some, and looking at @Chris Manzoni's blind structure from his YouTube series...how does this look?


Code:
Blind raising, 8 or 9 players, targeting 3.5 hours without breaks:
1  ??  (??:??) 100  200  -
2  ??  (??:??) 100  300  33.33%
3  ??  (??:??) 200  400  25%
4  ??  (??:??) 300  600  33.33%
12 min. break
5  ??  (??:??) 400  800  25%
6  ??  (??:??) 500  1000 20%
7  ??  (??:??) 600  1200 16.66%
8  ??  (??:??) 800  1600 25%
10 min. break
9  ??  (??:??) 1000 2000 20%
10 ??  (??:??) 1200 2400 16.66%
11 ??  (??:??) 1600 3200 25%
10 min. break + color-up 100s & 500s
9  ??  (??:??) 2K   4K   20%
10 ??  (??:??) 3K   6K   33.33%
11 ??  (??:??) 4K   8K   25%
12 ??  (??:??) 6K   12K  33.33%
10 min. break (optional, player's choice)
13 ??  (??:??) 8K   16K  25%
13 ??  (??:??) 10K  20K  20%
14 ??  (??:??) 15K  30K  33.33%
15 ??  (??:??) 25K  50K  40%

Should we look at adjusting the 500/1K, 600/1200 & 1K/2K, 1200/2400 areas? Edit: I just love that nice 500/1K and 1K/2K level. So clean on the blinds when you are doing a chip breakdown of 100, 500, 1000, 5000.

Much better, but I will pick a couple nits.
Some of the jumps don't appear to be calculated correctly. 2K-4K to 3K-6K is a 50% increase, not 33.3%.

I might pick the nit to rewrite Level 14 and up as follows
12K-24K
16K-32K
20K-40K
30K-60K for the sake of consistency. These levels are exactly 10x 1200-2400, 1600-3200, 2000-4000, 3000-6000

Also, how do you guess at run time for this, so I can get the blind level time dialed in properly? My goal is to be around 3.5 without breaks, and with around 30ish minutes for breaks (usually runs a little under...first 2 seem to be full breaks, later ones the remaining players often opt to skip or cut it short, but it's good chance at a quick drink or bathroom break), puts me right at 4ish hours.

Assuming 8 entries you would have about 160K in play. Using the 20BB rule you would expect the tournament to end when the big blind hits 8K or about 14 levels. So to fit 3.5 hours divided by 14 levels you get 15 minutes per level. My experience is often the tournament will end the level before what you would calculated with the 20BB rule, and almost never over. So if you can live with 3.5-4 hours as the target, you could go to 17-18 mins per level.
 
Much better, but I will pick a couple nits.
Some of the jumps don't appear to be calculated correctly. 2K-4K to 3K-6K is a 50% increase, not 33.3%.

I might pick the nit to rewrite Level 14 and up as follows
12K-24K
16K-32K
20K-40K
30K-60K for the sake of consistency. These levels are exactly 10x 1200-2400, 1600-3200, 2000-4000, 3000-6000



Assuming 8 entries you would have about 160K in play. Using the 20BB rule you would expect the tournament to end when the big blind hits 8K or about 14 levels. So to fit 3.5 hours divided by 14 levels you get 15 minutes per level. My experience is often the tournament will end the level before what you would calculated with the 20BB rule, and almost never over. So if you can live with 3.5-4 hours as the target, you could go to 17-18 mins per level.

Ahh, thank you! Good catches.

Updated the post so as to not mess up other people finding this in the future.

Recalculated all the increase %s as yeah, I was just doing them completely wrong.

I also had the level numbers wrong towards the end...fixed that. Also I updated for consistency to what you recommended as it won't matter much most likely. I don't think I've had one go that long.

So re-running your calculation for a full table (9 for me): 9 * 20,000 = 180,000. BB = 9K is roughly the end, level 14/15. So yeah, 15 minute levels. Maybe do that 15 minute levels for full table, 17 minute levels for 8 players, 19 minute levels for 7 players, 21 minute levels for 6 players.
 
You could do 1500/2500 and 1500/3000 and pull the 100s earlier without too much damage to the game flow.
 

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