Tourney Tourneys - alternative to timed blinds? (2 Viewers)

[Wils]

Hi folks.

Are there any viable alternatives to having blinds go up every x minutes? For example, having them go up once every orbit instead? Has anyone tried these, if so what were the pros and cons?

 

[Blaster]

You can alternatively do # of orbits, but in the heat of various hands & possible drinking, it is easier to hear a timer go off, than remember exactly when how many orbits & where, especially if players bust out ... This also gets crazy if more than 1 table, when different tables could be on different blinds, what happens if you need to balance a table? Also, 1 round per orbit can quickly become a turbo luckfest ...
I personally don't see the point or need to change from timed rounds ....

 

[TexRex]

# of orbits works fine, and it's easy enough to mark the starting point. However, the problem comes once you have more than one table since they don't all play at the same pace. For a single table though, especially one where players socialize a lot, # of orbits might even be better.

 

[AdamAAAA]

As above I've done number of orbits before, mainly because the group at the time were slow ass dealers so the blinds would go up before we had an orbit, this way everyone had a BB at each level. It was more of a casual game and less rules around it. Worked well on a single table, but as above, cannot see it working well duel table unless you synchronize after each orbit i.e., wait for the lagging table to complete an orbit then up the blinds.

 

[TexRex]

Adam's right -- you could synchronize after an orbit. I play with a group that managed to take 22 minutes for 3 hands. If you had 10 players, you still have 7 hands to go. If the other table had a lot of quick hands, they might be waiting a long time. So yes, you could synchronize, but that's a challenge. If you are at the point in a tournament where you are going hand for hand, it wouldn't be as bad.

 

[manamongkids]

sucks if you do one orbit, because the blinds go up on the same SB and BB every time. I would be more likely to do like a predetermined number of hands, say 12-15 per orbit, somewhere in that range

 

[Poker Zombie]

Timed levels allow you to accurately determine when the game will end - an important factor if you have players hiring sitters for the night, or they're just old (like me) and turn into a pumpkin at midnight.

 

[doakwolf]

Yeah I'm with Zombie here. Tourneys need a wrap-up time determined and a timer is the best way to achieve that. Back 15 years ago I got my first set of gorgeous dice chips and hosted a game at age 18... We had a tourney finish at roughly 8AM the next day. And it only finished because the two of us remaining players decided to call it quits and split. Learned that lesson early haha.

Not saying you can't get a roughly determined wrap-up time using an orbit blind increase but timer will definitely work better. Also, if multi-table and I was told I had to wait until the lagging table caught up to sync, I'd rage... Probs start drinking so many beers out of boredom I wouldn't even be able to see my cards!