Tourney Tweak my structure (1 Viewer)

[Nine_high]

Running my first tournament night in many years a few weeks from now. Normally just do cash but I'm trying to expand my player pool and get some fresh faces into the mix. I'm lowering the cost from my normal cash game (which is $100 max) quite a bit to hopefully help attract new people. I intend this as a somewhat beginner-friendly quasi-recruiting event. If it's fun and well received I could see myself running it (or some variation on it) periodically between cash games.

My plan is to do a bounty tournament with rebuys (some regs travel an hour or more). Depending on start time and number of players I could run a cash game after it ends or maybe when it gets to the final table. My hope is this runs at least 4 hours including breaks, maybe up to 5 or so but 6+ is starting to get to be too long. My normal cash game starts at 5:00 and rarely does anyone leave before 11:00 and usually wraps up around 2:00 so I think people have the stamina. I don't expect more than two full tables so perhaps 15 +/-3 players.

Buy in: $30 ($25 entry + $5 bounty)
Payout: 20%-25% of the field
Starting stacks: 15/5/11/9/0 (60,000 = 150bb)
On time bonus: 0/0/1/1/0 (6000)
Rebuys: 0/0/0/2/2
Blinds:

Lv	EOL	SB	BB	Remark
1	0:20	200	400
2	0:40	300	600
3	1:00	400	800
B	1:10			Visit hot dog roller
4	1:30	600	1200
5	1:50	800	1600
6	2:10	1200	2400
B	2:30			Color up T100/T500
7	2:50	2000	4000	Begin freezeout
8	3:10	3000	6000
9	3:30	4000	8000
10	3:50	6000	12000
B	4:00			Color up T1000
11	4:20	10000	20000	Short EOT
12	4:40	15000	30000
13	5:00	20000	40000	EOT
14	5:20	30000	60000
B	5:30			Optional
15	5:50	40000	80000	Long EOT
16	6:10	60000	120000

Are my estimates wildly off? Is this just too long for this flavor of event and maybe I should pare back or increase blinds more aggressively? I don't intend to use antes but I'd consider a BBA starting in L2 or L4 if that would help.

Suggestions and feedback welcome and appreciated!

 

[BGinGA]

Shouldn't last past L14 as planned, so roughly 5+ hours max. for 18 players.

But you can smooth out those two uncharacteristically large 67% jumps (L7, L11) by making these changes:

chg L6 1100/2200
add L6a 1500/3000
break

add L10a 8000/16000
break

That would put total time closer to 6 hours.

Using 18-minute levels will cut a half-hour off total time, while dropping blind levels to 15-minutes will slice 1:20 off the total time. Either one seems better-suited towards your target audience imo.

Using a BBA from the start will also shorten up the event.

 

[timinater]

Because of this:

Running my first tournament night in many years

I would skip this for now.

I'd consider a BBA starting in L2 or L4 if that would help

One hot dog roller visit seems like a wildly low number

Shouldn't last past L14 as planned, so roughly 5+ hours max. for 18 players.

ut you can smooth out those two uncharacteristically large 67% jumps (L7, L11) by making these changes:

chg L6 1100/2200
add L6a 1500/3000
break

add L10a 8000/16000
break

That would put total time closer to 6 hours.

Using 18-minute levels will cut a half-hour off total time, while dropping blind levels to 15-minutes will slice 1:20 off the total time. Either one seems better-suited towards your target audience imo.

He has spoken. I agree with this.

 

[GetUrShineBox]

First and foremost, you’re awesome for hosting!
I love the starting stack distribution.
As a player a few things I’d like tweaked.
- Definitely make it longer than 4 hours. I don’t want to drive an hour to feel like I’m all in or fold after 3 hours of playing. To me 6 hours including breaks is ideal. Your cash game runs til 2am so I don’t think anyone would complain about this going to 11pm.
- start the blinds at 100/200. this can allow you to start it promptly even if there are a few stragglers and they didn’t miss much action.
- get rid of the first break. People can play for 2 hours without taking a break, especially the first two hours. That first 20 min break is a big waste of time. Let people get hot dogs while you color up after level 6. At that point it’s a fresh start, belly full, bathroom break, and freeze out begins.
- middle break could probably be 10 or 15 minutes not 20.
- get rid of the last break. The tournament should be close to over when the blinds are around 30k/60k. If you get 16 players w 8 rebuys there will be around 1.4m in the play. With 3 players left that’s less than 10BBs per player. It will be all in or fold at that point.

Good Luck!!!

This is what the online blind calculator produced

 

[Nine_high]

Thank you!

One hot dog roller visit seems like a wildly low number

Lol of course the roller will be rolling all night but I had a blank spot in the remarks column so.....

First and foremost, you’re awesome for hosting!

Thanks, it's a joy for me!

I love the starting stack distribution.
As a player a few things I’d like tweaked.
- Definitely make it longer than 4 hours. I don’t want to drive an hour to feel like I’m all in or fold after 3 hours of playing. To me 6 hours including breaks is ideal. Your cash game runs til 2am so I don’t think anyone would complain about this going to 11pm.

This is good feedback. I'm torn between filling the night with a tournament or leaving space for the cash table. I doubt I'd do both if it runs into 6+ territory. If anything I also like slower levels so if I'm to extend the time I might go to 25 or even 30 min in the earlier levels.

- start the blinds at 100/200. this can allow you to start it promptly even if there are a few stragglers and they didn’t miss much action.

Hadn't thought of it that way. Kind of a level 0. Hoping the on time bonus limits the stragglers but it's inevitable I suppose!

- get rid of the first break. People can play for 2 hours without taking a break, especially the first two hours. That first 20 min break is a big waste of time. Let people get hot dogs while you color up after level 6. At that point it’s a fresh start, belly full, bathroom break, and freeze out begins.
- middle break could probably be 10 or 15 minutes not 20.

Breaks are 10 min except the first color up. I also reserve the right to start the next level early if everyone is just sitting around staring at each other

- get rid of the last break. The tournament should be close to over when the blinds are around 30k/60k. If you get 16 players w 8 rebuys there will be around 1.4m in the play. With 3 players left that’s less than 10BBs per player. It will be all in or fold at that point.

Yeah this was there sort of as an "if needed" which does seem unlikely.

Shouldn't last past L14 as planned, so roughly 5+ hours max. for 18 players.

But you can smooth out those two uncharacteristically large 67% jumps (L7, L11) by making these changes:

chg L6 1100/2200
add L6a 1500/3000
break

add L10a 8000/16000
break

That would put total time closer to 6 hours.

This could work too.

Using 18-minute levels will cut a half-hour off total time, while dropping blind levels to 15-minutes will slice 1:20 off the total time. Either one seems better-suited towards your target audience imo.

Do you mean shorter levels is better for the target audience or shorter overall duration?

 

[Mandos]

Hadn't thought of it that way. Kind of a level 0. Hoping the on time bonus limits the stragglers but it's inevitable I suppose!

Personally, I would vote for starting at 200-400/300-600 as you originally planned over starting 100-200/200-400.

I'm torn between filling the night with a tournament or leaving space for the cash table. I doubt I'd do both if it runs into 6+ territory. I

Are you waiting to start a cash game until the tournament finishes completely? I would expect that by the first break after freezeout there should be enough players eliminated to start the cash game.

 

[Nine_high]

Personally, I would vote for starting at 200-400/300-600 as you originally planned over starting 100-200/200-400.


Are you waiting to start a cash game until the tournament finishes completely? I would expect that by the first break after freezeout there should be enough players eliminated to start the cash game.

The cash game could start as soon as there are enough. Ideally the tournament would at least be on the final table but I do have a third table I could use if needed. It's only a 48" round so we'd probably want to move to one of the bigger tables once they were freed up, which is a bit of a pain but not the end of the world.

I'm also not sure about running both games simultaneously and I'd rather not designate a banker or a TD. I think I could do it though since the cash game isn't very demanding I just gotta buy people in once in a while.

 

[GetUrShineBox]

This is good feedback. I'm torn between filling the night with a tournament or leaving space for the cash table. I doubt I'd do both if it runs into 6+ territory. If anything I also like slower levels so if I'm to extend the time I might go to 25 or even 30 min in the earlier levels.

If you keep your blind structure this won't be a problem. Levels 7-10 to me seem very high and people should be getting knocked out left and right in that first hour after rebuys are over. If you start at 5pm (freezeout starts around 7:30pm) then there should be 4-6 people out by 8-8:30 so the cash table should be starting up sometime around then.

Personally, I would consider adding a few smaller levels in the first 4 hours if I were you so people can actually "play poker" lol. Once the blinds are up its an all in fest. Its inevitable, I know because hosts need the tourney to end but, its nice to be able to raise and continue bet without committing your entire stack every hand earlier on in the tournament.
If you look at your current level 10, the blinds will be 6k/12k vs the version I posted which is 2k/4k. Huge difference but at the end of the day they both get to the 30k/60k at hour 5:20 which is when it should be ending.

$66k start stack x 16 people = 1,056,000
8 rebuys x 60k = $480k
So for easy math there may be around 1.5mil chips in play
Lets say at level 10 there are 12 out of 16 people left, that's an avg stack of 125k. With blinds at 6k/12k that's only 10 BB's and your only 3:20 hours into the tourney. If you raise 2.5 - 3 BB's preflop you're almost pot committed. Not much "playing" if that makes sense.
Anyway, I'm sorry to ramble on, I'm sure whatever you do will be fine, poker with friends is better than work or sitting on the couch. Good Luck and keep us posted on what you decide to do and how it turns out.

 

[Nine_high]

If you keep your blind structure this won't be a problem. Levels 7-10 to me seem very high and people should be getting knocked out left and right in that first hour after rebuys are over. If you start at 5pm (freezeout starts around 7:30pm) then there should be 4-6 people out by 8-8:30 so the cash table should be starting up sometime around then.

Personally, I would consider adding a few smaller levels in the first 4 hours if I were you so people can actually "play poker" lol. Once the blinds are up its an all in fest. Its inevitable, I know because hosts need the tourney to end but, its nice to be able to raise and continue bet without committing your entire stack every hand earlier on in the tournament.
If you look at your current level 10, the blinds will be 6k/12k vs the version I posted which is 2k/4k. Huge difference but at the end of the day they both get to the 30k/60k at hour 5:20 which is when it should be ending.

$66k start stack x 16 people = 1,056,000
8 rebuys x 60k = $480k
So for easy math there may be around 1.5mil chips in play
Lets say at level 10 there are 12 out of 16 people left, that's an avg stack of 125k. With blinds at 6k/12k that's only 10 BB's and your only 3:20 hours into the tourney. If you raise 2.5 - 3 BB's preflop you're almost pot committed. Not much "playing" if that makes sense.
Anyway, I'm sorry to ramble on, I'm sure whatever you do will be fine, poker with friends is better than work or sitting on the couch. Good Luck and keep us posted on what you decide to do and how it turns out.

No, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping to get so thank you. Having not run or even played in a decent tourney for such a long time it really helps to see this side of it: how does it play in the early, mid, and late game, etc.

I think this new structure incorporates all the feedback so far in one way or another. Slower, smoother levels, fewer/shorter breaks, slightly longer overall, more hot dogs . I reduced the levels to :15 starting at L16 which I think it should be over or short handed by then. I could probably shave five min off the last break, L14 and L15 too since it will probably be six handed or less (60-80 BB in play at this point) and coloring up 500/1000 should be very fast.

Does this seem like an improvement?

All other parameters the same as before.

Lv	EOL	SB	BB	Remark
1	0:20	100	200
2	0:40	100	300
3	1:00	200	400
4	1:20	300	600
5	1:40	400	800
B	1:50			Visit hot dog roller
6	2:10	600	1200
7	2:30	800	1600
8	2:50	1200	2400	Begin Freezeout
9	3:10	1800	3600
B	3:20			Color up T100, revisit hot dog roller
10	3:40	2500	5000
11	4:00	3500	7000
12	4:20	5000	10000
13	4:40	7500	15000
B	4:50			Color up T500/T1000 Hot dogs, cookies
14	5:10	10000	20000	Short EOT
15	5:30	15000	30000
16	5:45	20000	40000	EOT
17	6:00	30000	60000
18	6:15	40000	80000	Long EOT
19	6:30	60000	120000

 

[BGinGA]

^ Much better (although you show two L11 blind levels above).

But replacing the blinds in your L8-L12 with the following allows you to color-up the T100s after L7 (while simultaneously beginning the freezeout):

L8 1000/2000
L9 1500/3000
L10 2000/4000
L11 3000/6000
*
L12 4000/8000
L13 6000/12000
L14 8000/16000

then continuing on with your 10k/20k level. Game play will be much improved.

Change your first (hot dog) break to after L4, second (T100 color-up) break after L7, and a third break after L11 (T500 color-up and hot dog/cookies). Begin your 15-minute levels with L12 (along with the cash game, if not already in progress).

You can also add a T1000 color-up break after L14, or just have players sell their T1000 chips to the big stack and then pause for 60 seconds while you replace them. With fewer players left, a full-stop break really isn't necessary with less than an hour remaining.

 

[Nine_high]

^ Much better (although you show two L11 blind levels above).

But replacing the blinds in your L8-L12 with the following allows you to color-up the T100s after L7 (while simultaneously beginning the freezeout):

L8 1000/2000
L9 1500/3000
L10 2000/4000
L11 3000/6000
*
L12 4000/8000
L13 6000/12000
L14 8000/16000

then continuing on with your 10k/20k level. Game play will be much improved.

Change your first (hot dog) break to after L4, second (T100 color-up) break after L7, and a third break after L11 (T500 color-up and hot dog/cookies). Begin your 15-minute levels with L12 (along with the cash game, if not already in progress).

You can also add a T1000 color-up break after L14, or just have players sell their T1000 chips to the big stack and then pause for 60 seconds while you replace them. With fewer players left, a full-stop break really isn't necessary with less than an hour remaining.

Ok I like this a lot. It seemed natural to have the Freezeout start after a break so I'd be glad to get that back.

And good point about the last color up happening in stride, I figured it would be quick with only a few players but yeah should just be able to take a quick pause and pull the couple racks of yellow out.

Thanks!

 

[Nine_high]

Game night! Expecting 14-16 players so that's just about perfect. Even got a neighbor coming as a spectator who wants to learn. I might be able to convince him to buy in but we'll see

And I'm stoked to finally get these Arias in play!

Thanks for the suggestions.

We ended up with 13 players, only 1 who was late and missed the bonus, and had five rebuys for a total of ~1.2M in play. I went with a structure pretty close to what was suggested here, but just started with the 200/400 level. It went twelve levels and ended on 8k/16k, running just a hair over 4 hrs including breaks.

Next time I think I will add two levels to the beginning. It felt fast even with the more gradual blinds. Or I might increase the rebuy levels to 30 min. Maybe both.

Using the cash set fives as bounties to lure people into the cash game could not have worked better. The player who won the tournament even called me out on this, then proceeded to put all his bounties and tournament winnings into play, and lost it all to me on one horribly failed bluff