First Tourney since here at HPT.com

[thomasjtsi]

 As the subject states, I'm having my first Tourney since being a member here at HPT.com.  It's gonna be next Saturday w/ a $20 buy-in.  20-30 people starting with T10,000 in chips, 20 - $100 chips, 6 - $500 chips and 5 - $1,000 chips.  Below is the blind schedule.  15min rounds w/ no rebuys.  I figure it'll last about 3-4hrs.  Can you guys think of any changes I should make?  Or even things I should be prepared for that you wouldn't usually expect.

[Capstone66]

Thomas,

First of all Good Luck...be sure to have a copy of Robert's Rule just in case there's a dispute.

You will need to add Antes for sure...it's the one thing I am pretty sure everyone will tell you that you HAVE to add.  Using my example below, Ante's usually start after the 4-5th round.

The rest is my experience....

A general rule of thumb I follow is that for a group of 15-40, when the BB reaches the amount of the starting chip stack, you want schedule that round to be pretty close to when you want your tourney to end.

As it is now, you're hitting that mark at two-thirds of the way which I guess is close to your goal.

I've run quite a few tourneys now and feedback I've gotten says it's better to have longer rounds, (20-30 mins) but less of them (9-10 tops) and have the jumps be just a little more severe.  Just remember that the shorter the rounds, the more times YOU have to do something (which distracts from your game) to keep the tourney going.  It also forces action from the short stacks and you won't have nearly as many issues with folks constantly asking "what are the blinds at again?"  Trust me, they'll remember a T2000 to T4000 jump!

Here's the 24 Man blind schedule I am running just for an example.

This Tourney is supposed to last 3 hours and for a 24 man group, I'd consider it to be a MODERATE pace.  This is a good pace for experience Tourney Players, but I wouldn't recommend it for your first-time especially if there are a lot of players that haven't played in a live Tourney. 

Starting Chip Stack T2000

20 Minute Rounds
SB | BB | Ante
25 | 50
50 | 100
100 | 200 |
250 | 500 | 25
400 | 800 | 50
10 Min Break - Color off T25's
600 | 1200 | 100
800 | 1600 | 200
1000 | 2000 | 300
2000 | 4000 | 500
4000 | 8000 | 1000


I would look over what Nutn2lewz has put up too.

Phil  "Capstone"

[4ceps]

the blind escalation looks good; however i would have concerns about the 15min levels, tho'.  a bit too quick for my taste, unless you have small tables.  for full tables 9, 10 or 11 players i prefer longer rounds (30 minutes or more, especially for the first few rounds).

make sure you have enough chips to colour up your T100 chips. i also noticed that you'll need the T100 chips for 8 rounds of play. do you have enough T100 chips to give out more to each player?  try to use up all your T100 for the initial distribution.

i don't think you'll need a break every hour.  just have your first break coinciding with your first colour up..then call a break during table consolidations.  these activities will require pausing the tournament clock anyway, so might as well make them official breaks.

otherwise it seems fine to me
4ceps

[Nanook]

Stretch the times out to at least 20 minutes if you have two decks per table and 30 if you have one deck per.  15 is too fast for the button to go around in a live game.  I would also hold the break off for at least two hours or until you color up.

[austin5string]

Just to throw a dissenting opinion.. My group (actually two groups) never use antes and I disagree that it's something you HAVE to add..  Depending on the experience level of everyone in the group, it can make it more confusing and time consuming.. Is it nice to have antes in the schedule? Perhaps.  Is it more in line w/ most tournament structures? Perhaps.  Is it something you HAVE to have?  Not at all.

I'm also in the camp of preferring slightly longer rounds.  20-25 minutes is good.

~John

[Ducannon]

20-25 is perfect I think, 10-15 is too fast with the conversation that happens at a poker table and 25+ is too long with chips changing hands a lot before it starts getting dangerous.

Just my piece.

[thomasjtsi]

  I don't think I'm gonna incorporate Antes just yet.  Most of the people that are going to be there know how to play Hold 'Em, but don't really have a firm grasp on tournament structure and blinds.  I am however going to run 20min rounds instead of 15min rounds.  We'll see how that works and modify it slightly for future events.  Never the less, this is the first tourney with this setup.... so I know we're bound to run into snags.  I'll be sure to let you guys know how it goes and what issues I run into.  Thanks guys.

[i run 8s]

Here is how we do it and why.   The first 3 rounds are 25 to 30 minutes depending on what time we get started.  We state start time is 7 PM.  1st break is 8:30.  If for some reason were a little late getting started we shorten the first 3 rounds.  We take a 15 min break at 8:30, to grab a bite to eat, and let the smokers die in peace.  When we come back the rounds go to 20 min.  By then we have eliminated some of the less skillful players and things usually go a little faster.  We take an 8 minute break every 4 rounds, unless EVERYONE wants to skip the break.  Works out pretty good for us.  I agree that 15 minutes is way to short.

[thomasjtsi]

 Well, Saturday is the day.  I already have 19 buy-ins w/ 5-10 more expected to show.  Just going to make a few changes to my schedule.  Going to remove rounds 7 & 8 and replace it with one round of 1,500.  This will chip up the 100's after the 5th round instead of the 8th. Going to make the first 2 rounds last 30min and the other rounds last 20min.  Not going to do the Antes, see how it goes without them.  Printed up a HPT.com tourney rule booklet, just in case.  I figure we'll just wing the breaks this go around to get a feel for when they work best.  Make a note then actually incorperate them into the schedule for next time.

[4ceps]

good luck on your big game!

[thomasjtsi]

 Well, we got together around 5pm and played our game.  20 people showed, but only 15 actually played.  Midway into the second round I decided to run every round at 30min.  I feel that worked alot better than two 30min levels and the rest at 20min.  I played somewhat tight for a while, cause I had a few really loose players that were very unpredictable.  Waited for the good hands and raked in a few good sized pots.  Went to the final table of 8 with a decent sized chip stack and ended up placing 2nd.  4th paid $25, 3rd $50, 2nd $75 (me) and 1st paid $150.  I took out the 3rd place guy and pretty brought my chip stack about equal to the other remaining player.  It just so happened that my opponent heads-up was the guy that was giving me sh%t about the way my tournament was set up.  He played really well, and I became impatient.  So... I finished 2nd.  Other than that, everything went really well.  I guess that's about it.  Figured I'd let everybody know how I did.  Prolly gonna make this a monthly deal with guys from work, 'cause everybody had a really good time.  Now, I need to do the same in our tourney on the 31st.  Thanks to everybody and nutN2Lewz for making my first tourney since joining here a complete success.

Justin (thomasjtsi)

[BigKyle]

Congratulations, thomas.  Sounds like your tournament went well.  What was the guy who ended up winning complaining about?  Just remind him that if he doesn't like the structure he certainly doesn't have to play.  I think it was a wise decision to run thirty minute rounds.  How long did the whole thing take?  Take some pics if you can.  I love the different poker pics here.  Once again, great job.

[thomasjtsi]

 It took right at 4 hrs.  Here is a like to the topic I started about what this guy was complaining about.

http://forums.homepokertourney.com/index.php?topic=2108.0

[Captn_All_In]

Hey thomasjtsi, I read your multiple posts about the tourney.  I am glad it went well!  Sorry you didn't beat your nemesis!  Quick question though, I know you said it took about 4 hrs, but what blind level were you playing at?  Also about how long do you think you played 3-way, and then heads up?

Thanks!

Captn