Better way to end game?

[duke]

I had my first home game, 8 players $25 buy in with the person with the most chips taking all at midnight. It went real well and everyone enjoyed themselves but everyone agreed a need to end it differently. With 3 players left at the last deal they were all close to each other in chips. This meant that all 3 had to go in for the last hand so you might as well cut cards for the pot. If you did't go in you were guaranteed to lose.
Any suggestions to make it a more skillfull ending?

Thanks

duke

[ballbp]

The only way to stop those kind of endings is to keep raising the blinds at specific times. If you raise them enough, by the time it gets to time to go, no matter how many are left the blinds will eat you up if you're not either getting good cards or not trying to push people around with mediocre cards at times.

[JimTheBullet]

Have to agree with the last post. When I play home tournaments we usually start with very low blinds (10 - 10) and then escalate every half hour. If everybody starts with 1000tc and you escalate so that the levels go, say:

10 - 10
10 - 20
25 - 50
50 - 100
100 - 200

etc

then the game comes to a natural conclusion as more and more players have pressure on their stacks. Obviously, you need to tweak it a bit to suit your styles and the length of time you have to play the game but after a few tries you should find an appropriate blinds structure.

[JohnnyCache]

Also, you can pay more then one place . . . top two or three . . .