Looking for a bit of advice

[PokerGoblin]

I'm looking to hold a small private tournament for NL texas holdem. I am going to have a winner takes all grand prize with bounties of five dollars each. Just looking for advice on how much the small and large blinds should be.

Should they be a set percentage of the 35 dollar buy in?

How should I determine how much they should increase as players are eliminated?

One more thing, should there be antes, like in most typical home games?

Any insight is appreciated.

PG

[TheMrLegendary]

Where there are a few questions you are going to have to ask yourself before the tourny. How many people will be joining? The more people you have the less attractive a winner takes all might look to you, just to encourage more players you might want to pay more spots. Paying 1-2 spots for every 10 people is a good average. So if you have like 43 people show up, I would recommend you pay atleast 1-3. So people make money without actually winning the tourny.

As for blinds, if you have a 35$ buy-in for example and you disturbute chips evenly, lets say 35$ a person as you could do this. The blinds would have to be like .50-1$ or 1-2$ to start. If it is No-Limit ofcourse. If you are playing a Limit holdem tourny large blinds are recommended to move things along. Now as for raising the blinds you can have a couple of options, when I play a tourny I go by time. Lets say i raise the blinds every 30 minutes. Or once when a player is gone, but the might encourage tight play. For example: so and so may not bet because they are waiting for John and Sam to get the TKO before. Though if you are playing hourly or bi-hourly blind raises, people will less likely wait out other players. Just some experience on that note. YOu could always mix them as I have done in the past. Every 30 min raise them, and when someone gets the boot. All depends on how fast you want the tourny to move.

As for what to move the blinds to, you should 50% increase or double them depending again on how fast you want to move things along. For example: with 1-2$ blinds to start, you might move to 2-4, 3,6, 4-8. If you want things to move along 1-2, 3-6, 5-10 and so forth.

Now if you are giving everyone like 1,000 or something in chips like most online sites do, no matter how small or large the buy-ins were. You might re-calculate the blinds and such. All depending if you go with the 35$ buy-in as chip stacks or like 100 for each player in chips.

As for antes, in the WSOP NLH Championship, there are antes throughout the tourny. If you are worried about some people playing too tight, then antes might be a good plan, or again if you wish to move the action along, so it moves quickly to help schedules. Its all about preference, and time contraints, so maybe ask some key players or have a vote to start or just decide on your own.

If you hvae more questions feel free to email me at themrlegendary@yahoo.com or thepokerlegend@yahoo.com the former is much better if you want a quick response. Or just let me know how it all goes. Thanks!

[PokerGoblin]

Thanks for the info. My tournament is in 2 weeks. I've been doing a lot of research since I made that post and I've found all the information you mentioned to be consistent with the way it is generally done. Thanks for taking the time to type all that for me I will definitely take all that into consideration.

PG

[mindgame]

I've been running a very small hold'em tourney (just 1 table, 10 players) with some friends and family just to get a little more experience with the game and increase my comfort level at casino play. We've done it a half dozen times and have been tweaking the game each time.

I'm not sure what your goal is. I wanted to put together an evening of poker that would be fun and not too expensive, but still create the feel of serious poker. I felt I needed more hold'em table time but didn't want to play $5-10 at the local casino getting it. Most of the players are pretty decent poker players but not vastly experienced hold'em players. They weren't willing to play a night of strictly hold'em at, say, $2-4. Several of us play at the local casino and they were afraid of getting eaten up.


***Buy-in is $20.
***Everyone gets 750 units to play with (50 white chips worth 1 unit, 25 reds worth 5 units, 15 green chips worth 25 u, and 2 black worth 100 ea.)
***Pot limit. No antes. We start at 2-4, with a 2 unit big blind and a one unit small blind.
We play for one half hour (using a timer), then take a 5 minute break. Blinds increase
every half hour. We move to 4-8, then 10-20, then 25-50, then 50-100. We buy the
white chips back before going to 10-20; the reds before going to 50-100, just to make
counting the pots faster and easier.
***Players may buy back in for another $20 and receive another 750 units, but only if they
have busted out. Buy back in as often as you like. No buy ins after the the second
hour (4th session) is complete.
***Winner is the man with the most chips after 3 hours. He gets 2/3 of the money. 2nd
place gets the rest. No one has won more than twice in our six games.

This game has been a blast. I've got 18 players now and everyone's asked to be invited
back. Originally I thought I'd need to get 10 players promising to come just to fill 8 seats
(yeah, I know, what kind of guys are they, anyway, who'd say they'd come and not
show?) I've had 10 players almost every game, with nine for one.

Half the people are in love with the idea of leaving a poker game after 3 hours with $150-
$200. Most people think the three hour time limit is just about right on. Half of us want to play with a $35-40 buy in, but I can't find 10 yet ready to go on the same night.
I'd encourage you to try the format you settle on with just one table first, then have the players evaluate it. You'll notice that my goal was not to make any money hosting a tournament, but to find a way to simulate serious casiono-style poker without putting a lot of money at risk. Even though there are significant differences between the tournament and the "ring" games, this game has been a huge help to my casino play.

[PokerGoblin]

MG,
Thanks for typing all that. I've realized a few things since I posted that topic... mostly though research and just old fashioned common sense.
The biggest thing is, since everyone is an amateur equal to or worse that I am, it's more about fun and the experience than it is about winning. For the $40 buy- in I've included bounties ($5) for eliminating players, as well as auxillary prizes for best hand thoughout the tournament and a small prize for best losing hand. I think that will make the thing more enjoyable... also supplying the beer and food will also help soften the blow of losing some cash to the PokerGoblin!!!

Thanks again,

PG

[TheMrLegendary]

Best losing hand? Like 72 off being the winner or like a fullhouse losing to 4 of a kind?

[PokerGoblin]

Yea best losing hand as in a full house getting beat by a bigger full house or better... it's just probably gonna be a token prize like a cheap bottle of whiskey or something like that... the rule is that there has to be a showdown for the hand to count. If everyone folds before there is a chance for a showdown the hand is disqualified.

PG