rules to keep players playing

[duke]

I want to hold semi regular texas holdem nights. Ideally 7-8 players, $25 buy in for your chips, winner take all. I don't want the games to go 7pm-7am. so we want to have a time limit. What rules do I implement to stop the guy with the most chips from folding in the last hour to conserve the chips? Is the best way to make the blinds large enough to eat away at him if he chooses not to play? Does anyone else have ideas I can use?

Thanks

duke

[karasz]

theres really nothing i can think of... cuz if the blinds are big enough and if one guy has a bunch of chips the other guys wont be able to hang... although it will make for a much quicker game...

like lets say 4 people are left out of 8 for a $25 buy in

guy 1 has $90

guy 2 has $60

guy 3 has $15

guy 4 has $35

that leaves guy 3 to have to make somethin happen or hes done... especially if blinds are big enough... guy 1 can sit back and lose his blinds and still be ok...

[Dave B]

In most tournaments you start w/ very small blinds as a percentage of chips and then increase the blinds every 10 hands or 15-20 minutes.

For example-$25 gets you $1000 play chips. Blinds start at $5/$10 and progress to $10/$15, $15/$25, $20/$40, 25/50, 50/75, 75/150, 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 500/1000.

This structure would take about 1-2 hours to get to one player. If you want to stretch things a bit, just increase the time per level.

[HalfSugar]

An alternative that starts off nice to keep every1 happy but then gets brutal quickly is to have blinds that DOUBLE at a specified period.

My friends and I used to play this way with the following rules:

Start chips 1750, SB 25, BB 50

Every 45mins blinds double so obviously it went:

25/50, 50/100, 100/200, 200/400 etc

In over 30 games it only got to 400/800 twice with 6 starting players so no game was longer than 3hrs generally. It's a nice way to play I think but it's up 2u

[duke]

Thanks for your replies. I'll ask you this then. I bought a set of chips. 200 white, 152 red, 104 blue and 56 black. If I make the values 1, 5, 10, 20 each player in an 8 man game has "$370". If I make the blinds 1,2 then 2,4 then 4,8 what would your guess be for an average length of the game, until 1 man takes all. I just don't want to get into a situation where the game goes all night. If there is a better way to value them I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks

duke