Tourney Structure

Thanks to Jordan from HighOnPoker for giving me some pointers about tourney structures. I also took a look at what Jamyhawk did in his live charity tournament.

I want to get another big home game going. So instead of the usual, I'm changing it up a bit. We will plan on one long tournament with a double buy-in ($40) and $10 bounties. We will start at 8pm with 10,000 chips and play 20 minute levels. You might think this will take a few days to complete but here's the structure and an explanation:

Level SB BB Ante
1 25 50 0
2 50 100 0
3 75 150 0
4 100 200 0
Break
5 150 300 0
6 150 300 25
7 200 400 50
8 300 600 75
Break (color up 25 chips)
9 400 800 100
10 500 1000 100
11 600 1200 200
12 800 1600 200
Break
13 1000 2000 300
14 1200 2400 300
15 1500 3000 400
16 2000 4000 500
Break (color up 100 chips)
17 2500 5000 500
18 3000 6000 1000
19 4000 8000 1000
20 6000 12000 2000

After 4 hours of play when we start level 13, depending on how many players we get, we are looking at a total of 100 big blinds (if we get 20 players) or 150 big blinds (if we get 30 players) for all remaining players. I don't expect this game to go far past that level.

Whenever I see a tourney structure I immediately try to do the following calculation:
#Players x Starting Stack / BB
This shows me how many Big Blinds there are based on the total number of chips in play and will give an indication of when we start to run short. I also liked Jordan's rule of thumb about people starting to bust out when the BB is 1/10 of the starting stacks.

So according to that rule when we reach the 500/1000 level we will get a lot of bustouts, but I think it will happen earlier because of the antes. So I will plan for about 2.5 hours for that. As for my calculation that we will have 100 BB after 4 hours, this is exactly where I wanted to be. The thing that I hate the most about our tourneyhoods is that once a few people bust out, the blinds start to double and it becomes a shovefest. If after 4 hours of play we have 100 BB on the table, that will give a lot of play in the money as well as a nice heads-up ending.

This is all dependent on the fact that enough people show up. We haven't had big turnouts in the last couple of months. If we can't fill two tables I might have to revise this structure.

The other thing you might notice are the bounties. For some reason, people love these. I guess it's a bit of an added incentive. A killer instinct. Especially when you have cash sitting in front of a player and you can bust him and take it. Cash is king I guess.

Let me know your thoughts, if you have any. I will let you all know how the game went. I know it;s going to be easier than usual, cause Surflexus just replied that he will not be attending. It's always an easier game when he's not playing :-)