running a tourney

[RJT]

Our church is going to have a Texas Hold 'em tournament at our next annual festival in July. (You know Hold 'em is here to stay, when the churches get in on the action. BTW was my idea, so blame me.) Fairly new to the game myself and only played one tourney in B & M so far and a few at home games. Looking for sties and or ideas so it runs smoothly. Having seen questions in B & M thread on real casinos screwing up, I want it to run as smoothly as possible. I am starting early to plan.
I will need all the basics of running a tourney along with things like:
Do you suggest having dealers at each table (will be harder to man) or can we pass the deal as in home games?
Another example of concerns is the chips we use. If we buy good chips - what would we do next year if we lose starting inventory - either from lost chips(not a big problem) or someone taking some (they could bring 'em back next year if they return and have advantage)? Wouldn't want to have to buy different chips every year, unless decent (useable) chips are inexpensive (haven't checked prices yet.)
Thanks in advance

[deception5]

This site has some pretty good info on this... and free computer programs to download to help run the tourney as well if you choose.

http://www.homepokertourney.com/

[Lurshy]

Depending where you are, there are companies that will run poker tourneys for charities. They come in with tables, chips, dealers. They take a cut of course, so it may not raise as much money for the church, but at least it will be well run...

Try the web, or event planners in your area to locate...

[RJT]

really good site deception - thanks

[RJT]

Thanks Lurshy - Live near Youngstown, OH -i.e. we all grew up around gambling (and most of our names in our parish end in a vowel) - we'll take it frome here - lol

[JJNJustin]

Oh I have some suggestions for you. Chips are very easy. 5star deal sells 8 gram diamond composite chips. They are the most reasonable priced and very adequate chip quality. They are like $8 for 100. They come in 8-13 colors. You can like chip up 1000 more for $80 if your tournament grows. I would get reds, greens, blacks, purple, and oranges. Denominations: 5,25,100,500,1000.
There are a few people on ebay who will print out custom labels for your chips. For example they will print out something like your Church name and denomination on a 1" circle sticker that you put on the front and back of the chips. It makes for a nice look and also keeps cheaters from bringing in chips in their pockets and putting them in the game. You can get like 5000 stickers for like $50. It's definitely worth it.

I would make sure you get a good small blind/big blind schedule. I go to many tournaments where the blinds are not handled correctly. Making sure the blinds escalate at the right pace is crucial (in fact, its the only real decision you have to make concerning the tournament. Everything else is secondary). The main thing with the blinds is that the rate of escalation should always be faster at the beginning and slower at the end. For example, if you are doubling the blinds at the beginning, you should be increasing them by say 1/3 or 1/4 later on. I have been to many tournaments where the blinds are slow at first and then escalate enormously fast. This is the equivalent of driving a smooth 20 mph and then hitting the gas to 120mph. It makes for quite a jolt. There is a web site Tex's TEARS which is a mathematically derived blind schedule and payout format and it is very good.
The main thing to remember is to calculate how many chips you will have in the game (playersxstarting chips + average rebuysxrebuy chip amount) divided by the last two players to figure approximately how much they will have. The game will end somewhere when their average chip count is 10-20 times the small blind. For example you have 100 players and the starting chips are 1000 and there are no rebuys. You have then 100000 chips in the game and the last two players will have 50,000 a piece approximately. Therefore the final blinds will be around 2500-5000 to 5000-10000 and you should schedule your tournament appropriately.

I prefer having dealers because players get more hands per hour and therefore have a better chance of catching cards. Passing the deal really slows the game down. No to mention the possibility of cheating or front loading. However, having dealers has drawbacks: you have to pay them. Still, I feel that this is worth it, even if you have to charge a slightly larger entry fee (+$10say?).
Another important detail is coloring up the chips. This is important because it makes the game go faster. You dont want players taking ten minutes to count their chips everytime they go all-in. And you dont want odd amounts which make side pots harder to calculate. When the fives and 25s are no longer necessary, you should make an effort to get them out of the game. You go around with black chips and buy them all up and leave the players with only a few odd chips in front of them. Then you "race them off" by dealing out cards and awarding the winners of the race a black chip for the odd chips being contested for. This is very important because you dont want odd chips in players stacks. " I'm all in for 1725" and then "I call and I'm all in for 2530". Figuring out the side pots with these straggling chip values is tough. When the blinds 100/200, get rid of all the 5 and 25 chips.

Finally, there is software called Tournament manager which, if you hook it up to a big screen projector and shoot it on the wall will help keep everything on time and organized. It has a clock and displays the blinds and chip values and does random seat changes for you it is very good to use.

thats about it

-J

[RJT]

Great tips Justin - I will print out your post for my file. I did think a bit more about dealers and Deception sent me a good point about dealers,too - I am thinking about training some of our people -We have many in town who belong to the church who play, who will help deal- This will work better than passing the deal (only problem is we will lose them as players, but will be worth it). Ohio Charitable Gaming Law does not allow for hired guns.

[HoldingFolding]

We ran a tournament at our pub on Tuesday and used tournament director (http://www.thetournamentdirector.net/) , but you have to be careful about setting the length of the blinds and should probably try a dry run. We had ours at 30 minutes and this proved too short.

[Zog]

Are you thinking about limiting the number of players? If you get a lot of players, you have to start thinking about how long the whole thing will take.

Also, because you are likely to get a lot of inexperienced players, who are just there because its a charity event, you need to try to make it fun for them. I'd consider making the first 2 levels longer so that they can at least get an hour or so of entertainment.

Dealers will help move things along and keep the rules straight so there aren't arguements. Even it they are just experienced players and not professional dealers.

Will you pay out cash prizes for the top players?

[zaxx19]

I got about 8 words into this post before cracking up...Jesus through checkraising?? I know in Islam gambling is verboten(uhh doesnt seems too stop Hamid Dastmalchi, Mohammed Ibrahim,Hassan Habib.....)I also know in Judaism it is legal and that playing the dradel(you know that spinning top thing in hannukah)was a form of gambling(think craps). From what I remember of 3 yrs of thrice weekly communion at a baptist prep school gambling WAS in fact an undesirable activity, am I wrong??

[RJT]

Nah, gambling is cool with us Catholics. Goes back to the apostles. When the disciples had to replace Judas, they chose Mathias by random choice ("lots", as in lottery).
Hey, maybe Texas Hold'em can win the peace in the Mid East if we introduce it there.