Help me decide buy-ins (rebuys/addons) for charity tourny!

[dblgutshot]

All the tournaments I've held have been freezeouts. The largest had 24 people. I'm planning on holding another one where half the prize pool will be donated to Red Cross to go towards the SE Asia Tsunami disaster.

Previously we've had $20.00 buy-in freezeouts, since this is not a lot of money if we just take half the buy-in, I want to try a re-buy/ add-on tourney so that we can pump up the prize pool a lot more and have some fun while getting a bigger donation.

What would you suggest for buy ins and rebuys/addons?

Is it appropriate to have a $20 buy in, but rebuys are $10? Should I change the blinds to accomodate the rebuys and what else should I do different from a freezeout tournament?

Thanks in advance

[TheEleven]

I held a charity tourney last month - it was a little different because we had donated prizes and the buy-in was $100, but anyway...

Starting chips were 1,000. We did unlimited full re-buys through the 3rd blind level if you busted (started at 10/20, then 15/30 and 25/50). At the end of 25/50, we also let anyone with under 1,000 chips do an add-on of 500 chips for half-price. We closed it from there.

Blinds moved every 25 minutes and we finished in about 4.5 hours (with 16 people).

Even though it was for charity, I found that anytime you put certain people around chips and cards, the money will come flying out regardless. Some guys did re-buys then an add-on. Some did 2 re-buys, etc. We ended up raising about $2,500. Good call on the event and good luck...

[ericslagle]

The tournament with rebuys that I play in works like this:
Buy in for $20 and get $500. If you bust or go below $500 you can buy $500 more for $10. This is for the first 3 rounds, but the amount you get goes up a little to compensate for the blinds - (I think 750 then 1000). Then at the end you can get an additional 1000 for $10 regardless of your stack. The prize pool gets huge and people act crazy the first three rounds which results in an advantage to the people that can change gears. Not my favorite way of playing, but the prizes are big. (I took 6th out of a field of 60 and won more money than when I placed 2nd out of 65 with no rebuys.) Also, I know the DD Tournament Poker program I use handles rebuys too.