Home Tourney Idea

[Jonsan]

I had this idea for my home poker tournament, and wanted to get feedback from the 2+2ers.

I hosted my first game last month. NLHE tournament with two tables. $10 buy-in with 50%, 30%, 20% prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively. The blind structure was a mess because I didn't do enough preparation.

Next game I will again have two tables, and I am keeping the $10 buy-in. I changed the blind structure so it doesn't suck. Last time, after enough people busted out to form the final table, I had a group of folks who didn't want to shell out more cash to start their own side game, but were just bored. This time, I want to make a consolation table. When enough people bust to form our final table, those who were knocked out will sit at the consolation table. They will get new chips, and continue playing. The person who wins at the consolation table will get their buy-in back as a prize.

Waddya think?

Jon

[varoadstter]

Problematic.

When do you draw the line on entries? The way you describe it the guys who bust out earlier get an advantage over the guys at the final table who fail to make the money. It would seem the only "fair" way to do it would be to wait until only the guys ITM would still be playing. If you have to wait that long does it really help your problem?

Good luck.

[beetyjoose]

I kind of like the idea, but it has a few flaws. The biggest being that someone could do better in the main tournament and not win anything, while someone from the consolation table wins their money back.

For example, most likely the person who comes in 4th place in the main torney isn't going to get the option of playing in the consolation torney, nor will he win any $$.

If no one cares about that, I say go for it.

Of course, if it were me I would tell everyone to squeeze a few more pennies out of their $#@es and pony up some more cash for a side game.

[Jonsan]

[ QUOTE ]
Problematic.

When do you draw the line on entries? The way you describe it the guys who bust out earlier get an advantage over the guys at the final table who fail to make the money.
Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought about that, but I can't wait until we are down to the final 3 to start the consolation game. I figure the game is only $10 buy-in, and after all, it's poker. The people are there to gamble, so the folks at the final table risk going away empty-handed, but they also have a shot at the prize money.

Jon

[stevea]

Sounds good if you have enough players...if you had 16 players, total prize pool = 160-10=150.

1st = 75
2nd = 45
3rd = 30
bust out prize = 10

Only question is...when do you start the bust out tourney, and do you let players join in later? Maybe instead of one tourney do a series of heads up tourneys so you can start them each time 2 players bust out.

steve

Check out my home league: <font color="red">North Shore Low Rollers</font> (http://www.homepokerclub.net/clubhome.php?clubid=1)

[MrBrightside]

yeah. we usually play a $20 or $25 tourney with 14-24 players. They usually start a second tourney for $10 once six people or so bust out.

If it's a big tourney with 21+, there is usually a second side game started once enough people bust. Some people just leave, and that's fine, but most stay.

Note: our "second tourney" is usually pretty simple. The side games always buy chips in .25/.50/$1 (we have different chips) and they just play with those. if you get $10 in chips and start with a single .25 blind, then go .25/.25/ .25/.50, .50/1 it works pretty well. Sometimes we just skip the single blind level.

[Slacker]

Sounds like fun to me. What are your staring chip stacks and what's your blind structure?

[MrBrightside]

for the main tourney? pretty deep stacked. we like them to last a while (start about 8 -- relaly 8:30 -- and last til 2 or so). Here's the last one with 18 players:
$10,000 in chips (yeah, these guys get a kick out of pretending to be big shots and saying "raise $10,000", so we humor them). These are 30 minute levels:

levels:
50/100
100/200
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000 (race off the 50 and 100 chips here and 15 min break)
1000/2000
2000/4000
3000/6000
4000/8000 (it ended here, as I recall).
5000/1000

we used to have a 25/50 round and do some antes later, but decidedd to do away with the antes and once we did that, we just ditched the 25/50 round to not have to race off those chips later. Now we play with 50/100/500/1000 chips. Using the 1000 chips really cuts down the physical number of chips.

sometimes we play this same structure 3 table (up to 26, although 24 is the most we've had). When we do that, we reduce the number of chips a little bit to lower the chips in play.

As you can see, you start with 100 BB, so it's a deep stack tourney. We've gotten some comments from people who've played in others about how much more fun it is. Usually it is two hours before someone busts out. We have some VERY casual new players, so they are sure to get their money's worth. We recently upped the buy from $20 to $25 and made the prize pool slightly deeper/flatter (for instance, we paid 5 at the 18 person above and we now pay 6 at the bigger ones).

Anyway, this has worked well.

[ricdaman]

To fix the flaws, I would make the following change:

Start the side-tourney once 10 players have busted out.

As more players bust out of the main tourney, they get an entry into the side tourney at the time they bust out. (up to 4th place in the main tourney). This allows the players in the main tourney who finish 4-10 to continue playing for their buy-in in the side-tourney.

So, with 10 people left in the main tourney, you start the new game with the other 10 people:

10 / 10

Now let's say 1 person busts out of the side tourney, and shortly thereafter, someone busts out of the main tourney... you now have:
9 / 10

In the event someone busts out of the main tourney while there are still 10 players left in the side tourney, that person would wait until someone busts out of the side-tourney before taking his seat:

8 main / 10 side / 1 waiting

If it gets to the point where the side tourney finishes and the main tourney is still playing ( 4 main / 1 side ) then the side tourney would be post-poned until another player busts out of the main tourney ( 3 main / 2 side ).

The advantage is that the players who place 4-10 in the main tourney would still get to play in the side tourney, with players already knocked out behind them, but they have the disadvantage of being up against huge chip stacks compared to thier initial buy in. It should make for an interesting side tourney as your players that come in late with few chips are the ones that did better in the main tourney and probably play better poker.

Good poker players with few chips vs. Bad poker players with lots of chips. I think that would make one very interesting side tourney.

What do you think?

[TN_POKER_MAN]

I'd encourage them to start a cash game instead of a new tournament game. Simply because having players join a tournament that is already in progress could present issues.