Home tournament free-buy?

[cferejohn]

Hey. I'm going to be running a small ($30) home tournament in a couple weeks. I've already got my structure, chip values, levels, and prize pool division set up. A lot of the people who may be coming are very new players, so I wanted to make sure that no one would go out too early so even the losers would 'get their money's worth'. I came up with the idea of a 'free-buy'.

Everyone starts with T200 in chips. In addition, everyone gets 2 T100 chips that they can add to their stack anytime in the first hour (2 levels); obviously you can't add them mid-hand. It's like a single rebuy, but it is free. You can, of course, choose to add the chips right away, but you can also hold onto them and put them in if/when you get busted.

Keeping in mind I am doing this to encourage novice players to play and to make it less likely that anyone is busted right off the bat, do you think:

1. This is a great idea for a cheap home tournament trying to get new people interested in poker because it will allow them to play longer and give them a 'security blanket' if they make a horrible error early on.

2. This is a bad idea because it will confuse the heck out of the players it is supposed to help (since it is one more thing to remember/deal with).

3. This is a bad idea since it will give the players who don't know what they are doing one more mistake to make (imho, the best EV play is clearly to take the extra chips immediately).

I'm on the fence about it now, so if anyone has a compelling argument either way, I will probably be swayed.

Thanks!

Chris

[banditbdl]

Definitely 3, the new players will almost invariably elect to not put the 200 extra in right away, most waiting till their busted or nearly busted. This is hugely -EV and nearly guaranteed to happen, bad idea given your goal.

[ThinkQuick]

If the goal as stated is to get them 'their money's worth'... "free-buys" are a really really interesting idea that may hurt their chances or winning the tournament, but increase the length that they play or at least give them that '2nd chance'. Even if they get out in the first 20 minutes, they would've had to be all in 3 times (assuming they save their stacks to re-buy) and lose, the kind of action that's definitely worth the tournament fee.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
free-buys" are a really really interesting idea that may hurt their chances or winning the tournament, but increase the length that they play or at least give them that '2nd chance'.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm gonna be at this tourney, so they're chances of winning are slim and none anyway. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

I play at a local lodge tourney where half the players have almost no idea what they are doing and most of the rest have absolutely no idea what they are doing. In order to keep 'em coming, they play three hours of limit holdem with blinds going up every 45 minutes. This gives the truly clueless at least an hour's fun, although some still manage to bust out pretty fast. They take a dinner break and then play no-limit, with blinds and antes escalating every 30 minutes. The lodge brothers drop like flies after the break, then complain about their luck. You might try something similar. I ran a one table home tourney the same way, and it was a bit more fun for the dead money players as they got to stay around longer. I've played twice, finishing 16th and 2nd. Almost any 2+2er could reach the final table more than 1/2 the time.

[Bulldog]

Good idea, but not an original one. There was a major tournament ($5000 buy-in) in Europe last year that used this format. The thought process was to entice the American players to make the trip, by playing this way they would feel like they weren't flying across the ocean to maybe go out on the first hand. I think they used a marker or something like it, not chips, probably to prevent players from slipping the extra chips into the stack mid-hand. I believe they weren't allowed to exchange the marker for another set of starting chips until they were busted out, but I may be wrong about that.

[Lottery Larry]

I would say that you should make it a free rebuy instead.

One- it will mimic more closely the "real world" of casino play. It should help them to practice at home before they hit any card rooms.

Two- It will extend their playing time if this a NL tournament. They can't bust out for their whole stack no matter what they do, if you make it a rebuy rather than a anytime add-on.

Why so low on chips by the way? Not enough supplies?

[gmunny]

I think "free" is a good idea especially with a lot of newbies. IMO i think a free rebuy will be better than a free add-on. Meaning players would only get the chips if they bust out. It will also generate a lot more action from the expereince players because they will tend play more loose toward the end of the rebuy period if they have less that the rebuy chips.

To help out newer players, I've held a few single table SNG tourneys for a cheaper buy-in ($10) prior to larger multi-table tourneys. If your blinds go up fast enough (for single tables we use rotations instead of time), you can play 2-3 a night. That would give some of the players more experience in a tourney format.
Good luck,
G$

[Mikey]

The best way to drag out a tournament is to, make it a limit-hold'em tournament, and keep the chip stacks big but the blinds really low.

For instance $500 in chips and play 2-4 hold'em with 1 and 2 blinds.

This should drag it out, make the next level $3-6 hold'em.

then after the 5th or 6th level, make it no-limit.

Everyone will have a grand old time.

If you want it to last longer, Add more to the first Variable. i.e. Make the stacks $1000 each.

A No-Limit Hold'em tournament is not really a good idea for novices, because some get knocked out fairly quickly and then they just sit around do much more worse than good

e.g. they walk around your house.
they start discovering whats behind each door.
they start making long distance phone calls.

you know things like that.

Keep them at the table, make it a long drawn out tournament.

[Uston]

What exactly do you have behind your doors? And do your friends really just pick up the phone and make long distance calls without asking? Doesn't everyone in America have a cell phone with free long distance now?

[cferejohn]

Thanks for the replies. A couple things:

*I find limit tournaments pretty boring, frankly. I rarely play them, and definitely don't have much interest in running one.

*Someone asked "why so few chips"? 400 is actually quite a few considering that the blinds will start at 1-2 and advance quite slowly in 1/2 hour levels. If I don't do the free-buy thing, I'll just give everyone 400 to start. Sure I could add an extra 0 to everything to sex it up, but really that's just going to make everything more complicated.

I played in a similarly structured home tournament where every player started with 200, and that worked pretty well (well, until they ended up freezing the blinds at 5-10 for about 2 hours before realizing that it would go on forever and finally starting them moving them up again).

[cferejohn]

I already semi-addressed this, but I think 400 chips is plenty. That's starting people out with 200x the first BB, which seems like plenty, even for NL.

I'm only really worried about people going out in the first hour, just because it doesn't seem like it would be much fun. If people start going out after an hour or so, that's fine because a) it has to end sometime, b) I have more chips for people to start up a side game if they so desire, c) I'll have a BBQ set up (BBQ before the tournament) and some WPT tapes in the living room so people can entertain themselves if they go out.

I'm not really too worried about people walking around my house or using my phone. And there is nothing particularly interesting behind any of the doors. If they go digging through my room, they might discover (if they didn't already know) that <gasp> I have a bong. I just told a bunch of strangers on the internet I have one, so I'm not really concerned about people I would invite into my house... /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Lottery Larry]

I don't even have a cell phone yet, my first DVD player came in January and don't even ask me about my computer.