Home Tourney Advice Needed

[Drac]

I'm running my first home tourney in a couple weeks and I'm looking for some tips from people that have run/played in some home tourneys. NLHE, hoping to get 15 - 25 players for a $30 buy in. Any advice on how many positions to pay out, best way to run the tables (play down to x number per table, then merge for final table, keep table numbers fairly even by moving players, etc.) and any other advice people have would be much appreciated.

[jacki]

http://www.homepokertourney.com/

I ran one. Everyone that attended praised me for how well-run it was, and I give thanks to http://www.homepokertourney.com/

[Drac]

Just thought of this issue: Rebuy or not rebuy? I've never played in a rebuy before so I don't have personal experience to draw upon.

[napawino]

Homepokertourney.com is indeed a good site. There is also a forum just for home games on here. ( http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=home )

One thing to consider before doing a rebuy/add-on tourney is that it takes more time because there are more chips in play relative to the blind structure. Also, If you have unlimited rebuys, you're practically ensuring that everyone will be there until the rebuy/add-on period is over - so add that time on also.

After that, I think it's just personal preference. I personally love rebuy tournaments because it increases the prize pool so much, but you'll find some people who can't stand them.

[slogger]

First, if you've never played in a rebuy tournament before, I wouldn't suggest trying to run one. It requires your constant attention and can prevent you from playing your own hands appropriately (assuming you plan on playing and running the thing), even if you're familiar with how it should work.

Second, the homepoker tourney site linked in another response is very helpful.

The way I look at it, you should figure out how large you want the pot to be. If $600 sounds about right, then just go with the straight $30 buy-in and leave rebuys for some future date, after you've had a chance to deal with them as a player only.

I run a weekly home tournament for about the same number of people (we've only pushed it to 3 tables twice, and believe me, 2 can be hectic enough while playing myself). It's a $40 buy-in and we vary the structure quite a bit depending on how long we want the thing to last, how many players we have at the start, and whether we think there will enough people afterward for a good side game.

If you're not too concerned about the length of the tournament, then I always feel that longer is better, especially if you consider yourself to be a better player than your opponents. Because of a general facination with the WSOP, we like to start with 10,000 in chips. As far as chips breakdown, we vary it a bit from the actual WSOP, using:

8 green ($200)
8 black ($800)
4 purple ($2,000)
2 blue ($2,000)
1 orange ($5,000)

We start our blinds at $25/50 (using either 15 or 20-minute levels, depending on how long we want it to go). You can increase the blinds however you feel appropriate, but a good rule of thumb is to never increase them by more than 100% from one round to the next. Once you've determined how long you want your tournament to last, it's quite simple to make sure it ends by that time. As many have suggested (including the website mentioned above), the the big blind should be equal to one starting stack at whatever point you want the tournament to come to an end. Likely, it will be over before that. Obviously, depending on the chips you've got available and the time you want to spend, you can set the starting stack just about wherever you want, but make sure that players have at least an hour to play with relatively low blinds, or else the thing just becomes an all-in fest and isn't as much fun.

In terms of payouts, our rule has been to pay 2 places in tourneys of less than 10 players, 3 places in tourneys with 10-15 players and 4 places in tourneys with 16-23 players. We generally prefer to make the payments a little top heavy, and so we pay 45% to 1st, 30% to 2nd, 15% to 3rd and 10% to 4th.

[gmunny]

Hey Drac,
I've hosted a few 2-3 table NL events at my house and related your question on tables, I tried both ways, 1) taking top 2 or 3 people from each table to go to the final table and 2) constant table combining/balancing with the final 6 going to the final table. If you take the top 2-3 from each table, the only down fall is that one table may finish way earlier than the other tables so the players would have to wait. The problem with table combining/balancing is that it requires your constant attention (which is a pain when you are playing). You have to keep track of who is busting out, who posted the last blind, making sure everyone stops the action so you can move someone, etc. Also, when we played, I had some complaints from both tables because the chip leader moved from one table to another! The table combining/balancing was good in theory, but difficult to execute, so I think for the next one, I am going back to the top 2-3 for each table move on the final table. I figure that if a player is going to the final table, they won't mind waiting! I know I wouldn't mind. Good luck.
G$

[Drac]

Thanks for the great info guys. The homepoker website is a great resource. I had missed the home poker forum here so that was a helpful redirect. Anybody else with some suggestions?

[Drac]

Bump for one last shot at some more advice.