Three-Table Tourney Help

[The_Missile]

I'm thinking of putting together a 3-table tourney, roughly 25-30 people involved. We've never had more than a 2-table, 18 person tournament, and we almost always play 1-table tourneys. That being said, how do you think setting up a tournament like this would be best?

Sometimes we do chip values where you start off with 50 chips per person, each chip equals one, and the blinds raise at increments of 1-2, 2-4, 3-6, and so forth, about every 20 to 30 minutes. Or do you think for a tournament like this, values would be better? Also, how do you say we draw seating- completely random? And what time do you think would be best for starting.

Any suggestions very helpful. Thanks.

[CardSharpCook]

When me and the CIA boys would put together tournies it would go like this....

Seat draws:
[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]=table 1, A-10 for seat number
[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]=table 2, A-10, seat
etc.

Button in seat 1.

We would do $30 in chips, blue, red, white, black, green. .25, .50, $1, $2, $5.

Blinds start at .25/.25 and increase based on how many players were left. In general, this meant doubling the blinds every other time a player went out, but once you get down to a few players, double every time a player goes out (or increase to a reasonable amount.)

Our theory on blinds was: we want the BB to be about (AND NO MORE THAN) 5% of the avg stack. This adjustable depending on how many players you have. We did do a time based increase once, but we prefered this method as it allowed for better play.

We would always start at 4pm and the tourney would last 3-5 hours depending on play and number of players.

Payouts:

We'd often say, 3rd gets money back, 2nd gets double, 1st gets the rest. At least if we had 9 or more this is what we would do. We never had to pay more than 3 spots. I think we maxed at 15 players once, but we were always prepared for more.

CSC

[jgodin]

All the home game tournaments I've been a part of have been the same as you suggested, except I would really consider timed blinds. I have played in 3+ table tourneys that have used both approaches, so both would work.

The reason I suggest timed blinds is because the players will always know their chip position realtive to the blinds for the next few hands. Too many times I have had an average stack with 15 or so people left only to have 3 folks bust out in 4 hands and leave me with only 7BB or so. It seems to punish those who don't aquire chips quickly (I usually don't).

Depending on how much time you want the tourney to last, you can up the blinds every 15, 20 , or 30 minutes. There are computer programs that will keep the blinds, time left each round, and blinds for next round, which you could then display on a tv, projector, etc. Or, an egg timer from Wal-mart at each tabe would work too.