blind raises for 10 person tourney

[orbie]

I will be hosting a 10 person tournament with friends.

can anyone suggest the best way to handle blind raises?

I would be starting each player with $1,100 in chips.

any advice is greatly appreciated.

[CrisBrown]

Hi orbie,

For my home tourneys, we start with T1500 (5xT5, 10xT10, 15xT25, 10xT100), with blinds of 10/20. We use 25-minute rounds, with a 10-minute break at the end of each hour. The blinds escalate as follows:

10/20
15/30
<end of first hour and we do a chip race, replacing T5 and T10 chips with T25 chips>
25/50
50/100
<end of second hour>
75/150
100/200
<end of third hour>
100/200 + 25 ante
200/400 + 25 ante
<end of fourth hour>
300/600 + 50 ante
400/800 + 50 ante
<end of fifth hour, chip race replacing T25 chips with T100 and changing T100 for T500>
500/1000 + 100 ante
750/1500 + 100 ante
<end of sixth hour>
1000/2000 + 200 ante

That's the highest level we go to, and to be honest, we've never reached that point as no tourney has lasted past the fourth hour.

Cris

[triplc]

A couple of suggestions...

Stay away from antes if this is your first crack at a home tourney. They often just add confusion and delay the play. And you should tailor the time of the blind raises depending upon how long you want the tourney to last. For example, I have played in some after work tourneys that raised the blinds very quickly so that we would guarantee that we'd finish by 10 p.m. This means that the end turns into an all-in fest, but at least we know we'll be done. If time is not a factor, consider the long times that CrisBrown suggested, because that lends itself to more strategic play right to the end.

Also, have you thought about "coloring up". To keep things simple, we often start at 25/50 so we don't need $5 chips.

Hope it goes well.

CCC

[orbie]

I had made some blind raises like the kinds suggested. I would prefer to stay away from the antes. I've only played in one tourney with them and didn't like how it slowed things down.

I have purchased other chips to color up. I've played in a couple of tournaments. I mainly wanted to see if I was on the right track for my first attempt at hosting.

Thanks for the advice. Any additions are still greatly apprectiated.