Quintessential Question: Brick-and-Mortar Tourney Starting Chips....

[StickyWicket]

Just thought I'd take a poll after playing live for a number of years and playing online for the past 12 months...

Los Angeles - local card rooms here generally spread higher-limit buy-in tourneys on a regular basis ($300 and up). Rounds are 40mins, blah-blah-blah. For your whatever-the-dollar amount buy in, they flip you $800 in tourney chips and say "Bon Chance."

Online: Generally whatever your buy in, you're scoring upwards of $1000-$1500 in tourney chips for your buy in, 12-15 minute rounds, blah-blah-blah.

Let's get to the meat: I'm of the impression that the B&M casinos around here are thinking with the wrong head by offering so few chips in relation to the buy-in and the rounds. With $800 in chips and beginning blinds at $10-$15, you've got 53+/- X the BB. Online, you get to see at LEAST 2X as many heads for sometimes TWICE the starting chips and smaller blinds to start ($5/$10), and though the escalation is quicker, you're seeing more hands to balance it out.

It just seems that the B&M casinos are more concerned about how long the tourneys last - fewer starting chips=shorter tourney and faster bust-outs...as opposed to the tourney structures that are always lauded by the pros playing in the $5k and $10k buy in events ---- more starting chips and a good blind escalation structure allowing for good play to overcome the "oh [censored] I have to play a hand now 'cause the blinds are $50/100 and I haven't won a f'ing hand the whole first hour and I'm down to $600..."

Now, I'm not saying every event should offer $5k-$10k in starting chips....however, it would be nice to see some of the casinos like the Bike and Commerce step it up and offer tourneys with good play in mind, not just how long their dealers are on the clock flinging cards to people playing hands for no rake...$1500-$2500 in starting chips...40 minute rounds...Mind you, I'm talking NL and Limit tourneys here...hell, I'm sure the other games would benefit from the change in starting chips as well...The Bike does a 10X your buyin for starting chips during their Mini-Series of Poker tourneys...what? We gotta deal with a short stack for the rest of the year, too?

I'm of the school of thought that if you wanna play on luck and what the deck gives you, go play a turbo tourney online with 6-minute rounds...If I'm dropping $300-$1000 on a B&M tourney, I'm looking for some tools to work with instead of watching the blinds eat my chips like they're triscuits with squeeze cheese on top as the first hour deals me jack [censored] on a stick.

Not whining----looking for perspective from the masses... [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]