Online Private Tourneys?

[T.J.]

Sorry if the wrong forum, but was wondering if anybody had any experience is setting up a private online tourney? Reason I am asking the two home games I play in are getting thinnner and thinner so I suggested the online private thing, and got a pretty good response from the guys. Now if you guys could help me with a couple of questions:

Do you know of any sites that do this?
Buy ins from $10 - $50.
Can we set the amount of chips, blind structure, and length between blinds?

TIA,
TJ

[jalsing]

I know pokerstars does, but I'm not sure what's required to get that setup. You'll end up paying the buyin plus site fee just like one of their tourneys, so $10+$1 type of thing. I don't know if you can set the blinds, schedule, payout, etc, but they do for sure offer them, so check them out.

[Etaipo]

Yup, PokerStars is one place, however, you have to have a certain amount of their frequent player points, and if I recall, it was a pretty high number. 2,000? 20,000?

Another alternative is UltimateBet, they will set them up for any player.

Simply drop them an email. They will want to know the players screen names ahead of time, and need a day or two of notice to be sure that the tournament is set up on time. Same deal, 10+1, 20+2, whatever. I do not believe you can change the default chip/blind structure, but you can ask.

Be aware that once they have a list of the user names who will be participating, they will DEDUCT THE ENTRY FEE FROM THEIR ACCOUNTS AND REGISTER THEM! I thought this was kind of weird, as in they have no choice or confirmation in the matter. What if someone you didn't know signed you up for a tournament while you were out of town or something?

[Tom Bayes]

E-mail PokerStars and ask to be set up to run private tourneys. If you have played there enough (I don't know the minimum, but I made it), you will be given the ability to set up private tournaments at your convienience. There will be a new option in the pull down menus that will allow you to create these tourneys. You can chose from a number of buy-ins (I think $10+1 is the smallest) and all of the games that PokerStars runs. You don't get to chose the blind or pay-out structure. You will use whatever the standard structure would be for a regular tournament for the game you chose (i.e. a no-limit holdem tourney would start with 1500 chips and 10/20 blinds that increase every 15 minutes).

Your tournament will have a password you create that others will need to sign-up. The other players don't pay until they go to the private tab in the tournament lobby and sign up themselves.

I know some other rooms do private tourneys, but I don't think any of them have the process as streamlined as Stars.

[PinataUT]

I have a large group that I want to bring online for that type of thing and Stars seems like the place to do it.

2000 frequent player points required to be able to set up the private tourneys. I'm pretty sure you could set round length (e.g. 10, 15 or 20 levels) but maybe someone else can confirm that?

[amlindauer]

Regarding PokerStars, unfortunately you can't adjust the blind structure or level times.

I've never dealt with UltimateBet.