This is what I came up with for my tournaments

[smoore]

Feel free to critique, copy or integrate these ideas. I designed this to allow the "fish" to gambool it up and get lucky sometimes while biasing the blinds and payouts to favor skilled players. I only wish I could have the rounds longer. Latecomers are given 30mins "grace" period in which to purchase thier first buyin. There is no pre-registration. Seating is random, using cards in certain suits to determine table and position. Ace through 10 of hearts and spades, Ace of spades chooses table and seat, Ace of hearts chooses seat and everyone lines up on them.

Chipset, Desert Sands from Nevada Jacks:
Color/Value/800 set/1000 set
Red/5/300/300
Green/25/220/200
Black/100/220/300
Purple/500/40/100
Yellow/1000/20/100

Right now I have 800 of them and allow 1 rebuy if busted (close, actually.... under 200 we let ppl rebuy) with an addon of 1500 (all allowed to take addon). When I get the other 200 high denom chips (and replace those 20 green w/black) I'll be able to allow unlimited rebuys whenever the player is at or below the starting stack during the rebuy period as I'll have enough for 5.9 rebuys per player and enough left over to allow a 2000 addon. The chipset is a little light on green chips but from experience it works fine because as we get to the levels where greens are the "basic" chip people like to bet the blacks anyway. There is some need to make change early in the game but everyone manages.

20 players max:
Red - 15
Green - 9
Black - 7
Starting stack = 1000 $T
Freezeouts start at 1500

One rack of black available for first 10 rebuys, then onto the purples. 20 greens and 10 blacks color up all the red, 50 blacks color up the greens. If max rebuys are achieved, never color up blacks (mmmmm, TV stacks!), otherwise there are 30k worth of black chips, easy to color w/purple and yellow.

Blinds:
Time/SB/BB/Ante
20/5/10/0
20/10/20/0
20/15/30/0
10/BREAK
20/25/50/0
20/40/80/0
20/50/100/0
20/BREAK - Color red chips - Rebuy period ends
15/75/150/0
15/100/200/0
15/100/200/25
15/150/300/25
10/BREAK
15/200/400/50
15/300/600/50
15/400/800/100
15/500/1000/100
20/BREAK - Color Green
15/600/1200/100
15/800/1600/200
15/1000/2000/200
15/1500/3000/300
15/2000/4000/400
15/2500/5000/500
15/BREAK
15/3000/6000/600
15/3500/7000/700
15/4000/8000/800
15/4500/9000/900
90/5000/10000/1000

If I manage to get all the chips in play (180000) the tournament should end at the 4500/9000 mark. Freezeouts end around 1000/2000 if the last two players play well HU. The last round is 90 minutes because the tournament timer I have only does 30 levels. I can only hope we ever get there though.

Right now we play $10 with that single rebuy and addon, I really want to go to $5 when the unlimited rebuys come into play to make a complete gamb0000000l fest [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] Some of my friends are comfortable playing $50 freezeouts but most only like to risk $20-30 on any given day.

Prize structure - percentage:
Players/1st/2nd/3rd/4th
15-20/40/30/20/10
8-14/50/30/20
5-7/60/40
<5/100

So... At $10 if we have 18 players, 9 rebuy+addon, 5 addon and 4 no additional buys, we end up with $410:
1st $164
2nd $123
3rd $82
4th $41
which I round to:
1st $170
2nd $120
3rd $80
4th $40

I use coin envelopes to package the prize money after the addon, this makes it super simple to pay the winners, simply hand them the envelope with thier placement on it. I get the envelopes back, I'm a cheap bastard.

Dealing is accompolished with the "two deck method". You shuffle the deck you just dealt and pass it off two to your left who will deal the next hand. That player offers the cut to his right. Three people are involved in the shuffle. We use the cut card to indicate the "dealer button" in case of confusion. I used to have two cut cards on the table at a time but with one it makes everything crystal clear. The hand is started with the act of handing off the dealer button/cut card for blind level purposes. It hasn't happened yet but if the wrong color card is discovered in a deck it's treated like a boxed card (scrap of paper), and the hand is completed. Then the clock and action stops and all decks in play are counted down and verified. When shorthanded there always seems to be someone willing to shuffle each deck for the players.

[Ratman138]

Sounds like you run a class act tournament. real long levels allows for the skilled players to play, that is great. the only thing i dont like about is the seating. I think ace should be seat one, duece in two, etc etc. i think there is a real advantage for a skilled player to draw a 4,5 6 and pick his seat. other than that, good luck on a successful home game, wish i could join it!

[smoore]

I guess I didn't explain the seating adequately:

Ace is "seat one", deuce is "two", trey is "three" etc.

The only thing that isn't standard is that the Ace gets to choose his seat... skilled players tend to choose the one that lets them see the clock or the other table, fish tend to choose the one that lets them see the TV [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] The Ace spade gets to choose his/her table also... usually the once closest to the 'fridge [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

As an addition:

Rebuys are easy to handle when you can only take one but when I go to unlimited buys for two hours it may get kinda hairy. I'm thinking that I'll get a little aluminum lockbox and a bunch of coin envelopes. After I do the initial buy/rebuy before the tournament starts (all blacks should be out) I'll put all that cash in one envelope and record it's value on the face of the envelope. I will then put a bunch of rebuys in individual numbered envelopes. As I sell them I'll put the cash in the envelope. When I run out of a "pocketful" of rebuys I'll open the cash box and swap the cash filled envelopes for chip filled ones.

I'm a little paranoid about mis-rebuying people in the heat of battle but it hasn't seemed to have happened yet, although I've never counted the chips down at the end to see if the math is correct.

I was just going to suggest something like that. Just go ahead and count out [number of rebuys allowed] per person playing in the tournament before you begin. Set them well aside from the game so you will know if someone decides to snag a stack and add to their chips illegitimately. Hell, make a sheet with tick marks of some type that shows how many stacks are left or how many have been taken, and keep that sheet on your person so you can always check back and make sure none are missing.

[Kosstic518]

Very solid set up, as it was stated before you run a class act tournament.