home game: tourney or ring?

[sleepyjoeyt]

A friend of mine is going to host a Texas Hold'em game with a bunch of relative newbies who have seen WPT on TV. He has asked my advice on setting it up. Here is his story: doesn't feel great taking a lot of $ from acquaintances but wants to have a serious game, would like to make it enjoyable enough so that people want to come back again, etc.

My goal would be to make some money on a night like this, especially if it is a regular thing, but also don't want to make anyone unwelcome and wouldn't play too "offensively" towards any player as to make them feel uncomfortable.

A ring game would typically be $1/$2. Tourney would probably be $10 or $20 buy-in, no limit.

His thought was start off with a tourney and have the blinds increase rather quickly (say on each orbit) to push the game along, so that if we start with 8 people the tourney would be over within 2 hours.


What is the best approach and do our slightly different agendas play into it?

Any other general thoughts would be appreciated.

As a side, I have played in this particular house game before when playing dealer's choice and have typically won a little money without exposing myself to too much risk.

A typical win is $40 to $50. I also would not want to go for the throat and attempt a big score. I guess I say that on the theory of "You can shear a sheep a hundred times but skin him only once". I'm perfectly happy going there, enjoying myself, and winning $50.

Please comment on specific topic or anything else that seems relevant.

Thanks.

[Lottery Larry]

"His thought was start off with a tourney and have the blinds increase rather quickly (say on each orbit) to push the game along, so that if we start with 8 people the tourney would be over within 2 hours."

Try this- initial stack size is 30-50x the size of the BB. Set the big bet equal to the initial stack, on the round/time you want to end the tournament approximately. Then figure out the increasing blinds and the time per round from there. If it gets less than 12-15 minutes, they might not be happy with the speed of play
Since you only have 8 players, you might even be able to made the rounds 5 minutes long. His orbit idea isn't a bad one either.

It will be tough to have a ring (cash) game with the dropouts during the tourney- do they like to play short-handed?
If they can play a little longer, maybe a rebuy rule would work. There is nothing worse than busting out 5-10 minutes into a tournament and having nothing else to do.

[robbo76]

The tournament style worked well for something my buddies did with the same scenario.. mostly relative newbies.

We actually ran through several times for those that wanted to stay longer, but a $10 buy in for 8 people worked out nicely. We split the pot three ways (the guy in 3rd got his money back).

We played with 800 in chips, and the games ran about 1 & 1/2 hours each. Was a good enjoyable evening, and I came home with $50.

Robbo

[sleepyjoeyt]

"Try this- initial stack size is 30-50x the size of the BB. Set the big bet equal to the initial stack, on the round/time you want to end the tournament approximately. Then figure out the increasing blinds and the time per round from there. If it gets less than 12-15 minutes, they might not be happy with the speed of play
Since you only have 8 players, you might even be able to made the rounds 5 minutes long. His orbit idea isn't a bad one either."

It could just be the cobwebs from too many drinks last night but I"m not really following.

I think by this thinking the first orbit would be 10/20. What are the subsequent orbits (do they double?).

I'm not very experienced in tournaments.


So if we each have 1000 in chips, where do the blinds start?
How fast do they increase (every orbit ok)? Antes or no antes?

Thanks.

[Lottery Larry]

I am not a tournament expert either but here are some of the things I have learned from running mine

"I think by this thinking the first orbit would be 10/20. What are the subsequent orbits (do they double?)."

depends- see below

"So if we each have 1000 in chips, where do the blinds start? How fast do they increase (every orbit ok)? Antes or no antes?"

Antes will make the game go faster since there is more to play for on each pot. You might be able to slow down the blinds progression if you use antes.

At 2 hours your blinds are $500/$1000. Your starting blinds would be $10/20 up to $15/30.

Here is a sample with no antes:
15 min 1 - T10/20
15 min 2- T20/40
15 min 3 - T35/70
15 min 4- T50/100
15 min 5- T100/200
15 min 6 - T200/400
15 min 7 - T350/500
15 min 8- T500/1000

[cferejohn]

A couple alternate ideas:

Idea 1: Do the tournament with 30-50x the BB, but raise the blinds every time you lose a player rather than on time. This makes it so new players won't feel 'rushed' by the constantly ticking clock. If you raise them faster than the ratio of chips/player drops, it will also make the tournamnent move faster and faster towards the end, which is good for the players that have gone out.

Idea 2: Have a low stakes no-limit cash game. Something like $5 or $10 buy in with blinds at .10/.25, or even .5/.10. We've had a lot of fun at my low-stakes home game with inexperienced players playing $5 buy-in .5/.10 blinds NL. If someone gets a 'huge' stack (like $20), we'll usually make them cash out down to $5 or $10. Even if someone busts, going back into your pocket for another $5 or $10 isn't really a big deal...

[LetsRock]

Tourney's are a two edged sword: They're a lot of fun, but it ususally winds up that several players are knocked out fairly early with nothing to do until the tourney ends. If there's plans for another game or tourney after the first one, you risk losing players who don't want to hang around. And the ones that do can be a distraction to those still playing.

I'd advise to have regular tourneys, but play mainly ring games. Make the tourneys special events and it's known that if you bust out early, you can go home or hang around if you like. But ring games keep everyone around as long as they want so it's best to have ring games for most of your poker nights.

Low limit NL can be fun. I play in a game where we overvalue the chips (much like a tourney) but you can cash out anytime you like. $30 buys you $1,000 worth of chips (each game dollar = .03 cash when it comes time to cash out)
It allows you to feel like you're gambling big, but it really doesn't hurt you if you get creamed. This can work for any buy in amount and it's easy to change limits. Our game has buyins from $25-60 but you get the same number of chips each time. But it could be done for as little as $10 and still be able to cash out easily.

It'll feel a bit odd at first, but once the players get used to it, it works fine.

If you're going to do a tourney before the ring game kind of thing, it's best to have a very fast moving tourney (very aggressive blind increase) so that those who do bust early won't have to wait for hours.

[Hedge Henderson]

For starters, it's a given that, while your goal and your friend's goal aren't exactly opposites, they're close. You'll need to compromise.

A NL tourney can be a lot of fun, even for newbies, but trying to complete the thing in two hours means a complete crap shoot. With several new players and 15 minute levels, you'll be lucky to get in a full round of hands before the blinds go up. We've been playing weekly for more than two years and, even today, I can count on one hand the number of our regulars who will act quickly in a NL game. 35 minutes for a ten-handed round isn't unusual, especially if we've got some new players at the table. Even if they don't really know what they're thinking about, some people do have to think. After all, they've seen it on TV.

If you want to have an edge and your friend wants everyone to get their money's worth, you'll probably need at least four hours for a tourney. After much trial and error, we came up with the formula we've used for the last five tournaments:

-Everyone gets 200(!!!)xBB to start
-Blinds double after the first hour and double (more or less) every 40 minutes after that.

We rarely have anyone bust out in less than three hours and we rarely have a tournament last more than five. The bad players have fun and the good players get paid. Everyone's happy.

If this is going to be a regular thing, I second the suggestion of a ring game with "special occasion" tourneys at scheduled intervals (say, once a month). $1/$2 for limit may be a little high, though.

If you're playing with friends (and want those people to remain friends), I've always found it easier to work backwards to determine limits. First, figure out the maximum, as in once in a blue moon, will be ridiculed for weeks to come, acceptable loss. Second, figure out the maximum acceptable weekly loss, as in "it's embarrassing, but my wife won't kill me".

For a no-limit ring game, average the two, divide by 200, and adjust for convenience to give you the big blind amount for a 6 hour game. For a limit game, double the weight of the maximum weekly, average, and divide by 50 to determine the big bet.

For example, if you don't want anyone to lose $100 except on very rare occasions, and having at least one player lose their entire $30 buy-in once a week is acceptable, $0.20/$0.40 blinds would work for no-limit and $0.25/$0.50 blinds for limit. If the number for limit seems low, it is. I've noticed that, in our game at least, we have a lot more players involved in limit game pots than no-limit game pots.

You'll have to adjust the numbers up or down for your game. If, when you play limit, you've got a lot of people folding preflop, you might actually be able to play that $1/$2 game. With a lot of very agressive players in NL, $0.15/$0.30 or even $0.10/$0.20 blinds may be more appropriate.

Whatever you end up playing, good luck and, most importantly, have fun.

[DonWaade]

I started a home game with some friends not too long ago. They all were new and had seen WPT as well. Thus, they wanted to play NL. We usually played a 20-40 buy in, but if you have the time and only have between 5-9 people, try playing a freezout and the blinds double when someone is eliminated. Sounds kinda outlandish, I know. But this way, people will learn and not feel as bullied as they might normally. It worked well for me and we did that a couple times til people got good enough to understand the concept of blinds increasing. . .

just a thought

[Toonces]

The format that works for me that I'm used to is a combination.

We usually play a ring game for 3 hours, followed by 1-2 1.5 hour tournaments. People tend to enjoy them without being overly concerned about the crap-shoot nature. And the people that drop out usually volunteer to deal, so they ae not overly bored. I would worry about the people that lose 30 minutes into a 4 hour tournaemtn, and if you are playing NL, it will happen.

The other possibility is a long tournament with a 1 hour reuy period.