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Floor, on 1!
Floor, on 1!IntroductionMost of the issues of running a home tournament are easily solved — you pull out the chips and the cards, restock the fridge, pull a couple of extra chairs from the garage and you’re ready to get the cards in the air. But two home game tournament issues aren’t always so easily solved even by guys who’ve played a fair bit. The first arises at the start of the tournament, namely, how should you structure the blinds so that you can get your drunken friends out of your house before 1 A.M.? The second issue shows up at the end, that is, who’s next in the blind when one or more of the blinds busts out? Unless your home game is held at the Bellagio, you’ll likely serve as the tournament director and floor man for these decisions, and chances are you won’t have a copy of the Tournament Directors Association guidelines or Robert’s Rules of Poker handy. The following two part article should help you sort it all out. Part I: The Blind Structure First, let’s talk about the tournament blind structure. You’ll probably want to set the tournament up so that players will get a fair amount of play time, but it will still end at a reasonable hour. Trust us, there’s nothing worse than dealing what seems to be an endless tournament at 2am on a weeknight. A quick way to tailor your blind structure to your desired tournament time is to: 1) decide how long you want the tournament to run; 2) pick a starting stack size; 3) make the starting big blind equal to approximately 1/100th of the starting stack; 4) make the final big blind equal to about 5-7x the average stack heads up; 5) scale the levels accordingly. For example, say you want the tournament to last at most 3 hours and 9 of your regular players have shown up. If your starting stack is 1000 chips, make the first big blind 10 (1/100 of 1000) and the final big blind 800 (9 players x 1000 chips / 2 = an average stack of 4500 heads up. 4500/5 = 900 and 4500/7 = 642. Pick a final big blind somewhere between 642 and 900. In this case, we chose 800). Then scale the blinds slowly at first to give players a chance to play a little, but accelerate them toward the end to make sure the damn thing finishes at a reasonable hour. Based on the above, your blind structure might look like this:
Now with this structure you’ll want to determine a level time that will bring your tournament to a close in 3 hours. If you use the same level time for each of the 12 levels you would set the time to 15 minutes (4 levels per hour, 12 levels in 3 hours). Two other options would be to get rid of 1 or 2 of the first levels and use 20-30 minutes per level time. If you find that most of the players are still around after the first 1-2 hours you can always agree to shorten the times later on. It is important that all of the players understand that you may need to shorten the times. A typical no limit tournament will end when the average stack is somewhere around 5-7x the big blind. In this case, since you’ve set your big blind accordingly, you can be confident your tournament will finish within the 3-hour time allotment. Note that this structure would work well with 4 colors of chips (signifying denominations of $5, $10, $25 and $100).[1] You’ll also find the play will move faster if you convert smaller denomination chips ($5 and $10 chips) into larger denominations after level 5 or so. Of course, if your home tournament includes a more than 9 players or re-buys, you’ll need to experiment a little given the increased chips in play. For example, if you have 9 players and you allow a 1-time re-buy in the first four levels and four players choose to do so, you’ll have about 13,000 chips in play at the end. Once you’re down to two players, the average stack will be 6,500 chips, about 8x the big blinds in the structure above. The tournament will probably still end within the allotted time even with the extra chips, but if you want to be sure, make the final blinds a bit larger. For example, you might bump up the last few levels:
If you want a longer tournament, you can 1) start players with a larger stack, 2) reduce the blinds or 3) make the level times longer. Similarly, if you want to shorten the tournament, start with fewer chips, make the blinds steeper or the level times shorter. You should experiment with adding levels or adjusting level times to account for the speed with which your tournament runs, but the above method is a good way to get started quickly in picking a structure that works for your home game. And don’t forget to adjust your own play according to the blind structure you set up. The last thing you want to do is get blinded out of your own home tournament! Part II: When the Blinds Bust Out Ok, your tournament’s been running about an hour or so and one of the blinds busts out. Now what? Who posts the big and the small, and who gets the button? In a live tournament, there’s a dealer or floor person to sort out the carnage, but in your home game, you can’t call the floor. As a result, there’s often debate about who gets the button, and more importantly, posts the blinds. Proper button and blind positioning always matters, of course, but when the blinds are high and the players few, it REALLY matters. The most common tournament rule for handling this situation is the dead button rule and that’s the one we advocate — it’s simple, fair, and again, what they use in most live tournaments.[2] Under the dead button rule, the big blind is posted by the player to the left of the last big blind. The small blind and button are then positioned accordingly, even if this means the small blind or the button is placed in front of an empty seat, giving the same player the privilege of last action on consecutive hands.[3] The three common scenarios and how you handle each are outlined below. If the big blind busts out, the button moves to the player who had been the small blind and the player to the left of the busted big blind posts the big blind. There is no small blind for that hand. On the next hand, the button moves to the busted player’s old seat and the two players to the left post the normal small and big blinds. Since the button is now at the empty seat, the player who was the small blind before the big blind busted will be the last player to act. If the small blind busts out, the button moves to the busted small blind’s now empty seat. The player who was the big blind now posts the small blind and the player to his left posts the big blind. Since the button is now at an empty seat, the player who was the button in the prior hand will act last again. The case that causes the most confusion is the one in which both the small and big blind bust on the same hand. In this case, the same player will, in effect, be the button three hands in a row. (It’s good to be the button when the blinds are busting!) The button moves to the busted small blind’s old seat and the player to the left of the busted big blind posts the big blind. Again, there is no small blind for that hand. On the following hand, the button moves to the next empty seat (the busted big blind’s old seat) and the two players to the left post the normal small and big blinds. Heads Up You’re down to two players. Now what? The normal rules for positioning the blinds change when only two players remain in the tournament. In this case, the button and the small blind are always the same player; the other player posts the big blind. The small blind/button is first to act before the flop, but last to act for all remaining betting rounds. A special rule is also applied for placement of the button when the table collapses to two players. For example, if one or more players have busted out such that only two players remain, the position of the button may need to be adjusted before playing heads up. In this case, the big blind continues moving to the left, and the button is positioned accordingly. Conclusion To wrap up, the key to finding the right blind structure for your home game is to experiment a little and see what works. The guidelines we gave above will be a good starting point, but you’ll want to adjust for players, re-buys, your chip denominations, etc. If it doesn’t work out like you’d like, make a note and adjust it the next time you play. With one or two tries, you’ll find something that works for you and your friends. Whatever structure you do choose, be sure that everyone playing in the tournament understands what you are doing, and any changes that may be made during the tournament in an effort to finish at a reasonable hour. As for the blinds, it’s not a bad idea to go through the bust out situations we give above, with cards, chips and the button, just to get a sense of how it works. In our experience, when it gets late, it gets a little murky, especially with Jim Beam and Johnny Walker offering advice. It’s not a bad idea to practice a little away from the tournament so that it’ll be second nature to you when the situation actually arises. Good luck! -------------------------------------------------------- [1] Many off the shelf chip sets include chips in four separate colors. [2] Two other methods for resolving the button movement are the moving button rule (rarely seen) and the simplified moving button rule (used by online sites). Under the moving button rule, the button always moves forward so that a player never has the right to act last twice in a row. The blinds are adjusted accordingly, and every player must post small and big blinds in order. This may (and often does) result in multiple blinds being posted in a given hand. Online card rooms use a variation on the moving button rule called the simplified moving button rule. Under this rule, the button always moves forward to the next player and the small and big blinds post in the two seats to the left of the button. Players can and do miss blinds repeatedly throughout the tournament, and because of this, many tournament purists hate this rule. [3] Robert’s Rules of Poker. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||