Hosting a home game

hey everyone well My friends and I normally have a Home Game once ever 2 weeeks but havent for about 2 months because of AP exams Sats and Final Exams. We are playing again today and one thing that has always bothered me about home game is that ours last about 5 hrs. Our starting chip stacks will be between 1500 and 1750 with 5 to 7 players. How often should i get the blinds to go up to cut it down to 3 or 4 hours. Normally we do half an hour is this normal or not(cause if that is i wont change it to make it shorter) we start 5 10 and just double them each time and then go to 50 100 when its two people left. Any suggestions? thanks every body.

Normal is anything from 5 minute blind structures to what you have. If the games are taking too long shorten them to 15-20 minute blinds. I believe these are pretty much normal on a lot of the online sites.

This is not online, this is live. If you have 5 minute blinds live with 7 players, you will get 2 hands in.

I would try 15-20 minute blind levels or you can just change your whole structure.

5/10 -15min
10/20 -15min
15/30 -15min
25/50 -15min
50/100 -15min
75/150 -15min
100/200 -15min
200/400 -15min

This will make for a nice 2-21/2 enjoyable game.

20-25 minute levels sounds about right if you want to bring it down to about 4 hours. You shouldnt really cap it at 50/100 either. Its only really at 50/100 or 100/200 that the chips start to move significantly enough for players to start busting out. Try 20 minute levels starting at 10/20 and you will most probably get finished inside 3-4 hours.

Stolen from Home Poker Tourney - How to Run a No-limit Texas Hold'em Poker Tournament

Attached Images

blinds.JPG (24.0 KB, 35 views)

I play quite different at my local games. We start with 5000 chips, 2-1,000 3-500 and 15-100. Blinds start at 100&200 and the blind goes up every time someone goes out. Th game lasts about 2-3 hours and is always fun!

We (normally around 7 players) raise (double) the blinds every 15 mins and get a good few hours of playing.