Setting up a home Poker tournament

boppy · Sep 8, 2010

Hi Guys i'm looking for a little help.

We play poker tournaments now and again with 6-8 players but we are not setting it up right and would like to know the proper way to do it.

The 500 piece chip set we have aren't numbered so we set the values ourselves as $5, $10, $25, $50 and $100 chips which are probably wrong.

Then we have a level amount of each stack so say 7 $10's all they way to 7 $100's which again is probably wrong hence the topic.

We need to know what the values of the chips should be that will work best for home tournaments and how many we should be giving out of each?

Thanks in advance

Poof · Sep 8, 2010

We usually do ours $500, $100, $50, $25
And start around 2.5 to 3k each, but we usually have 15ish ppl.

I am sure it varies from game to game, and would also depend on where your blinds start, we start ours at 50/25.

CAMurray · Sep 8, 2010

Wheres the game? I want in!:boxing:

WVHillbilly · Sep 8, 2010

It depends.

What's the breakdown of your chips (how many of each color do you have)?
How long are your blind levels?
How long do you want your tourney to last on average?

Lots of good info can be found here: httP://www.homepokertourney.com

HomeBrewer · Sep 8, 2010

In my experience, you can't "do it wrong." As long as everyone agrees with the amount of chips/blinds/length of levels then you should be all set.

tenbob · Sep 8, 2010

Don't use 5 chip colors, its way to confusing, especially if you have newer players.

Generally we use 25/100/500 (3 colors) and start the blinds at 25/50 giving a 3-5K stack depending on how long we want the game to go on.

boppy · Sep 8, 2010

PooffyFooffy said:
We usually do ours $500, $100, $50, $25
And start around 2.5 to 3k each, but we usually have 15ish ppl.

I am sure it varies from game to game, and would also depend on where your blinds start, we start ours at 50/25.

OK thanks

I think we definitely need to rework our chips values then. Maybe go a bit like the wsop style that i just found of, $25, $100, $500, $1,000 and $5,000 to make 10k each, but make the $5000 chips $50 like yours and and make it 4k each instead.

16x$25, 8x$50, 7x$100, 3x$500 and 1x$1000

Does that look OK? Do you think this would work with 6 minimum?

Thanks again

WVHillbilly · Sep 8, 2010

As a general rule you want you chips to be in increments of 4 or 5 times the previous denom. So you really don't need a $5 and $10 or a $25 and $50. So a normal setup would be $25, $100, $500, $2500, $10K

sharkyo01 · Sep 8, 2010

You have forgot some thing massive... Beer

boppy · Sep 8, 2010

WVHillbilly said:
It depends.

What's the breakdown of your chips (how many of each color do you have)?
How long are your blind levels?
How long do you want your tourney to last on average?

Lots of good info can be found here: httP://www.homepokertourney.com

At the minute we only have a set of 300 with 100 of one colour and 4 sets of 50 but were looking to buy some more chips very soon and get a 500 set

Our blind levels are usually 15 or 20 minutes and we want it to last 2-3 hours

HomeBrewer said:
In my experience, you can't "do it wrong." As long as everyone agrees with the amount of chips/blinds/length of levels then you should be all set.

Yeah ours was going well but it just doesn't look right with all the same amount of chips and a massive stack of whites/reds near the end that don't get used

tenbob said:
Don't use 5 chip colors, its way to confusing, especially if you have newer players.

Generally we use 25/100/500 (3 colors) and start the blinds at 25/50 giving a 3-5K stack depending on how long we want the game to go on.

We all get on with 5 chip colours OK now, its just the values and the starting amount we are getting wrong and are hopefully changing with all your lots help

boppy · Sep 8, 2010

WVHillbilly said:
As a general rule you want you chips to be in increments of 4 or 5 times the previous denom. So you really don't need a $5 and $10 or a $25 and $50. So a normal setup would be $25, $100, $500, $2500, $10K

OK

So i guess you would start with quite a few $25 and $100's and a few less $500's so any $2500 chip or above raise could be matched with a mix of them?

WVHillbilly · Sep 8, 2010

Generally you'll want no more than 3 denoms in play at any one time. So when you no longer need the $25's you'd take tham out of play and color up. $2500 might be too big depending on how many $500 chips you start out with so a $2K chip might be better. Unless you play with an ante or have odd blinds, you likely won't need the $25's for more than 2 blind levels (25/50 and 50/100).

With your current chip breakdown and number of players (I assumed 8 players) I would say starting stacks of $5K:

12 * $25 = $300 (96 of 100 chips used)
12 * $100 = $1200 (96 of 100 chips used)
7 * $500 = $3500 (56 of 100 chips used)

Blinds:

25/25
25/50
50/100
- Color up $25 chip
100/200
200/400
- Color up $100 chip
500/1000
1000/2000
2000/4000
-Tournament likely ends at the 2K/4K level
3000/6000
4000/8000

Using the above starting stacks and blinds with 8 people and 20 minute blind levels your tourney should end in about 2 to 2.5 hours.

If you want it to go slightly faster you could remove the 25/25 level as some people don't like it. IMO though a 25/25 level is a nice slow way to start so people can stick around for at least a couple of blind levels.

Makwa · Sep 8, 2010

boppy said:
At the minute we only have a set of 300 with 100 of one colour and 4 sets of 50 but were looking to buy some more chips very soon and get a 500 set

Our blind levels are usually 15 or 20 minutes and we want it to last 2-3 hours

300 is not enough, 500-750 is better for a full table. Also look for deals where they throw in programs like Poker Tournament Manager (great one!!) which u can use to set up your structure, blinds and levels, etc... and it notifies you of level changes, tracks players results (if you want to input that) etc... handles all the tourney details so u can just set it up and play!!

boppy · Sep 9, 2010

WVHillbilly said:
Generally you'll want no more than 3 denoms in play at any one time. So when you no longer need the $25's you'd take tham out of play and color up. $2500 might be too big depending on how many $500 chips you start out with so a $2K chip might be better. Unless you play with an ante or have odd blinds, you likely won't need the $25's for more than 2 blind levels (25/50 and 50/100).

With your current chip breakdown and number of players (I assumed 8 players) I would say starting stacks of $5K:

12 * $25 = $300 (96 of 100 chips used)
12 * $100 = $1200 (96 of 100 chips used)
7 * $500 = $3500 (56 of 100 chips used)

Blinds:

25/25
25/50
50/100
- Color up $25 chip
100/200
200/400
- Color up $100 chip
500/1000
1000/2000
2000/4000
-Tournament likely ends at the 2K/4K level
3000/6000
4000/8000

Using the above starting stacks and blinds with 8 people and 20 minute blind levels your tourney should end in about 2 to 2.5 hours.

If you want it to go slightly faster you could remove the 25/25 level as some people don't like it. IMO though a 25/25 level is a nice slow way to start so people can stick around for at least a couple of blind levels.

Thanks for the structure

We managed to get 10 people together last night for a game and they just wanted to use all the chips (we got 500 chips unmarked) so it looked like they had big stacks to play with at the start (10 of each)

I think its gonna be hard changing this mentality now as people won't want say 1 1K chip because it doesn't look like much without a stack haha

When we get these chips i'm gonna have to re-enforce the point so they know we are starting 4-5k so each move has some value instead of big stacks not knowing how much we have left to play with

Makwa said:
300 is not enough, 500-750 is better for a full table. Also look for deals where they throw in programs like Poker Tournament Manager (great one!!) which u can use to set up your structure, blinds and levels, etc... and it notifies you of level changes, tracks players results (if you want to input that) etc... handles all the tourney details so u can just set it up and play!!

Yeah were looking on getting a 500 set this weekend

Do you know of anywhere that throws in that software with chips?

boppy · Sep 9, 2010

I need a bit more help if possible

I'm struggling to find which chips to go for. Which are better Clay Composite or ABS chips?

These are the 2 different kinds i'm looking at below

Clay Composite

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/500-NUMBERED-...9784?pt=UK_Toys_Casino_RL&hash=item483bd83298

ABS

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/500-pc-LASER-...8774?pt=UK_Toys_Casino_RL&hash=item53e1029686

Also when i do purchase i have to select my denominations, am i best going with something like 200x$25, 150x$100, 100x$500 and 50x$1000?

Thanks guy i appreciate all this help

WVHillbilly · Sep 9, 2010

Those are both just plastic chips with a metal slug in the middle to make them heavy (extra heavy in this case). If you want plastic chips just find ones that you think look good and get them.

As for your breakdown you really need to figure out what your starting stacks are going to be and how many people you'll generally have and work backward from there.

You could always have your own customs made:

boppy · Sep 18, 2010

Hi guys

I got my chips and have another question this time regarding color ups which i have no clue how to do dispite reading up on it (for some reason i wont stick)

Ill run through starting stacks and distribution first

This is for 8 players with a 10k start so its 20x$25, 15x$100, 8x$500 and 4x$1000

Hopefully that looks right

Now in the set i have some $5000 chips, how would i color up to get these involved in the game later on?

Thanks

Chemist · Sep 18, 2010

This is the problem with nobody smoking anymore.
We used to just use matchsticks.

(got awkward sometimes in the middle of a game when one was needed for its proper purpose and nobody had thought to save any).

Also worked well with low value coins. So that everyone knew the value of what they were playing.

But to answer your last question, you just need to remove the lower value chips from play when they are no longer needed because the blinds mean that bets of less than the next value chip would not be valid.
Replace the 4x$25 chips with $100 and 5x$100 chips with $500 chips. And just work your way up as the game progresses.

For your game though it isn't really very necessary as all the chips are on the same table to start.
It is only a problem for multitable tournaments where there are a LOT of chips in play at the start spread across many tables and would be too much when they all arrived at the final table.

Sixes Full · Sep 19, 2010

$5, $10, $25 and $100 is what we use. Stack off when time/players dwindle...

boppy · Sep 19, 2010

Chemist said:
But to answer your last question, you just need to remove the lower value chips from play when they are no longer needed because the blinds mean that bets of less than the next value chip would not be valid.
Replace the 4x$25 chips with $100 and 5x$100 chips with $500 chips. And just work your way up as the game progresses.

For your game though it isn't really very necessary as all the chips are on the same table to start.
It is only a problem for multitable tournaments where there are a LOT of chips in play at the start spread across many tables and would be too much when they all arrived at the final table.

That's the way we normally do it (exchange money for what its worth) but seeing as these are $5000 chips it would take most of your chips if you wanted to exchange to them so thought there might be a way to get them involved nice and fairly

Guess its my fault for asking for a stack of $5000's with the set

boppy · Sep 21, 2010

Just a quick update and to thank everyone for helping out

We had our first game last night and everything went so much better then it did before

The denominations are perfect as are the starting stacks and the blinds. After about 5 rounds we got rid of all the $25 chips so we just had all the big chips on the table including some of the $5000 chips which made it very interesting (people loved being given a Yellow 5k chip and they came in very handy for rebuys and change

).

Also having pre determined starting stacks and not just giving out chips at the start makes a big difference as well, when you start with 14k and people are raising 5k it is so much better (compared to unknown starting stacks, $100 largest chip and raises of like $700)

So thanks again guy its all worked out better than i could have hoped

Setting up a home Poker tournament

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