When should blinds go up?
 

Me and my friends usually play a home game every week with about 6 players in total.
The buy-in is usually $20 with blinds starting at $.10-$.20...then after about 45 minutes we usually raise them to $.25-$.50 but after that no one usually wants to keep raising them until there are only 2 players left.

Is there a certain standard or average when it comes to the blinds going up and also how much they should go up by?

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

The only reason that they go up at all is to control when the (tourney?) ends. If your system works for that and you get a winner (winner take all?) in the time frame that you need, then don't worry about the "standard".

If you're talking about a cash game, similar idea. Usually blinds aren't continually increased, though some home games do this "bump the blinds" thing to push the end of the evening.


To answer your last question- B&M tourneys usually range between 20 minutes up to 2 hours per round/level (WSOP main events are the latter)

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

Your post isn't clear at all. Are you trying to play a tournament?

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

It sounds like you're playing a cash game. If the chips on the table represent real money, there's no reason you have to play "winner take all". Make it a cash game, let people rebuy, keep the blinds the same all night.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

Sorry about that...we play a winner take all game, it's not a cash game.
Re-buys are also allowed within the first hour of play.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

There is no absolute "right" way to do it, but two guidelines I always use in setting a tournament structure:

1) Initial BB is 1-2% of starting stack (You are right at 1% so no problem there)

2) BB at the time you want/expect the tournament to end should be 1.5-2% of the total number of chips. In a 6 person tournament you have $120 in chips so an ending BB of $2 should work.

Then just stagger your intermediate levels in between your starting and ending BB. Something like this could work:

0.10 - 0.20
0.20 - 0.40
0.30 - 0.60
0.50 - 1.00
0.75 - 1.50
1.00 - 2.00

That's 6 levels. If you make them 20 minutes each you are reaching level 6 after 1 hr 40 min of play.

Edited to correct typo.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
2) BB at the time you want/expect the tournament to end should be 1.5-2% of the total number of chips. In a 6 person tournament you have $120 in chips so an ending BB of $2 should work.

[/ QUOTE ]

TWO percent? My experience is that it needs to be closer to 5% of total chips, or you risk an extension

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

1.5% means that the average stack for HU is just above 30BB and 2% means that the average stack is 25BB. Unless you have two very good and evenly matched players, they aren't going to last 20 minutes with stacks that short. Even if you do, just add one more level with the blinds doubled and you're sure to get it over quickly then.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

I happen to track this in a home tournament I run; here are the numbers for our last 12 tournaments, shown as # of initial players (shouldn't really be a factor, but shown for completeness) and the BB when the tournament ended, as a percentage of the total chips in play -- i.e., BB / (startstack * Nplayers)

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
# players BB% at end
8 4.3%
9 1.3%
9 1.9%
9 1.3%
8 2.9%
8 8.6%
13 7.0%
8 5.7%
11 8.3%
6 2.9%
11 4.2%
6 5.7%
</pre><hr />

The tournament format we use has no ante.

As you can see, there's a lot of variance, which presents a challenge in trying to get the tournament to end by a certain time. In particular, the longest tournaments (the entries with 8% BB factors) I remember as being one of those all-in fests where the shortstack just always won and the chips just kept going back and forth ad nauseum.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
As you can see, there's a lot of variance, which presents a challenge in trying to get the tournament to end by a certain time. In particular, the longest tournaments (the entries with 8% BB factors) I remember as being one of those all-in fests where the shortstack just always won and the chips just kept going back and forth ad nauseum.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, you're right that you can never be certain. What we do is have the BB at 2% at our target end time, and then after that, we double every 10 minutes so you're at 8% when you're only 20 minutes over your time. My group is mostly beginners, though, so we've never made it to 8% and only once did we get to 4%. To get beyond 2% you need two pretty good and evenly matched players, or you need the short stack to win several all-in races in a row.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

thanks alot, this seems like a good idea.....another problem i've run into is with chip values...we have 500 chips to be split between 6 people....and with blinds like that what would you suggest?

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

500 chips should be more than enough for 6 people.

I'll assume you have 100 each of 5 different colors unless you tell me otherwise.

each player starts with 15 white = 0.10
each player starts with 14 red = 0.25
each player starts with 10 blue = 1.00
each player starts with 1 green = 5.00

When the blinds get to 0.50/1.00, you can remove the white chips and add in some black (10.00) chips.

Also, just so you know, unlike a cash game, the starting chip stack for each player does not have to equal the buy-in for a tournament. There's nothing wrong with doing it that way though.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
each player starts with 15 white = 0.10
each player starts with 14 red = 0.25

[/ QUOTE ]

ugh ugh UGH! Never have chips that you can't divide into one another/make change for.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

Well, you can change two 0.25 for five 0.10. If they have more than 100 of one color, they can make the smallest amoun 0.05 and start with a larger number of those. Otherwise, you're constantly making change and it slows the game down.

I guess to be ideal, I'd abandon the concept of having the starting chip stack equal the buy-in and just make the lowest blind level $25/50 like I do at my game.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

okay so if i forget the idea of the chip stack = the buy in amount........how do i do it?

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

What cabiness was saying is that you don't necessarily have to make your starting stack equal to your buy-in since you are playing a tournament. Another words, if you buy-in for $20, you do not need to start with $20 worth of tournament chips. It's fine how you are doing it, but not quite standard. Typically you would all start with a set amount, say $5,000, then make the initial blinds $25/$50.

If you are doing a cash game you should keep your low value chips and allow people to buy-in and cash out whenever they want.

Re: When should blinds go up?
 

Well, I use $25 as my smallest chip for the reason that it's only 4 chips up to the next value ($100) where if you use $5 it's 5 chips up to $25 or if you use $10 it's 5 chips up to $50. For a 6-player game it doesn't make much of a difference but if you ever grow to having more players it really saves on the number of chips you need.

Now, the standard would be to start blinds at 25/50 and then go to 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 150/300, 200/400, 300/600, 500/1000. I personally don't like doubling the blinds from level 1 to 2 so I start at 50/100 and then go to 75/150, 100/200, and so on, but that's really a matter of personal preference. In either case, just set your starting stack to be 50-100 times the first BB and then go from there.

I guess to sum it up in general terms, my order of thinking goes like this:

1) Determine chip values based on the number of players in the tournament and the number of each color chips that I have to use

2) Set the first BB = 2 times the value of the smallest chip (or 4 times if you're like me and don't want to double after the first level)

3) Set the starting chip stack to 50-100 times the first BB

4) Set the BB for your target end time to be about 2% of the total chips in play

5) Fill in the blind levels in between your start and end levels, plus add another level or two after your end level just in case you need them.