I deal and run small tourney's at a local card room. The Sunday tourney is $40 buy-in and usually 3-4 tables. We have only been open a couple months - in a town of about 5 or 6 thousand people.
This is how we run em. 20 min blinds, 4k chips. We use 5k chips for the $100 tourney. Each player only starts with 21 total chips. These chip quantities work fine even at a single table tourney of 9 or 10 players. Color up at break every 3 levels. The tourney today was 25 players, and the HU match ended at the 3k/6k level.
