When should blinds go up?

[jdAA88]

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?

[Lottery Larry]

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)

[jeffnc]

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

[pfapfap]

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.

[jdAA88]

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.

[cabiness42]

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.

[Lottery Larry]

[ 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

[cabiness42]

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.

[OutOfCrown]

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.

[cabiness42]

[ 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.