Opinions on Rebuy Blind Structure

[Befolder]

I've really enjoyed all the discussion that I've seen here from Lotto larry, Pfap and the other regular home tournament contributers.

I'm having a game tomorrow that is about twice as large as our average game over the years.

It is a $10 buyin/$10 rebuy/$10 add-on w/ $5 bounty chip game.

Lowering our buyin from $20 to $10 has had a tremendous effect on the increase in pot size. Our group is a wide variety of skill and bankroll.

The payouts are very flat as it's most important to keep the casual players coming back. So we pay about 33% of the group. Here are the payouts I've developed:

8-10 plyrs: (1) 50%, (2) 30%, (3) 20%
11-14 plyrs: (1) 40%, (2) 30%, (3) 20%, (4) 10%
15-17 plyrs: (1) 40%, (2) 25%, (3) 17%, (4) 10%, (5) 8%
18-20 plyrs: (1) 37%, (2) 22%, (3) 16%, (4) 9.5%, (5) 8%, (6) 7.5%
21-23 plyrs: (1) 33.5%, (2) 20.5%, (3) 15.5%, (4) 9.5%, (5) 7.5%,
(6) 7%, (7) 6.5%
24-26 plyrs: (1) 31%, (2) 20%, (3) 14.5%, (4) 9.5%, (5) 7%,
(6) 6.5%, (7) 6% (8) 5.5%

Rebuys are allowed through round 5 in order to grow the pot and give ample playing time to the casuals so they'll want to return.

Starting stack is T5000, rebuys are T5000, the add-on is T6000, so a decent value as we want to encourage pot growth from those who usually don't add-on.

The goal w/ the blind schedule is to get a good amount of play during the rebuy round, but also not making it so low that rebuys don't happen.

Our current tournament had a similar first five rounds, but this time the 5th round is 300/600 instead of 250/500. Here is the full blind schedule:

SB BB Rnd Length
25 50 30
50 100 30
100 200 30
BREAK 5
200 400 30
300 600 30
BREAK 10
400 800 20
600 1200 20
1000 2000 20
BREAK 5
1500 3000 20
2000 4000 20
3000 6000 20
4500 9000 20
6000 12000 20
10000 20000 20
15000 30000 20
25000 50000 20

The start is 100BB, but doubles often early to make up for the slow start.

Because it is a rebuy tournament, I've read on homepokertourney.com that the tournament should end around the time that the BB is about 6-10% the total chips in play. This has to be estimated. We've only done one of these $10 tournaments, but last time the pot was 2.5x the initial buy in pot so I estimated about 220,000 chips in play and the 6K/12K blind level is about where we should end. It's looking to be about a 5 hour game or so.

All the ones I've put together before have ended pretty well with our last one seeming to be the most smooth. However, this group is more than twice that size, so I hope that I've made the proper adjustments. After the second break when rebuys are over, the blinds move up sort of gradually for two or three levels, then they had to start progressing so the game would end at a decent hour.

Questions, comments, suggestions? This will be the first time we've needed a third table so we're really excited about the turnout.

P.S. The winner of the previous tournament always has to wear a goofy ass poker medal all night as punishment for winning.

[pfapfap]

Blind schedules and payouts are quite difficult to get right. I've spent much time on many revisions, and I may have to do it again now that my rebuy system has changed.

How have people who rebought in round four or five fared? The BB in round 5 is more than 10% of the starting stack, which is rather steep. Would you be able to slip in a 75/150 and 150/300 round? Maybe as compensation you can shave off five minutes each from the first five rounds, if you feel it'll go too late.

If it's workin' for ya, then great, keep it going. With twice as many people you may be looking at more than twice the prize pool, as the bigger it gets, the more incentive people have to keep rebuying. Good luck!

[Befolder]

Thanks for the reply. For the most part, the crowd has been mostly passive, which is why I have bumped up the early round a tad bit, but it does feel steep to me as well.

I can't count the number of times I've revised both the payouts and blinds.

We have a lot of new people this game though, many of which have never played with us.

Adding the extra 5 minutes to each rebuy round is kind of how we tried to compensate for increasing the blinds a bit more?

Do you think moving everything back to 25 minutes and easing the blinds back a bit would be better? I certainly don't want an all in fest too quickly after the add-on break.

Giving those 5 minutes back to the later rounds might help there as well.

"How have people who rebought in round four or five fared?"
That's a tough one to answer. As the most knowledgable player in the game and the bankroll to handle it, I have zero problem rebuying multiple times if that's what it takes.

Most of the rebuys come from the better players and a couple of loose players who rebuy multiple times. It'd be nice if that spread out to the other bad players who aren't so good. I think at $10, it may work out. This is only our second run at this buy in level so our sample size is too small for me to expect perfection. I just don't want the blind schedule to end up being a disaster.

[Befolder]

How about this as an adjustment?

SB BB Rnd Length
25 50 25
50 100 25
75 150 25
BREAK 5
125 250 25
200 400 25
250 500 25
BREAK 10
300 600 20
500 1000 20
700 1400 20
1000 2000 20
BREAK 5
1500 2000 20
3000 6000 20
5000 10000 20
8000 16000 20
12000 24000 20
20000 40000 20
30000 60000 20

Added a rebuy round, but reduced the first rounds to 25. Total rebuy time is the the same though. Last rebuy round is less than the previous which was 300/600.

Seems like a pretty smooth progression from there.

[Small Fry]

The schedule looks pretty good.

By tremendous effect I assume you mean it's grown?

How big is the average prize pool? And first is about a third. Whats this vs the average cost of per player? My point here is what kind of reward do they see for their $10 (probably really $20 as I assume almost everyone does the add-on)

Example: In my tourney with 27 guys the pool is about $800 with first place paying 45% or $360. 800/27 is roughly $30. So on average a player invests $30 for a chance at $360. If I cut this to 33% top guy only gets $264.

For me the payout is a little too flat. I would pull out the last place or maybe last two spots and split it up in some fashion between the top two. Give them something big to shoot for. It's a little like the lottery. When the prize is big everybody wants a ticket. Just my .02

Enjoy and good luck

[Befolder]

[ QUOTE ]
The schedule looks pretty good.

By tremendous effect I assume you mean it's grown?

How big is the average prize pool? And first is about a third. Whats this vs the average cost of per player? My point here is what kind of reward do they see for their $10 (probably really $20 as I assume almost everyone does the add-on)

Example: In my tourney with 27 guys the pool is about $800 with first place paying 45% or $360. 800/27 is roughly $30. So on average a player invests $30 for a chance at $360. If I cut this to 33% top guy only gets $264.

For me the payout is a little too flat. I would pull out the last place or maybe last two spots and split it up in some fashion between the top two. Give them something big to shoot for. It's a little like the lottery. When the prize is big everybody wants a ticket. Just my .02

Enjoy and good luck

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, the effect is that the prize pool is grown.

Due to the lower amount of regulars, a flat prize structure is probably a reason that the semi-regulars keep coming back. They have a better chance of cashing, even if for a smaller amount. The other prizes do take a hit, but for this casual crowd, a prize of $100 or so is impressive to them. The main focus is fun, as I try and bring more and more of the poker world in, a little at a time.

There are some that are resistant to change and complain about rules, so I have to ease in that stuff. They don't seem to understand that it's the rules that protect them. They've never seen angle shooting or anything like that so their naivity make them wonder, "what's the big deal?"

Over the past two years, the buy in has been $20 w/ a $20 rebuy. We averaged about 8-12 players a game, w/ usually no more than 4-6 rebuys. There was no add-on.

Since I joined the game, I've been able to influence the previous host to make some changes and after talking to him about standard blind structures and other things, he's let me take over that part since I'm the most knowledgeable.

Since bringing the game to my new house, we've had two $20 buy in games w/ a $20 rebuy and $15 add-on. That brought about 15 or so people as we've grown the overall invite list over the last couple years. Rebuys were very low though. Only about 4 and add-ons were also only about 5. This is more a group of people looking for entertainment rather than a poker game. We've managed to combine the two well enough to get the casuals to attend. We also added the $5 bounty for the first time and there have been no complaints about that extra cost and it seems like people like it.

So we decided to see what would happen if we lowered the buy in and other options all to $10. Our first attempt over a month and a half ago only got nine attendants, likely due to scheduling conflicts. However, those 9 players did a total of 16 rebuys/add-ons, which is a tremendous increase over the normal numbers.

The pot was $250 for nine players, not indlucing the bounties.

This Saturday is our 2nd attempt at the $10/$10$10 +$5bounty game and I sent out the Evite three weeks prior.

We have a whopping 21 people signed up, far and above our biggest game. So we estimate a pot of about $500 (not counting bounties) based on the last $10 game result. The average cost is going to be about $25 for a first prize of about $170 or 6 or 7 times their entry. With a schedule as flat as we have, I know that the folks that are coming will be happy with that.

There are only three players coming that even play online or are serious about the game and that includes me. The other 18 are just recreational players.

I am planning a big buy in for the warmer months w/ a slow schedule and long hours for a $40/$10 bounty freezeout. This will likely only draw our more savvy players and I'll hope to make a steeper payout for that one.

[Small Fry]

Sounds like you've found what works best for your crowd. In which case I wouldn't listen to what I had to say either...lol. And I guess what I thought was a flat pay structure is top heavy to others.

Always good to hear what others have done or tried though. I think I'm going to try a heads up tornament in May which I think will be fun.

Keep up the good work. Getting to 3 tables is going to mean a lot more work for you. Well maybe not "a lot" but I felt going from 2 to 3 created more work than going from 1 to 2.

[Befolder]

[ QUOTE ]
Getting to 3 tables is going to mean a lot more work for you. Well maybe not "a lot" but I felt going from 2 to 3 created more work than going from 1 to 2.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've only realized this only after reading your guys' posts this week. I help manage a softball team w/ my same friend and that is one pain in the ass.

I've recruited him for Ast TD on Saturday. I figure in the least, he can handle chips for rebuys and I can handle the software part to get back in our seats ASAP.

[Lottery Larry]

[ QUOTE ]

Rebuys are allowed through round 5 in order to grow the pot and give ample playing time to the casuals so they'll want to return.

Starting stack is T5000, rebuys are T5000, the add-on is T6000, so a decent value as we want to encourage pot growth from those who usually don't add-on.
BREAK 5
200 400 30
300 600 30

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't like the T6000 add on. That's only 7BB worth. That might be typical, however- I don't have a lot of rebuy tourney experience.

[ QUOTE ]
Because it is a rebuy tournament, I've read on homepokertourney.com that the tournament should end around the time that the BB is about 6-10% the total chips in play.

[/ QUOTE ]

Whether it's rebuy or freezeout doesn't matter. It's closer to 3-5%.... think about it, two players will split the chips in some manner, someone is going to be 8BB or less and it should end shortly.

I'll look at this more later- have to make the kids dinner.