Found a really good deal online for NJ Skulls. Looking for a set primarily for NL tourneys with between 10-20 players at most. We play currently with a ridiculously fast blind structure, which I'm not a fan of at all. Start with 8k in chips and blinds are 100/200 and go up every 20 min. 200/400, 300/600, 400/800, etc so essentially just past an hour into it we are at 400/800 and avg stack is 8k-10k or 10bbish. I am going to slow this down considerably and enforce a little better play as it becomes a shovefest 90 min in. Guys are in hurry to get to cash game so that may be reason. Will do bigger buyin and have tourneys only for a while. Just enjoy tourneys a little more myself. Don't really need any cash chips so will likely just buy $50 and up and probably buy a few plaques too.

So anyway, what is the best structure for a 3-5hr freezeout tourney with 12-20 guys? Do the chip needs or dynamics change if we do a rebuy/add-on element every so often? This is a new site selling the NJ and the prices seem to be really good so I want to go ahead order a set. Just trying to figure out best breakdown for 750.

Thinking of:

175 $50
200 $100
175 $500
100 $1000
100 $5000



Any thoughts?

TDA

No 50s. If you need a chip smaller than 100, use 25s. The 500/1000 transition is awkward enough as it is.

You don't need more than 10x100 and 4x500 for each player. In fact, I'd even try 2x500 and see how it works out. But some home game players like having huge stacks of physical chips, so adjust as necessary.

regarding structure, yours looks pretty smooth and standard, actually (as many levels as you show). Tournaments will ALWAYS become shovefests at some point. That's the whole purpose of raising the blinds -- to force people out.

When setting up a tournament, you can choose how long it will take and how deep you are at the start. Deeper starting stacks makes for a little more deep-stack play initially and delays the moment where the average stack becomes critically short, but accelerates the later stages to compensate.

You can use www.blindvalet.com to assist with structure, or see the FAQ for pfapfap's cheat sheet. That uses the WSOP blind sequence, which I highly recommend. It's a smooth and rational sequence, and good to get used to. Then you simply choose starting stacks and round lengths to get the length of tournament you need. Tournaments end around the time that the big blind is 1/20th of the chips in play (average stack is 10bb for 2 players).

no 50s, please.

Eliminate the 50s and you just got an even better deal on the NJ Skulls.

200xT100
100xT500
100xT1,000
100xT5,000

For a 3-5 hour tourney, keep your blind structure the same and start with T20k in chips.