I'm looking for some feedback on a charity poker tournament that I'm running this weekend. Any input would be really appreciated.

Note that the buy-in and other costs are set in stone (buy in, rebuy, and add-on) as I've set an expectation with people about those things. Everything else is open to be changed.

Half of all money collected goes to the charity and the other half goes to the pot.

Here's what I have come up with so far:

$20 buy-in - 2000 chips
$20 add-on (at the two hour mark) - 3000 chips
$20 rebuys (unlimited. First two hours) - 2000 chips

Players can surrender their stack at any point during the first two hours and rebuy.

I expect 20-24 players and would like things to be wrapped up in about 7.5 hours, with about 6.5 hours of actual playtime (leaving an hour for breaks).

I played around with blindvalet.com for a little while and came up with this:

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I have these chips available (and access to more if I need them):

400 red
400 white
250 blue
225 black
125 green

Finally, I used one of Blind Valet's suggested chip count distributions to come up with these starting stacks:

Black (T5) x 10
White (T25) x 6
Red (T100) x 8
Blue (T500) x 2
Greens (T1000) x 0

I haven't hosted a tournament of more than 10 players before. There are a lot of casual players coming with almost no poker experience and I want to make sure that most people at least make it to the add-on period before things get too crazy with the blinds. I also of course want their add-on money in the pot ;>.

If you have any feedback I'd love to hear it. Thanks in advance.

Edit: I'm thinking of only paying out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Because so much of the money goes to the charity, the prizes will be smaller. 50%/30%/20%, with all of the rebuy money going to 1st place or to 1st and 2nd place (input on that?)

Lots of good stuff in there, it looks like you've put a lot of thought into this. I do have some comments and suggestions. I regularly run 3-table single-rebuy tourneys, and occasionally run unlimited rebuy plus addon tourneys.

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Is this a one-off, or will there be potential for future? I don't like the payouts. In my tourneys where I remove some of the buyin for another purpose, I pay out more people. Even if people are just getting their money back, it helps them feel better about the experience. The top few can still be substantial, but here's my payout for the numbers you're expecting:

17-19 Players: 37 / 24 / 17 / 12 / 10
20-23 Players: 34 / 23 / 16 / 11 / 9 / 7
24-26 Players: 32 / 22 / 15 / 11 / 8 / 6.5 / 5.5

People have responded well to a lot going back, and it's been mentioned more than once as a factor in deciding to play. The more people who at least get a refund, the more who feel really good about contributing to the cause.

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I know there's a lot of love for blindvalet, but I maintain that WSOP standard (used by most casinos) is a very good way to go, if only because it makes it easier to compare to others using the same standard. You may have players who don't play anything else now, but who knows where they'll be three years down the line. If they've been practicing the industry standard structure the entire time, they'll be that much better equipped should they ever move up.

This is an adaptation of the WSOP schedule, removing antes and a few levels. With rebuys and addons, 7 hours isn't enough time to play too deepstacked. You want them to be short so they're forced to bust and rebuy. It's for a good cause, right? I'd keep the 2k rebuys, but bump the addon to 5k, make it really worthwhile for people.

25 / 50
50 / 100
75 / 150
100 / 200
150 / 300
200 / 400

End of Rebuys - Color Up

300 / 600
400 / 800
500 / 1000
600 / 1200
800 / 1600
1000 / 2000
1200 / 2400
1500 / 3000

Color Up

2k / 4k
3k / 6k
4k / 8k
5k / 10k
6k / 12k
8k / 16k
10k / 20k

That should probably end in 7.5 hours, but if it's looking long you can always skip a level. I'd just round up for the color-ups, don't bother with a chip race.

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For chip breakdown, how about:

25 - blue
100 - white
500 - green
1000 - red
5000 - black

Starting stack:

8 x 25
8 x 100
2 x 500

If you don't have racks, I recommend trying to find some locally, they're $1/piece. If not, no worries, but I'd pre-set the stacks inside your suitcase.

Here's how I'd set it up:

30 starting stacks
8 stacks of 20 x 100
15 stacks of 4 x 500

That will use up 240 blues, all your whites, and 100 greens. Leave the excess at home, do anything else in 1k and 5k. Even if you use a different breakdown, I strongly encourage you to use blue and black at different times: they look far too similar. Blue also looks similar to white while stacked, but you don't have enough chips to eliminate the 5k.

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The above is by no means scripture, and tweaking is definitely possible, but I think it would work out fairly well. Have fun and good luck!

Excellent input, thanks!

This is something that I'll probably continue to do every year around this time.

The chip distributions you've laid out are great and much cleaner than what blindvalet created for me.

The only thing I'm really worried about is starting people as short as you've suggested. There's really very few poker players in the group and I know that most of them are fairly money conscious. They probably won't spew/rebuy as aggressively as I'd hope and they won't understand the value in gambling it up early on.

People might rebuy with their addon money for example, and then get left behind when everybody else adds 5000 to their stack. So I'd like to get most people to the add-on stage if possible. If the majority gets 3+ hours of playtime then I think they'll leave satisfied.

Without butchering your nicely laid out blind levels and chip denominations, what do you think about increasing the starting stack/rebuys to 3000 (or even 3500), the add-on to 5000 (or 6000), and leaving everything else the same? People would still be very short early on but I think that it would help get the more money-conscious people to the add-on.

Make 'em 3k stacks, with 4x500 in each, and do rebuys (after 30) of 20x100 + 1x1000. After that, only 1k. That's actually what I do with my rebuy tourneys, and it works out pretty well. The nice thing about that is that they're even stacks of 20, which fit nicely in racks. Even if you don't have them this year, definitely get some for next year.

I know you want people to get play, but it has to end at SOME point. A 6k stack is reasonable to take people through the end of the rebuy period. I'd probably remove the 500/1000 and 1200/2400 rounds, tho'. Maybe the 5k/10k level if there are more than 6 people left at that point, too. The game will likely end around the time the heads-up players have an average of 8-12 BBs each, so use that as a guide.

Oh, make sure you have plenty of change on hand! Round off the payouts to the nearest $5. If you end up doing $10 rebuys, get at least $100-200 worth from the bank, and another $50 in $5s.

I'll probably implement most/all of this and let you know how it turns out. Thanks again.

No worries, I love running tourneys. Hope it works out! It will likely be chaotic, just remember to breathe!

I have also gotten feedback that more places paid is a good thing. Just getting my buy-in back does not appeal to me, but it obviously appeals to a lot of others.

I like to use the WSOP structure, as well, but for ease of setup, blindvalet is close enough, and you're just a few clicks away from getting started. I used to use TD2, and that required some setup time beforehand. Now I just fire up blindvalet, make a few choices, and it's shuffle up and deal time.

That said, for something larger and more formal like this tournament I'd use TD2. With blindvalet, it's not impossible to click away and lose everything mid-tournament.

Remember, a kitchen or phone timer works just as well for letting you know when 20 minutes is up. I'm not sure I'd want to deal with running a new MTT *and* fumbling with new software all at once.

Looks pretty good overall -

My comment suggestion is that, consider your typical charity tournament player - They are generally novice players looking to give some money to a cause in return for some entertainment -

However, I don't think 8 hours is the length of entertainment most are looking for. That's quite a commitment of time to ask, even for a dedicated player like myself - That would basically eat up half a day.

Perhaps you have the right crowd for it - but I would seriously look at it.

Sarge

Good point, Sarge.

+1

I run a charity game exactly like this every month. Same buy ins, same rebuys (only one hour), but a $10 add on. We bring in about 30 people. The charity wants the game to finish in 5-6 hours (including breaks) so that also give me an excuse to use a fast blind structure.

I start with 2500 chips, rebuys for the first hour. 1500 for the add on.(i may play around with increasing this)

20 min levels start with 50/100, 100/200, 150/300.

After the rebuys end I have a semi-slower blind structure for a couple of hours
200/400,
250/500,
300/600,
400/800,
500/1000,
1000/2000,
1500/3000,
2000/4000
2500/5000

From here it gets crazy because I double the big blind every 20 min.

I also only pay the top 3. I find in my area people want to play/gamble for a bigger 1st prize than a bunch of smaller prizes. And when you take 50% for the charity there isn't much left to play for. I pay 50% to the charity, 25% to 1st, 15% to 2nd and 10% to 3rd. It's hard to convince someone to play for $20, rebuy and add on making most players buy-in for about $50 if you are only going win $100. So i would rather give them something to play for thats worth their buy in.

We will also hold 50/50 ticket draws, and prize raffles throughout the night as well.

Can't please everybody I guess. Some people will want it longer and some will want it shorter. Some will want more places paid and others will be annoyed by it. Ultimately I do think that with this crowd people would really value the higher payouts. I'll think I'll pay 4 places (it looks like 20 people will be coming).

I've set expectations about the length and there will also be food/booze for sale during the first break, a Wii setup, a cash game going for the bust outs, etc. Most of the people know each other so it'll be a fun atmosphere to hang around in in my opinion. With this particular crowd I'm pretty sure that the length isn't going to be a problem for more than a couple people.

Again, thanks for all of the good suggestions here. Chips are counted and I'm set to go for the most part.

I liked the rack suggestion for next year. Any suggestions of where to buy them online? There's nowhere around here where I could get them.

If you have a true poker crowd, the length could work fine. A lot of charity events attract the social set for whom poker is just the diversion of the evening. A four hour tournament would be pushing it for that crowd.

Would you have a 7-hour party with these people? If so, a 7-hour poker match is probably okay, especially if you have other things going on. Most people will be finished in 3-5 hours anyway. I agree it's a *little* long for the casual player, but at the same time the winners of the game will have a unique memory. It's only once a year.


This is for a set of 10: http://discountcasinogear.com/store/product5006.html

You can buy individual, too.

I like the WSOP format, but unfortunately my chip set is set up more for the BlindValet situation-I dont go over a 5000 chip. Thanks for the tips pfap, I will pay out more since mine is a charity deal as well for a friend stricken with cancer. Not really sure about the crowd, they are mostly hockey players.

I ran a tourney Saturday night and changed the add on from 1500 to 5000. All but 1 player purchased the add on.

You can change the chipset you use in Blindvalet.

Neither do I. I run a 7-hour 3-table game with over 160,000 chips in play, and I barely get into the 5k chips.

Hi guys
We had a 32 person charity tournament last night, it went great. The only real issues I had were the add-ons. I wanted some of my grinder friends to play, and they did, but they were somewhat pricked about the add-on, we only went to the end of the first hour, and you could only add on a half stack of 100 (starting stack 200). I know grinders hate rebuys, but this was not even a full rebuy, and actually added about $300 for the charity. Pfap, what is your opinion of rebuys/addons for charity, and non charity events? When I host a degen/non charity event, should I fool with addons and rebuys, or possibly introduce antes? Also, my grinders hate BlindValet since it runs so quickly. Should I just use it for charity stuff? Sorry so many questions. I like your blind schedule and will use it next time, I just need to recalibrate to match my 1-5-25-100-500-1000 chipset.

Re-buys and Add on are a must for charity games. It is a fundraiser afterall and the more money you can get into the pot the more the charity makes as well. Most players who play in charity games understand that. That's the whole point of the event. It's also why I have the structure set so fast during the re-buy period, to force more all ins and rebuys.

As for non charity games, I hate re-buys and add ons. I want to grind out a slow structure tourney without the huge swings of a re-buy game.

Addons should be for more chips than a starting stack (and possibly less money). If you start with 200 chips for $20 and blinds of 5/10, you have 20 BBs, or 1 BB for every dollar. If you have an add-on of 100 chips for $10 but the blinds are at 50/100 by this point, now you're paying $10 for one BB, or 10x as much. Maybe yours was different, but that's probably why the grinders didn't like it.

It depends on how long you want it to last. I'm a big fan of antes, although they do take some training of the crowd if you don't have permanent dealers.

It doesn't matter what structure you use, it's more important how smoothly it runs and how long it lasts.

How many of each do you have? 5s can always be 5000s. I have a hard time believing ANY tournament you run will use the 1s and the 1000s in the same game.

Update: our event was a great success. We only ended up with 17 people and collected about $900 in buy-ins, rebuys, and add-ons of $20 each, but it was a great night overall.

Half of that went to the charity. Some of the prize money was also donated. Combined with food/beer sales, the total donation is $896.

There were plenty of rebuys (13-14 I think), and two people busted out and left before the add-on phase. One person didn't buy the add-on. Everybody else happily bought it without any complaints.

All in all it was huge success. Thanks again for the good suggestions. The biggest thing for me was stressing to all attendees that this was a charity event first and foremost. They needed to show up in the spirit of a charity event and not invite any knuckleheads who wouldn't be respectful of what we were trying to do. This cut down on the numbers a little bit, but everybody in attendance was playing for the right reasons and had a great time.

And I got second! Whee.

Similar to what I said in my previous post... I think this is about setting clear expectations with people before they show up, and again once they arrive.

Some people just aren't capable of toning down their level of seriousness when it comes to poker. I came ready to have some drinks and blow some cash and I did that. I can sit in a casino and quietly play for hours at a time... but charity events should be fun, in the spirit of the charity, and without any expectations around the quality of the actual poker being played.

Glad it went well, congrats on the win!