Best Home Game Structure

[mazzack]

I've been reading forums, and visiting sites for a while to compare how other people structure their home games, but I think that the style we play at mine is one of the easiest and best ways to structure.

Game: NL Hold'em Tournament

Buy-In: We typically do friendly $10 dollar buy in games.

Typically 10-20 players (it's rude to host a game if you cant find enough players, and too many takes too long. Usually 12 is our rule of thumb)

Chips: Starting Stack $5,000 in chips. ($6,000 on a Saturday!)
Denominations: $25 (12 chips), $100 (7 chips), $500 (4 Chips), $1000 (2 chips)

It is EXTREMELY rude to have too many denominations ie: a chip worth 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200.... it is unnecessary!

If someone wants to bet 50, they can put in two 25 chips. You might as well have a chip worth 37 or 68.

Blind Structure: 20 min blinds.
25/25
25/50
50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300
TRADE OUT 25 CHIPS
200/400
300/600
400/800
600/1200
800/1600
TRADE OUT 100 CHIPS
(Blinds go by thousands and follow same pattern as 100/200, except now 1000,2000 blinds typically don't reach this level.

Start Time 7:00pm, our tournaments usually last 3-4 hours. Be sure that if you are attending a home game you arrive 10 minutes early so you can start on time. It's very rude to show up late and keep everyone waiting.

Pay Outs: 9 people ($60, $30)
10 people ($60, $30, $10)
11 people ($70, $30, $10)
12 people ($70, $40, $10)
13 people ($80, $40, $10)
14 people ($80, $40, $20)
15 people ($80, $40, $20, $10)
16 people ($90, $40, $20, $10)
17 people ($90, $50, $20, $10)
18 people ($90, $50, $30, $10)
19 people ($100, $50, $30, $10)
20 people ($100, $60, $30, $10)

Remember that home games are supposed to be friendly. Winner take all tournaments are rarely popular and paying out top 3 and 4 makes everyone happy with a better chance to pick up a little extra spending money.

With larger buy ins (sometimes 20 bucks) we just double the pay out amounts.