My monthly game is pretty rediculous at the moment, as most of the guys have never hosted a tournament before, or even played in a structured game.
Because he feels like the newer/drunker players will be too easily confused, the host has ruled that ALL chips are worth 1. No denoms. So, because of the limited number of chips, and the variable crowd (between 15-25), we initially started off each tournament with 40 chips each. Blinds start at 1/2, and go up 1/2 each every 20 minutes (2/4, 3/6, 4/8, etc).
Starting out with 20xBB does not make me happy... but having only 10xBB after 20 minutes, when I have only seen two flops, because everyone plays so freaking slow, makes me even less happy. Playing conservatively simply isn't even an option. You're forced to see the flop with just about any two face cards, any suited cards, or any ace, and if you hit the flop, you're going to get at least 1/2 of your chips in the pot. One or two bad beats, or mis-reads later, and you're out of the tournament.... which is pretty frustrating when you're playing with the typical group of calling-stations and luckboxes.
The cash games we play afterwards aren't much better. They insist on playing $.5/$1 blinds (usually two tables of six, trimmed down to one full ring after a couple hours). Now, usual thinking would suggest that the minimum buy-in for a $.5/$1 game would be $40, and the maximum would be $100... but NO!!! If you buy-in for more than $20, they look at you all funny, like you're trying to push them around or something. They'd much rather just play community flops and try to quadruple-up whenever they manage to chase down a flush.
Slowly, over several months, I've worn them down... a little bit anyway. It took some convincing (from me and another guy), to get them to increase the starting stacks to 60 chips. I'm not going to be happy until they're at least over 100, but to start doing that we'll have to use at least two different values of chips, which everyone is still very hesitant to do.
I think I may also have them talked into decreasing the stakes of the cash game to $.25/$.50, but again it's dependant on how many people are playing and how many chips they can scrape together.
I'm going to be SO happy when I get into my new neighborhood later this year and start up my own game, with my own chips, and with my own house rules. It's about time somebody's tournament lasted longer than 2.5 hours around these parts. (I'm already planning on starting a deepstack, 5-6 hour tournament, hopefully once per month, in addition to the standard T1000 4 hour tournament.)
