Held very first tournament this past Saturday and things went great. I'd have to say the success can be largely attributed to this forum as I applied most what I read/learned from many of your posts in hosting this event. Equally helpful was homepokertourney.com.
Details:
Buyin: $50 with no re-buys
Starting Chips: T1000 (20 x T5-reds, 16 x T25-greens, 5 x T100-blacks)
Blind Schedule: 30 minute levels
Level Small Big
1 10 20
2 15 30
3 20 40
4 25 50
5 50 100
6 75 150
7 100 200
8 150 300
9 200 400
10 300 600
11 400 800
12 500 1000
13 600 1200
14 800 1600
15 1000 2000
Total Players: 17
Payout: Total was $850 paying out top 3 based on 70%/20%/10% (So $600/$170/$80)
I played fairly well and ended up taking 3rd - very close to taking it all.
The last hand went as follows from what I can remember(3 players left):
Chipstack were very close. I was on the button and blinds were at 400/800. Cards were dealt and I had AJ offsuit. I went all in. SB had Q2 offsuit and had about 3-4 more chips than me and he goes all in. BB had A9 off suit and was the chip leader (only by like 2-3 chips) and he called so it was a 3 way show down. Flop (don't exactly remember the cards) did no one any good and I was still in the lead with AJ. Turn was a 9 so guy with A9 hit a pair. River did nothing for anyone and the pair of 9's held, took 2 guys out, and won the tournament. I took third since I had the lower chip count of the 2 that busted out.
Overall, I think I played fairly well - considering this is really the first tournament that I have played. We are thinking of making this a quarterly thing with the next events taking place in May, then August, then November. This first one was a $50 buyin, next one will probably be $50 again, then $75 for the next, and then finishing of the year with the last one being $100.
One thing I'd like to change is probably the payout.....maybe considering paying out top 4 or 5 instead of just top 3. Also need to re-visit blind schedule (may remove 75/150 to help in color-up, and maybe re-evaluate time schedule towards the end)
Things went fairly smoothly with no disputes arising. We wanted to keep it a friendly and informal/relaxed atmosphere. A couple of reminders for the next event will be probably that all cards must stay on the table (a few would pick up their cards and one would even hold the deck out of sight when he was dealing) and people need to announce their actions (raise/check/call).
I used Tournament Director software to manage everything and I cannot recommend that software enough.
Everyone donated $10 for food and drinks. Had a keg of beer and soda/pop for the non-drinkers. Had sandwiches and buffalo wings and tons of snacks.
It was a great event and can't wait for the next one.
congrats, sounds like everything went well! yea you might want to adjust the later rounds if your looking to make the game move a little quicker. good luck next time around
congrats, sounds like everything went well! yea you might want to adjust the later rounds if your looking to make the game move a little quicker. good luck next time around
Or you could make the blinds 20 minutes long. Either way should accomplish the same thing I would imagine. Sounds like a great time!
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