[ky70]

I'm finally ready to try a poker night with all heads up tourney play. Here's what I have so far:
Players: 8-10
Buy-in: $50 per player
Starting chips:
15...x...100
13...x...500
2.....x...1000 = 30 chips & 10k per player
Blinds:
Level.....Minutes.......Small.........Big
1.............15.............$ 100........$ 200
2.............15.............$ 200........$ 400
3.............15.............$ 300........$ 600
4.............15.............$ 600........$ 1200
5.............15.............$ 1000.......$ 2000
6.............15.............$ 2000.......$ 4000
Payout structure
8-10 players: 1st = 45% 2nd = 27%, 3rd = 18%, 4th = 10%

I'm looking to play a round robin tournament where every player plays 5 matches against 5 random opponents (but no player twice). I'm expecting each individual match to last about 1 hour (that's according to the blinds, but matches will be much shorter when big hands collide). That timeframe would be unacceptable for a full table but I think that's enough time for plenty of poker between only 2 players. Ideally I'm hoping for 10 players but this can be done with less (or more).

After everyone has played 5 matches, the best 2 records would play a final game to determine 1st and 2nd place, and the next 2 best records would play a final game to determine 3rd and 4th place.

I'm still going back and forth on how to break ties of players with identical records...and I'm also not sure if I like the idea of playing a game to determine 3rd & 4th place or if the records should decide (if there's a tie in points between 3rd & 4th, then a game would be necessary). What do you guys think about this whole set-up?

[ky70]

Here's a nice thread on the subject:
http://chiptalk.net/forum/showthread...ighlight=heads

[ky70]

I know I'm talking to myself (and answering) but after further review, I think double elimination would be the best way to go as I like the brackets run (reminds me of my dart tournament days).

[Sniper2075]

Let me know how your tourney comes out. I've always wanted to do a Heads Up Tourney. I was thinking the Double Elimination would work best. There are some blinds set up for this as well as a bracket at Homepokertourney.com
http://www.homepokertourney.com/downloads.htm

It's about half way down, some for T1000 and some for T10,000
His brackets are set up for 8 and then one for 16 but you could make up your own, not too hard.

[gmunny]

KY,
How does the double elimination work? You need to win 2 out of 3 to advance? This looks kind of cool. Do only thing tough about this type of tourney is that there will be some waiting involved. Please post how it turned out and good luck!
G$

[ky70]

Originally Posted by gmunny

KY,
How does the double elimination work? You need to win 2 out of 3 to advance? This looks kind of cool. Do only thing tough about this type of tourney is that there will be some waiting involved. Please post how it turned out and good luck!
G$

Check out the bracket in this link:
http://www.foosballheaven.com/pdf/tournament8c.pdf

This 8-man bracket will give you a good idea of how double elimination works. Print it out and simulate the results to see how it will work out...nice stuff!!

[Spaceman Spiff]

I did a Heads Up tourney for my league this season and honestly, I'm not sure if I'll do it again or not. Logistically, it's kind of a nightmare. With my regular group of bastards, I mean players, I never know for sure how many I'm going to have, often right up to 5 minutes before I want to start. In normal games, while this is a pain, it's not a big deal. When trying to plan a Heads Up game though, it's a major pain.

I ended up with 10 players and I also liked the idea of round robin and giving everyone a chacne to play a few games. I broke us into 2 pools of 5 and you played everyone in your pool. I had designed the blinds for games to last no more than 40 minutes. Or so I thought. I had several that went over an hour.

Long story short, it took way longer than I wanted it to, there was a lot of waiting as some matches ended in 10 minutes and others went an hour, and basically I just didn't have that much fun. Of course, I also went 0-4, so that may have had something to do with it.

If I were to do it again, here's how I think I'd handle it. First, go to single or double elimination and only offer up exactly the number of spots that make that work. So you're probably looking at 8 or 16. I suppose you could work with more and have a series of play-in games. Maybe offer up the "byes" for an increased buy-in. That seems like it would work to me.

For me though, I don't think I'll run another Heads Up tourney as the only event going on. Like I said, it was just too much waiting around and not playing. I'll get a list of who wants to play and fill in a bracket. Then, I'd like to have the Heads Up games going on throughout the season. So for example, say a couple of your matchups are at another event and they both are busted out fairly early. They could go off to the side and play their Heads Up match. It would take probably the course of the season to play it through and at some point I'm sure you would need to purposely schedule the guys a time to finally sit down and get the match over, but at least this way things would be progressing.

Just some ideas.

[Joe Willie]

The idea sounds cool. But the logistics could be a pain. would like to hear how it comes out. A cash game on the side might be a good idea for those who are out or waiting for a match to end.

[ky70]

Did a nice simulation with 3 players last night and I was able to find out some valuable information. We played 4 games total. The longest game lasted 63 minutes (3 minutes into level 5) which is right around the longest I would like a game to be. The shortest game was 36 minutes and the average of the 4 games being 45 minutes (perfect!). The blinds worked better by replacing the 300/600 for level 3 with 400/800. It also worked out better to only have 2 denoms in play. The games were exciting and watching/dealing may have been more fun than playing.

Based on last night's "test" here is my adjusted setup:
Starting chips:
20...x...100
16...x...500 = 36 chips & 10k per player
Blinds:
Level.....Minutes.......Small.........Big
1.............15.............$ 100........$ 200
2.............15.............$ 200........$ 400
3.............15.............$ 400........$ 800
4.............15.............$ 600........$ 1200
5.............15.............$ 1000.......$ 2000
6.............15.............$ 2000.......$ 4000
Payout structure
1 - 9 players: 1st place = 63%, 2nd place = 37%
10 - 12 players: 1st place = 54%, 2nd place = 31%, 3rd place = 15%.
13 - 16 players: 1st place = 48.5%, 2nd place = 27.5%, 3rd place = 14%, 4th place = 10%

[Captn_All_In]

Glad to hear that this turned out well for you. Have you thought about each player dealing from thier own deck of cards? Meaning that you would have two decks in play for each game. It might speed things up just a bit. Then you also do not have a need for a dealer for each game.


Just a thought.