[dajebriza]

I want to put together a tournament set that will accommodate a 5-table, 50 person tournament. I would like it to start as a T250 or T500 structure.

Here are the starting stacks I have figured on:

10 x White (1's) = T10
8 x Red (5's) = T40
8 x Green (25's) = T200
OPTIONAL:
6 x Greens = T150
3 x Black = T300

For either T250 or T500. 26 or 27 chip stack (is this too big for a tournament this large and should I limit it to only 3 denoms?)

My concern is also having enough chips to color up properly.

Here is my set breakdown:

White (T1) = 650
Red (T5) = 500
Green (T25) = 300
Black (T100) = 200
Purple (T500) = 100
Yellow (T1000) = 60

Here are my burning questions:

- Do I need more chips of any specific color? (I'm pretty much using all my greens from the start, is this ok?)
- Do I have enough of the higher denom chips that are used later for color ups that I can have everything colored up properly by the time we reach the final table and down to the last few players?

[jdunford]

THIS can answer all your questions...

[jdunford]

For the T500, ideally (for completely colouring up) you'd want:

500 x white
500 x red
400 x green
250 x black
100 x purple
50 x yellow

That gives you enough chips for 50 rebuys from 500's (purples), which should be more than you'll need, and you can colour everything up to 1000's (yellows) if you want. You currently have enough reds to colour up the whites, but only enough greens to start (and not enough black to cleanly colour up the reds and greens)... so you might want to get 100 more greens to make it easier to colour up the reds. The extra 50 blacks are more optional, because the number of players will be much smaller when you want to colour up greens, so it shouldn't be too difficult to introduce purples and yellows at that point.

So if you could trade 150 of your whites for 100 greens and 50 blacks, you're golden! If these are Faux Clays, you'll probably have to throw in 10 yellows to sweeten the deal, as I doubt you'll find someone in need of 150 whites.

[dajebriza]

Very cool, thanks. And what starting stacks and blind structure do you recommend?

Originally Posted by jdunford

For the T500, ideally (for completely colouring up) you'd want:

500 x white
500 x red
400 x green
250 x black
100 x purple
50 x yellow

That gives you enough chips for 50 rebuys from 500's (purples), which should be more than you'll need, and you can colour everything up to 1000's (yellows) if you want. You currently have enough reds to colour up the whites, but only enough greens to start (and not enough black to cleanly colour up the reds and greens)... so you might want to get 100 more greens to make it easier to colour up the reds. The extra 50 blacks are more optional, because the number of players will be much smaller when you want to colour up greens, so it shouldn't be too difficult to introduce purples and yellows at that point.

So if you could trade 150 of your whites for 100 greens and 50 blacks, you're golden! If these are Faux Clays, you'll probably have to throw in 10 yellows to sweeten the deal, as I doubt you'll find someone in need of 150 whites.

[jdunford]

Originally Posted by dajebriza

Very cool, thanks. And what starting stacks and blind structure do you recommend?

That was going with your 10-8-6-3 starting stacks (from your OP). I think that's a good number; not too many, not too few. But you'll definitely want to chip up those T5s cleanly when it's time... otherwise there'll just be way too many chips out there, and with that many players, it would be tough to convert the T5s to T100s at that point. As for blind structure, there are lots of good posts on CT. With that number, all I'll say is try to go with longer (timewise) levels that increase in larger steps, versus shorter levels with smaller steps. It just makes it simpler with such a large field. Increments can get smaller when the field gets smaller.

For example, you could have the blinds double (instantly) every 20-30 minutes until your final table. You have T25,000 chips (for your T500 starting stack), so when you're down to the final 8 players, the average stack size is a little over T3000. I've found that for fairly tight players, "equilibrium" occurs when the big blind gets to be about 8% of the average stack (if they're fairly evenly distributed), which is T250. Then it gets tough to stay in (i.e. when the blinds increase to 150-300, one of these eight is bound to get eliminated). So if you want "good poker" at your final table, you don't want the blinds to feel rushed when they get up above 100-200. Then again, the numbers will be dwindling, so it'll take less time per orbit (or more hands per level), so you could still get away with blinds doubling every 30 minutes, but you might want to have intermediate levels at this point, i.e.:
100-200 for 15-20 min
150-300 " " "
200-400
250-500
300-600
400-800
etc.


That's my opinion. As I said, search CT for blind structures and you'll find differing opinions.