[EasilyFound]

My loosely-formed league wants to have a HU tourney. Pretty sure we could fill a 16 player tourney, but don't want to do a 32 player tourney. Anything in between requires that some players get a bye for the first round. Has anyone every played in a HU tourney with first-round byes? Seems very unfair to me to be one of the players without a first-round bye.

[jdunford]

Originally Posted by EasilyFound

My loosely-formed league wants to have a HU tourney. Pretty sure we could fill a 16 player tourney, but don't want to do a 32 player tourney. Anything in between requires that some players get a bye for the first round. Has anyone every played in a HU tourney with first-round byes? Seems very unfair to me to be one of the players without a first-round bye.

If you start with exactly 24 players, you could play 8 x 3-player tables to determine who gets the first-round byes... or, if it's a double-elimination tournament, that 3-player round could count. I tried something similar with 12 players double-elimination. It counted as the 1st loss to all players who finished 2nd or 3rd at their tables. Players who came in 2nd played the 3rd-place players from different tables, while the winners got a bye. Then those winners played each other in round 3, while the "winners of the losers" battled it out. Then those winners play the losers of the winners, etc.

You can find info on heads-up tourneys including double-elimination at the HPT site:
http://www.homepokertourney.com/docs...ble-1000-1.pdf
http://www.homepokertourney.com/heads-up.htm

[EasilyFound]

[quote][If you start with exactly 24 players, you could play 8 x 3-player tables to determine who gets the first-round byes... /QUOTE]

Great idea, but I don't think the organizer will go for it. I'm not a math wiz, but I'm trying to see if I can figure out the value of each round of play and have the first-round bye people pay that much extra for missing one round of play.

[jdunford]

Originally Posted by EasilyFound

Great idea, but I don't think the organizer will go for it. I'm not a math wiz, but I'm trying to see if I can figure out the value of each round of play and have the first-round bye people pay that much extra for missing one round of play.

The other easy option is to say "only 16 seats available; first to get their buy-in to me (or at least confirm they are coming) are in; the rest get on a waiting list in case someone backs out at the last minute."

[the3rd]

Originally Posted by EasilyFound

My loosely-formed league wants to have a HU tourney. Pretty sure we could fill a 16 player tourney, but don't want to do a 32 player tourney. Anything in between requires that some players get a bye for the first round. Has anyone every played in a HU tourney with first-round byes? Seems very unfair to me to be one of the players without a first-round bye.

Yes. I wouldn't call it unfair because the way we did it was double elimination, but you will have people waiting around for their first match and if you don't get a bye, you have your work cut out for you. Get 16 committed players. We put the money in up front and still had no shows and multiple scheduling changes. Do single elimination for the first two rounds and double for the final two rounds. Otherwise it will either take too long or you'll need a structure that makes it a crap shoot. I'd rather play one good battle than two lightning rounds. If you make bye recipients pay extra, you might have some guys who would rather play for a discount, then you get headaches. If you can't get 16, do 8. It takes some of the drama away, but trust me, it beats an odd ball number of players.

[scottwire]

You can do players who get the bye pay full price and those who don't pay half price.

So if you had 19 guys show up, you would still end up with 16 buy-ins with 13 byes and 6 players (in for half price) playing the extra round.

[jdunford]

Originally Posted by the3rd

Otherwise it will either take too long or you'll need a structure that makes it a crap shoot. I'd rather play one good battle than two lightning rounds.

Actually, I do the blinds a little differently. Instead of having the blinds increase steadily throughout, as in a regular tournament, I have three blind levels per "round" (starting players with 40-50 BB, then blinds double, so 20-25 BB, then double again, so 10-13 BB each). Then we wait until everyone playing in that round is finished (you might need to go with one more level (so average stack is 5-7 BB) if you have particularly tight players). Then a short break where we colour-up chips as necessary and make sure everyone remaining has the same number of chips (twice what they started with in the previous round), and the new round has 3 (or 4) blind levels with the same relative size (so twice what they were in the previous round). This means that the blinds actually go down compared to what they were at the end of the previous round, but it makes it that there aren't any "lightning rounds" like the3rd described. Every round is equivalent (twice the chips and twice the blinds as the previous round, with some rounding off for convenience).

As an example:

Round 1: 500 chip starting stacks
5 / 10
10 / 20
20 / 40
(40 / 80 if necessary)

Round 2: 1,000 chip starting stacks
15 / 25
25 / 50
50 / 100
(100 / 200)

Round 3: 2,000 chip starting stacks
25 / 50
50 / 100
100 / 200
(200 / 400)

Round 4: 4,000 chip starting stacks
50 / 100
100 / 200
200 / 400
(400 / 800)

Round 5: 8,000 chip starting stacks
100 / 200
200 / 400
400 / 800
(800 / 1500)

Round 6: 15,000 chip starting stacks (just to round off)
200 / 300
300 / 600
600 / 1200
(1300 / 2500)

Round 7: 30,000 chip starting stacks
300 / 600
600 / 1200
1300 / 2500
(2500 / 5000)

Round 8: 50,000 chip starting stacks
500 / 1000
1000 / 2000
2000 / 4000
(4000 / 8000)

I did this quickly; has some unusual rounding off; need to remove some chips at the start of some rounds, but it would work out nicely if you have a set with a large range of high-denom chips like the WSOP replicas or something.

[tomb1]

Originally Posted by EasilyFound

Has anyone every played in a HU tourney with first-round byes? Seems very unfair to me to be one of the players without a first-round bye.

All the time. It's not unfair, just the luck of the draw (as long as it's a random selection of course).

You really just have 2 choices IMO: cap it at 8/16/32 or have some 1st round byes. I think capping is better but either one works as long as everyone understands.

In HU discussion we usually talk about players waiting around when they have a bye. But that misses another point: there is ALWAYS lots of waiting around in a HU tourney. At each round there are always early bust-outs and full-length battles -- nothing you can do about this.

So I guess the point is, don't have a HU tourney unless you have something for everyone to do during the down times -- like drink more beer!

[Captn_All_In]

Originally Posted by the3rd

If you can't get 16, do 8. It takes some of the drama away, but trust me, it beats an odd ball number of players.

This is exactly what I was thinking! I tried to do one with 13 players and it was extremely long and the guys were complaining about all the dealing they were doing!

Also someone else suggested single elim for the first rd and double for the remaing (or something along those lines) that is what I plan to do for the next HU tourney I run!

Good luck with yours!

[dad604]

To speed it up, might be a good idea to have a shootout and then finish with HU.