Need Help With Timing of Levels

[Noonan]

Ok, I need some advice on changing the length of my blind levels without making the tourney much longer. Here is the current blind structure we normally use for a T2000 8-12 person tourney:

L1 - 5 - 10
L2 - 10 - 20
L3 - 20 - 40
L4 - 20 - 40 Ante 5
L5 - 40 - 80 Ante 10
L6 - 50 - 100 Ante 15
L7 - 75 - 150 Ante 25
L8 - 100 - 200 Ante 25
L9 - 150 - 300 Ante 50
L10 - 200 - 400 Ante 50
L11 - 300 - 600 Ante 100
L12 - 400 - 800 Ante 100
L13 - 600 - 1200 Ante 200
L14 - 800 - 1600 Ante 200 (Usually ends at this level)
L15 - 1200 - 2400 Ante 400 (Never goes past this level)

I've been using 18 minutes for every level, but I think I am doing a disservice to the mid to late levels. People tend to hang on as long as possible and then the shove fest comes late in the game and there doesn't seem to be quality poker played in the mid to late rounds. I'm considering making levels 1-4 15 minutes, 5-7 20 minutes, and 8-15 22 minutes, OR 1-7 15 minutes and 8-15 25 minutes.

What do you guys think would be best to try and get some good/decent quality poker to be played in the mid to late levels while trying to keep it around a 4 hour tourney? FYI, a lot of the players are not aggressive at all which is why so many people tend to still be around later in the game. *Increasing the quality of the players is not an option

[courage]

Except for the doubling of blinds between lvls 4 - 5, I think that's a pretty good structure. Given your players' tendencies, I don't think slight changes to the the time or limits will result in a fix. It may be worth changing it up completely if you think it would sufficiently discombobulate them!

[Noonan]

The way I am trying to envision it is:
-An agressive clock early to force the action which should help to create short stacks and big stacks by mid tourney.
-By mid tourney a couple people should bust out, and with fewer people remaining, the blinds will come around much faster. With blinds whipping around now, I will then slow down the clock to let the game breathe so the blinds won't keep increasing at a rapid pace.

[BigKyle]

Personally I think 200x the big blind is a whole lot to start. I prefer 100-150, but if the mid to late rounds are going too fast I would consider staring the tourney at 10-20 and adding a 30-60-10 level and possibly a 250-500-50 level. I would run all levels at 20 minutes and no shorter.

[Noonan]

If I remove L1, add two other levels and bump the time to 20 minutes I would be roughly adding an hour to the tourney, which I'm trying to avoid. I do like removing L1 and I may be open to adding a later level or bumping the up the time. Leaning towards time bump

[BigKyle]

then just add one level, not two. Keep in mind that having 100 BB to start instead of 200 BB will shorten the length, especially with antes

[pltrgyst]

I never let my blinds rise to the point where there's fewer than 30BB in play. For your T2000, at ten players = 20,000 in chips, that means no higher than 300-600. Any higher, and it's just a shove-fest / coin flip.

So I'd set the highest level to 300-600, which gives you 11 levels. Figure times based on 12 levels, (in case it goes a bit long at 300-600), and for four hours, you're looking at 20-minute levels.

I actually prefer 5 hrs. and 25-minute levels at my home freezeouts, but that's just me.

[BGinGA]

All good suggestions (some excellent). Personally, I'd ditch the 100% blind increases during the early rounds and go for a smoother blind structure using antes from R2. See below for an example of how to actually get more play out of fewer starting big blinds (8-12 players, T2000 stacks):

Rd	min	sb	bb	ante	% incr
R1	20	10	20	0	0
R2	20	15	30	5	0.50
R3	20	20	40	5	0.33
R4	20	30	60	10	0.50
R5	20	40	80	10	0.33
R6	20	50	100	25	0.25
R7	15	75	150	25	0.50
R8	15	100	200	50	0.33
R9	15	150	300	50	0.50
R10	15	200	400	100	0.33
R11	15	300	600	100	0.50
R12	15	400	800	200	0.33
R13	15	600	1200	200	0.50
R14	15	800	1600	400	0.33

Another thing I'd point out is that if you plan to have different lengths for different levels, they should typically decrease as the event progresses, rather than increase.

Think of it this way: you optimally want to be able to play the same number of hands per blind level, and with fewer players as the event progresses, the number of hands played per minute typically increases (fewer players to deal in, fewer players to act pre-flop, fewer players to see a flop, etc.). This means that you can actually decrease the round length as the field gets smaller and still have the same number of hands being played per blind round. To prove the concept, just look at the two extremes -- two players heads-up can play a lot more hands per hour than can an entire table of nine players.

Start the blinds at 20 minutes for the first six rounds (hours 1 & 2), then move to 15 minutes for the next eight rounds (hours 3 and 4). It should work out fine -- chances are your 12-player field will be heads-up by Round 12 or the 3-1/2 hour mark and finish shortly thereafter.

[Noonan]

I think I may have taken a little bit of everyone's advice and made some tweaks:

-I removed L1 5-10 and now start with 10-20
-I added a 30-60-10(ante) at L4
-I bumped up the time on Levels 1-10 to 21 minutes (Starts L1 10-20 through L10 200-400-50)
-I bumped down the time on Levels 11-15 to 15 minutes (Starts L11 300-600 through L15 1200-2400-400)

I considered pltrgyst's advice on the 300-600 level max, and almost ran that level an additional # of times, but I'm afraid that level isn't high enough because I've seen these players really milk the clock at that level in which case would hurt the 4 hour goal.

I am also considering bumping it to a T2500.

I also forgot to mention that there is a rebuy period that runs to the end of L3, but you must be completely busted to rebuy and we probably get maybe 1 or 2 a game.