[Wylecoyo]

I am considering the best setup for a weekly T2,500 league setup with 10-12 players and 2 re-buys maximum (up until the end of the 5th round):

Paulson Chips as follows:

Total in Set / Chip / # per Player at Buy-in

100 / $5.00 / 10
200 / $10.00 / 20
100 / $25.00 / 10
200 / $100.00 / 20
50 / $500.00 / -
20 / $1,000.00 / -

Twenty minute rounds as follows:

Round / Small Blind / Big Blind / Ante

1 / 5 / 10 / -
2 / 10 / 15 / -
3 / 15 / 30 / -
4 / 25 / 50 / 5
5 / 40 / 75 / 5
6 / 50 / 100 / 10
7 / 75 / 150 / 15
8 / 150 / 300 / 30
9 / 300 / 600 / 60
10 / 500 / 1,000 / 100
11 / 1,000 / 1,500 / 150
12 / 1,500 / 3,000 / 300
13 / 3,000 / 6,000 / 600

Please let me know what you think of my numbers and feel free to offer suggestions based upon your experience.

Thanks.

[Double Eagle]

I am a big fan of the Tex's Tears structures.

http://texstears.com/Structures.html

I think you will find using $5 chips is a pain in the rear. It looks you you have plenty of chips to start with $1,500 at 25/25.

Good luck.

[Q10 soooted]

The 15 ante at level 7 seems pretty annoying. Without it you could color out the reds after level 5. Maybe just make it 20?

Same idea with 30/60 antes at levels 8/9 I guess. I know the ante is 10% of the BB, but if the ante was 25/50 you could color out the blues earlier.

Seems kind of annoying to still have 100 reds when the blinds are 75/150 and 200 blues when the blinds are 300/600.

[SpaceMonkey]

I agree, there's absolutely no need for T5 or T10 chips in your structure. Use a foxwoods or Tears structure and start off at 25-25 then 25-50 etc.

You could do something like:
250 green
250 black
150 purple

That's a rough estimate. But less colors keeps things a lot easier for chip management.

[Q10 soooted]

I actually like having the reds in there to keep the blind structures low/slow for tournaments that start with one thousand to a few thousand chips. Obviously you can use them for a cash game, too.

There's another thread here with some good breakdowns. This was my favorite:

Originally Posted by CaptLego

1000 chips, 30 person tourney:

You could go with:
360 green ($25)
360 Black ($100)
230 Purple ($500)
50 Orange ($1000)

Then you could give 30 players T5000 (which gets you 100X a BB buy-in at blinds starting at $25/$50);

Each person gets:
12 x green
12 x black
7 x purple

Thats still 31 chips per person starting. You have enough extra purple and orange chips to colorup the greens and blacks.

[dad604]

I would lose either the $5 or $10 chips or even both. Start with only $25 and up. I have been in many tournaments where the starting level is $25/$25.

[R Deckard]

I would say just lose the antes altogether for only 10-12 players. More trouble than they're worth.

[vrecksler]

What they said.

I know where you are coming from, since last December I have hosted a tournament with friends from school each month. We started out with blinds increasing every 30 minutes and had blinds similar to you:

5/10
10/15
15/30
25/50
50/100....etc. etc.

But we found that the $5's were USELESS almost right away! No one was using them for anything but change because they are too low for any kind of bet or raise, and ultimately you end up with everyone having huge stacks of chips that they are not using.

I tried various things like removing the $10 chips so you were forced to use the $5's, but then people just started using the $25's instead; it created some great action but I still had a bunch of $5's not being used.

Now we start with stacks of $25's and $100's and the blinds start at 25/50 and increase from there. Less denoms work much better and are way less hassle so maybe give that a try at your next game and see how it pans out. Before I ordered good chips, I used my crappy composites thoroughly to test my denoms and quantities out in actual games so I knew what would work and what would not, I would suggest you try the same.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Just echoing what most of the others said. If you're going T2500, absolutely just ditch the 5's and 10's. For that matter, even if you want to keep 5's for some reason, there's no reason for 10's also. A breakdown of 5, 25, 100, 500 is more than versatile enough.

Most of the others covered the blinds pretty well. FWIW, I'm changing my game from a T1500 to a T2500 or T3000. Saved some cash not having to buy a ton of red Pharaoh's. Blinds start at 25-25. I'm leaning toward the T3000 because then I can essentially use my old T1500 blinds schedule that I really liked. All I have to do is double it and round to the 25's. Starting stacks will be 20 greens, 20 blacks, and a purple if I decide to go with T3000.

[Wylecoyo]

Thanks for all the great feedback. The only real reason I wanted to include the $5.00 and $25.00 chips was to justify having them. I want to get a well rounded set of chips in order to cover as wide a range of future possibilities, but don't want to leave 1/3 of them out of my regular play in hope I may someday need them. My standard tourney setup has been a T2000 startup with three denominations of $10.00, $100.00, and $500.00. I guess, in all actuality, I am just looking for an excuse to buy the extra chips.