[Spaceman Spiff]

<applause>

All right, I'm looking at making my game a T3000 now. I used to have a T1500 and I tried a T2500, but wasn't completely happy with the results. I'm changing from the T1500 so that I won't have to use reds anymore. For the T3000, starting stack will be 20 green, 20 black, 1 purple. I was pretty happy with my T1500 schedule, so as much as possible, the T3000 follows that, just doubled. I have changed my times around though. I like the idea of earlier levels being longer since there are generally more players at each table and hands take longer to play. Here goes:

1. 25 min. 25-25
2. 25 min. 25-50
3. 25 min. 50-100
end of rebuy period
4. 20 min. 75-150
5. 20 min. 100-200
6. 20 min. 150-300
color up greens
7. 15 min. 200-400
8. 15 min. 300-600
9. 15 min. 500-1000
10. 10 min. 700-1400
11. 10 min. 1000-2000
12. 10 min. 1500-3000
13. 10 min. 2000-4000

I don't expect things to generally last much past levels 10 or 11. We usually have somewhere between 10 and 16 players and sometimes up to 8 rebuys. I expect there may be a few more rebuys since the rebuy period is effectively increased another 15 minutes with this schedule.

[Wylecoyo]

Looks good to me - its not exactly what I usually play, but it should work fine, depending on how long you want play to last.

[Q10 soooted]

Originally Posted by Spaceman Spiff

<applause>

{snip}
I like the idea of earlier levels being longer since there are generally more players at each table and hands take longer to play.

{snip - 25/20/15/10 minute blinds}

I don't expect things to generally last much past levels 10 or 11. We usually have somewhere between 10 and 16 players and sometimes up to 8 rebuys. I expect there may be a few more rebuys since the rebuy period is effectively increased another 15 minutes with this schedule.

I like the blinds & starting value amounts (mostly) but I'm curious how many hands you'll get through in 15 minutes at level 7 (200-400). I'm also surprised that things will end around levels 10/11 when the big blind doesn't equal the buy in until level 12. I think you could end up with a situation where there's a full final table at level 7 and 15 minute blinds would go by pretty quickly.

The only alternative I could think of though would be to have 7/8/9 also be 20 minutes but add an ante in to get action going & keep the tournament from getting too long. I do like the starting chips and the slow blind structure, though - let us know how it goes.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Originally Posted by Q10 soooted

I like the blinds & starting value amounts (mostly) but I'm curious how many hands you'll get through in 15 minutes at level 7 (200-400). I'm also surprised that things will end around levels 10/11 when the big blind doesn't equal the buy in until level 12. I think you could end up with a situation where there's a full final table at level 7 and 15 minute blinds would go by pretty quickly.

The only alternative I could think of though would be to have 7/8/9 also be 20 minutes but add an ante in to get action going & keep the tournament from getting too long. I do like the starting chips and the slow blind structure, though - let us know how it goes.

Good points. I'm going off of past history when I say I expect things to be done by levels 10 or 11. When I did my game as T1500, we rarely made it to level 11 which was 500-1000 then. This was to my surprise also since I started out going by the rule of thumb of the tourney will end when the BB equals the starting stack. Dozens of games later though, and a clear pattern had emerged. We've even had a couple games end shortly into level 9 before.

I think you make an excellent point about level 7. There is likely to be a still pretty full table at that point. I may need to rethink that. My goal is to have the game last roughly 3 hours. Since I added in the extra 5 minutes to levels 1-3, to balance out I made 7-9 into 15 min.

It's tough. I like a slow structure to allow for skill to have at least some bearing on the event, but at the same time, I don't want things dragging on for 4-5 hours. I go with the shorter times, especially 10 min. levels after 3 hours because by then it's usually either already heads-up or at most 3 or 4 handed. I want to finish up quickly then so that we can get another game started. For whatever reason, my guys aren't big into side games, so there are usually a bunch of vultures hanging around the final table goading everyone into finishing quickly.

[Q10 soooted]

It's interesting to see the differences in our games. In tournaments with my group we pretty consistently made it until the big blind equalled the buy in and would have 3-4 people around far into the blind structure. When we got down to 2 people, though we'd have two separate dealers that would keep things moving and some pretty poor play that would make the head's up part of the tournament very short.

Actually, I don't think we had ANY long heads up matches. They probably all ended within 15-20 minutes tops.

[Captn_All_In]

Spiff I think that it looks good. It is very close to what you recommended to me a week or more ago and that tourney turned out well! I think everyone will be pleased with that structure, let us know how the game goes!!

(I may actually move our game to a T3000 if it works out okay for you!!)