Tourney Help with structure for Meet-Up Main Event (Re-buy Tournament) (4 Viewers)

[cpac54]

I'm hosting the 2nd Swiss Meet-up at the end of January and on the Saturday I'll do a big "Main Event" tournament.

I almost never host tournaments. Last year I received lots of great advice from PCF (https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/help-with-structure-for-meet-up-main-event.114309/) for my first ever meet-up and the Main Event went off without a hitch.

Based on feedback from last year's attendees however, I'd like to make this year's edition a re-buy tournament. As such, I'm looking for advice on what to pay attention to when adding re-buys into the mix and how it should affect things like starting stacks, levels, re-buy cut-off, etc.

Some info:
- 2 tables (16 -18 players is the most likely number)
- Will be a $75 buy-in with re-buys.
- how to regulate re-buys? 1 per person? unlimited until end of a certain level?
- Start time early afternoon around 2:00pm
- Deeper stack format ideally.
- Would like the levels to allow for comfortable play without turning into a shove fest too early.
- Dinner break of 1 hour around 6pm (give or take)
- Breaks of 10-15min to allow for nature breaks and colour-ups.
- Duration: not too short, but shouldn't run until midnight either. I'm thinking 8 hours incl. breaks would be ideal.

Chips:
- Harrah's Hotstamp Tournament Set with following breakdown:

• T25 x 360
• T100 x 360
• T500 x 300
• T1k x 320
• T5k x 60
• T25k x 40

Payout:
- Thinking 4 spots for 16-18 players. Something like: 45%/30%/15%/10% (which is what I did last year). Does that seem okay? Or would you pay out more places (1 additional) given the re-buys?


Thanks for your help in advance!

I'll also just get it out of the way and just tag @BGinGA now!

 

[cpac54]

For reference, this is what I ended up using last year in the end:

Starting stacks: 45k

Tournament ended up finishing during level 17 (10/20k blinds)

 

[krafticus]

I am a fan of the 1 rebuy per person until the 1st break. If you are using The Tournament Director (doubtful), it has a setting to restrict the number of rebuys per person. If not, give players a rebuy chip, and when they rebuy, they have to give you the chip. after the 1st break, collect all remaining chips

 

[doublebooyah85]

I echo @krafticus mentioning a blinds/level clock somewhere in the room. I just use the free ones and upload the blinds the day of. Laptop hooked up to a cpu. Not on my phone.

But, I don’t like limiting rebuys. If you want a 8 hour tourney rebuys should last 2 hours. This is a once a year event not a monthly tournament. Make sure players get to play as much poker as possible, if this was monthly, I would understand having only 1 rebuy.

 

[krafticus]

I echo @krafticus mentioning a blinds/level clock somewhere in the room. I just use the free ones and upload the blinds the day of. Laptop hooked up to a cpu. Not on my phone.

But, I don’t like limiting rebuys. If you want a 8 hour tourney rebuys should last 2 hours. This is a once a year event not a monthly tournament. Make sure players get to play as much poker as possible, if this was monthly, I would understand having only 1 rebuy.

I get that, but then you get the deep pockets double up or rebuy constantly player. For casino tournaments and such, sure. for meetups and home games, I think that's less "fun" for everyone and gives better players a huge advantage.

Meetups generally are double up or play cash anyway, so I doubt you'll get a lot of rebuys per person anyway.

 

[cpac54]

Thanks @krafticus and @doublebooyah85.

Good points on both sides re: how to limit re-buys. I'll give that some thought.

In your experience, what percentage of players end of re-buying/how many re-buys should I account for?

In light of re-buys, how should one adjust things like starting stacks or blind levels to prevent the tournament from dragging on too long in the end?


Re: Tournament software: I'm using the "Blind Valet" app, mainly due to me being a macbook user. I used it last year and it found it really good for my purposes. I had the time running on my laptop, visible to one table, with it mirrored to my TV for the other table.

 

[BGinGA]

If you plan to use the structure in post #2 (450bb lasting 5:40 plus breaks), allowing re-buys will have little effect. The stacks are deep enough that most players (except maniacs or very unlucky) won't have had their stacks decimated by the end of the re-buy period (recommend end of L8 or worth 37.5bb).

With a 200bb starting stack for a respectable buy-in amount, most events will see 20%-to-33% re-buys. But for a larger 450bb stack, I'd expect that to drop to somewhere between 0 and 10%.

 

[doublebooyah85]

When I have hosted w 30-35 entries, 2 hours of rebuys, the most rebuys we had was 14. And it’s a 50k starting stack. Blinds start 100–200. Stil finished under 7 hours. Solid breaks too.

It’s so deep rebuys are hard, and usually bad beats or someone just making a bad play. Really want to give them another opportunity. Maybe 1 player will do 2 rebuys. You could limit that. Our entries are $240.

I’m sure there can be ways to improve this structure but it’s been working great.

Not listed is a 15 min break when you get to the final table and taking off the T1ks usually around 15k-30k. Dealers do it gradually.

 

[cpac54]

Thanks everyone, really helpful!

It’s so deep rebuys are hard, and usually bad beats or someone just making a bad play. Really want to give them another opportunity.

This was exactly the situation we had last year. A couple guys busted quite early in the tournament after running KK into AA, which kind of sucked for them.

 

[cpac54]

Just playing around with structure based on comments above. Given my lack of 5k chips in the set, does it make sense to go with 25/50 blinds to start?

Say 20,000 or 25,000 starting stacks with something like the following blind schedule?

Assuming 4 or 5 re-buys max, end of tournament around level 18-19?

 

[BGinGA]

Just playing around with structure based on comments above. Given my lack of 5k chips in the set, does it make sense to go with 25/50 blinds to start?

Say 20,000 or 25,000 starting stacks with something like the following blind schedule?

Assuming 4 or 5 re-buys max, end of tournament around level 18-19?

View attachment 1443266

Add a L2 25/75 level and you're good to go.

I think 18x 25k stacks (500bb) with one re-buy (anticipated 4 total, max) will still finish by the 10k/20k level (and no later than 15k/30k).