Welcome and hoping to learn how to run 2 tables (1 Viewer)

[terpfan007]

Long time listener, first time caller here. I've ran about half a dozen nights of 8-11 person, No Limit Hold Em' and I'm looking to move to two tables as I'm planning on having around 17 or 18 people come this week. Appreciate everyone sharing on here how they have their games set up and looking to learn what is best for this amount of people. I'm thinking two tables and then combining when there is 10 left but I'm wondering if that will take too long and I should just run the tables separate down to the winner?

 

[dpeks13]

Definitely combine. You want to try to keep the tables balanced to an extent as well. You don't want a table of 9 and a table of 5, out of sheer fairness

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

Welcome!

So we assume you're playing a tournament style, everyone throws money in and top spots get paid out? Wait until there's 9 left to coalesce to one table, moving people to keep them generally balanced until then.

Edit: @dpeks13 said it better!

 

[terpfan007]

Yes, "tournament style" I guess. Not sure what that exactly (forgive me but before these last 6 games I'd only played poker 3 times in my life probably) means but yeah just a small buy in and before we usually go to the last two people (sometimes 1 and takes all) and split it.

So for moving, once some people go out and say it's 9 and 7, then have the table with 9 finish the hand and move the person that's next up for the big blind to the big blind spot on the table of 7?

Thanks for the help gents

 

[SetToBean]

Yes, "tournament style" I guess. Not sure what that exactly (forgive me but before these last 6 games I'd only played poker 3 times in my life probably) means but yeah just a small buy in and before we usually go to the last two people (sometimes 1 and takes all) and split it.

So for moving, once some people go out and say it's 9 and 7, then have the table with 9 finish the hand and move the person that's next up for the big blind to the big blind spot on the table of 7?

Thanks for the help gents

If it's a casual event filled with inexperienced players I'd probably default to paying out more people to make getting in the money feel more achievable. In my home games (I am also inexperienced but finally starting to run something regular) pay out the top 4 a 40%/25%/20%/15% distribution for 11-20 player home tournaments. In the earlier 9-10 player nights I'd pay out the top 3 with a 50%/30%/20% distribution.

On moving, yep, you move the next BB on the over-populated table over to the empty seat closest to the big blind. They don't have to wait for the BB to come to the seat to play. There's some extra rules that can be added if the only seat available is the next small blind or in-between the button and the small blind to prevent people from being on the button for a discount or free for an orbit, but if you have mostly inexperienced players no one cares about OOP/IP anyway.

As for breaking tables,It helps to have some kind of tournament software or other tracking mechanism to keep a note of who's at what tables on what seats. Makes condensing tables and reassigning random seats easier.

 

[MeridianFC]

Watch all of the @Chris Manzoni tournament videos but this on will be of immediate interest:

 

[terpfan007]

Those videos were super helpful. Thank you!

 

[terpfan007]

The videos really helped me prepare better and the night went great. I only had 14 people so we just did two tables of 7. Everyone had a great time and the only complaint anyone (only one person) had at the end is that my table (and the person who complained) only lost one person and went to 6 and the other table lost 3 or 4 people all in one hand so after that we combined but then the 3 or 4 people from the other table came to ours and had a noticeable stack advantage over many of the people at our table.
I dunno, to me that was fine and just how the night went as our table wasn't as aggressive, but one guy questioned if there was a better way to handle that. Either way, I really appreciate the help from you all!

 

[Mesnik44]

Hello and welcome.

Get tournament director, and let it run your tournaments. It will take care of movement and table collapsing for you. It will also help with payouts.

 

[terpfan007]

Hello and welcome.

Get tournament director, and let it run your tournaments. It will take care of movement and table collapsing for you. It will also help with payouts.

I've never heard of that before I'll check it out.

Our payouts were simple (only a $5 buy in, so nothing crazy haha) and the breakdown occurred when we went from 13 people total (7 and 6 at a table) down to 9, in one hand. So they were balanced the whole time.

Also, I don't have a laptop, can you run the program on your phone and is it hard to be inputting info while you are playing?

 

[SetToBean]

The videos really helped me prepare better and the night went great. I only had 14 people so we just did two tables of 7. Everyone had a great time and the only complaint anyone (only one person) had at the end is that my table (and the person who complained) only lost one person and went to 6 and the other table lost 3 or 4 people all in one hand so after that we combined but then the 3 or 4 people from the other table came to ours and had a noticeable stack advantage over many of the people at our table.
I dunno, to me that was fine and just how the night went as our table wasn't as aggressive, but one guy questioned if there was a better way to handle that. Either way, I really appreciate the help from you all!

Stack dis/advantage is a core and unavoidable element of poker and that's especially true for tournament play, so seems like everything went more or less went perfectly. Very nice!

 

[terpfan007]

Stack dis/advantage is a core and unavoidable element of poker and that's especially true for tournament play, so seems like everything went more or less went perfectly. Very nice!

Do you think it's advisable to encourage people to top off (not sure the correct term) when it gets close to the buy in cut off? I'm wondering if perhaps I encourage people that they can "buy in" and add more chips to their stacks prior to the time cut off, but then shorten the blind timers to 15 minutes instead of 20, that it'd allow people who are feeling a little low at the 10pm mark (start at 8pm) to get more chips but with the shortened blind timer it hopefully won't make the game go longer from the added buy ins.
Thoughts?

 

[allforcharity]

Do you think it's advisable to encourage people to top off (not sure the correct term) when it gets close to the buy in cut off? I'm wondering if perhaps I encourage people that they can "buy in" and add more chips to their stacks prior to the time cut off, but then shorten the blind timers to 15 minutes instead of 20, that it'd allow people who are feeling a little low at the 10pm mark (start at 8pm) to get more chips but with the shortened blind timer it hopefully won't make the game go longer from the added buy ins.
Thoughts?

Better to stick with a defined structure and estimating your tourney duration based on 75-100% of people doing a top-up.

 

[terpfan007]

Another question for you all, should I allow people to double their buy ins and begin with bigger stacks? I did last night for the first time and I'm thinking it might have been a mistake as it allowed the one person to control more given his significant starting advantage.

 

[BPTDirector]

If you give everyone the add on option those that do not take have to accept that they could start at a disadvantage. Most don’t do double the chips though. That’s a little too much I think.

 

[terpfan007]

If you give everyone the add on option those that do not take have to accept that they could start at a disadvantage. Most don’t do double the chips though. That’s a little too much I think.

Gotcha. That makes sense. Thank you!

 

[terpfan007]

And lastly, does anyone that runs two tables split the final winnings by chip percentage like if one person has 80% of the chips they get 80% of the pot? The two times I've done it I just do a 50, 30, 20 split of the top 3 but I had one person (unironically the chip leader) ask to do the breakdown by chip percentage.

 

[BPTDirector]

No. The way you are doing it is fine.

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

And lastly, does anyone that runs two tables split the final winnings by chip percentage like if one person has 80% of the chips they get 80% of the pot? The two times I've done it I just do a 50, 30, 20 split of the top 3 but I had one person (unironically the chip leader) ask to do the breakdown by chip percentage.

This is ChipEV and its massively better for the chipleader most times. When someone wins a tournament they have 100% of the chips but only makes ~50%ish percent of the money, right? So giving them the opportunity to get their percentage in real money favors the big stack while really hindering the shorter stacks who may end up getting smaller than mincash.

That type of split isn't good for that reason, you want to stick roughly to your payouts or do whats called an ICM chop. Takes more work but includes the fact that people are still in the game and first place in chips isnt Guaranteed first place money by the end.

 

[terpfan007]

Excellent, thank you both!

 

[InBobWeTrust]

Excellent advice so far. My 2 cents: If you are playing in this tournament, position yourself so you have the best view of the room and the other table. If are doing a random seat draw, make it clear that you have an assigned spot and everyone else will be randomized around you. I cannot stress how much it sucks to have your back to the other table and to keep having to crane your neck or spin your chair around as the host.

 

[terpfan007]

Excellent advice so far. My 2 cents: If you are playing in this tournament, position yourself so you have the best view of the room and the other table. If are doing a random seat draw, make it clear that you have an assigned spot and everyone else will be randomized around you. I cannot stress how much it sucks to have your back to the other table and to keep having to crane your neck or spin your chair around as the host.

Yeah, I was short one designated dealer (also plays) so I took up dealing duties for one of the tables and it severely limited how much I was able to interact and coordinate things like chipping up or people buying back in and needing chips. I had intended to have the buy in amount separated beforehand but with 4 kids under 6 I ran out of time to set up beforehand.

When you say it's a good idea to be able to see everything you just mean for general purposes of knowing what's going on, or for something specific that helps to be able to see on, such as keeping the tables balanced or something?