Tournament Structuring

I recently acquired the job of designing tournament structures for an online poker website. Designing tournament structures is scarcely something new for me; I have been active as a player throughout my poker career in lobbying for the kind of structures we like. For example, many years ago, the World Series of Poker championship event started with $25-$50 blinds, then introduced an ante with $5 chips at the second level. I told Eric Drache, the WSOP tournament director at that time, that it was inappropriate to have $5 chips in a world championship. The next year, he heeded my advice and took them out. The first time an ante came into play after Eric restructured the event was at the third level (after the second level of $50-$100 blinds), and it was $25. The championship used this structure for a few years.

After Jack McClelland took over directing the WSOP, he was looking for some feedback from players concerning tournament structures. Sometime in the late '80s, there was a three-way breakfast meeting between myself, Jack, and Brent Carter, one of the most experienced tournament players.

The most common no-limit hold'em tournament structure in use today originated from that meeting. First, Brent said it was too big an increase for a $25 ante to be introduced at the $50-$100 level, because it in-creased the amount of money in the pot by 150 percent (for a ninehanded table). He suggested that the next level be $100-$200, and only then would an ante be used to supplement the blinds. This sounded like excellent reasoning to me, and I supported his position. Jack saw the merit in it, and made this change to all of his tournaments.

McClelland also said that he was getting lots of complaints in events in which the blinds were being raised every hour that the structure was going up too quickly. He suggested adding a level of $75-$150 blinds to address this complaint, and both Brent and I thought this sounded reasonable. I forget the exact year, location, and who picked up the food check for that meeting, but the poker tournament details are still clear as a bell in my mind.

Here are a few things I believe most poker players like in the structuring of a poker tournament:

1. A comfortable amount of starting chips in proportion to the initial blind structure.

2. A schedule of raising the blinds that is relatively smooth, so that there is not a huge increase someplace and a piddling one somewhere else.

3. Enough time taken in raising the blinds so that there is play to the game on more than one betting round, instead of just playing all in preflop or folding.

4. It is OK to raise the blinds at a decent clip early in the event (especially if rebuys are allowed). But, when the money rounds approach, the blinds should go up at a slower rate, when huge sums of money may be at stake.

I can see why brick-and-mortar cardroom management would want to get tables freed up for money play, or let some dealers go home. Sometimes they elevate the structure very quickly, to get the event over with or shrunk to a few tables. But on the Internet, those considerations do not apply. So, it makes sense to give the players what they want, especially since every customer is so mobile and there are so many sites he can play on. Here are some of the things that I have done in my designs to try to please the players.

In all of the multitable no-limit hold'em tournaments I structured, a player starts with 100 times the big blind in chips. I believe this is the ideal amount for every event that is not a sit 'n' go. There is enough wiggle room so that a player does not feel that he's under pressure to get involved, yet the blinds are not so low as to be nearly meaningless. When I play in a live game of no-limit hold'em, this is the amount for which I normally buy in.

The starting amount of chips and the starting structure I used are both higher than those used for tournaments at other sites. Even in the cheapest buy-in tournaments, I start at $25-$25 blinds (with $2,500 in chips). I think it is a good idea to look at tournament structures and why they usually start at levels like $5-$15 or $10-$20 blinds. In a regular cardroom, these are the chip denominations often used for pit play, and players are used to them for money games. (The house does not object to your taking poker chips and using them at one of the craps tables.) Many of the structures used on the Internet are simply copied from those used by regular cardrooms.

I do not see why players should always have to use cheap chips on the Internet. I remember during the early '80s going to satellite tournaments held by "License Plate George" at his home. In his events, each player started with $10,000 in chips. I think the starting blinds were $50-$100. This game was actually good training for me and others in feeling comfortable handling huge sums of money in major tournaments. Before I ever had the chance to handle hundreds of thousands of dollars in world championship play, I had plenty of experience doing it at George's house. So what if we had put up only $50 or $100 to play in one of his satellites; it was still fun to bet "a hundred grand" at somebody.

Since one function of a smaller multitable tournament is to build up confidence and prepare a player for a bigger event, it is a good idea to use antes to supplement the blinds, starting out at around level six or level seven. All the major tournament events that I know of use antes from about this point on, so players need experience playing with an ante. There is no question that strategy changes somewhat when an ante is used.

A sit 'n' go tournament player has a somewhat different mindset from someone in a regular tournament. (That is why he chose to play in a sit 'n' go.) He does not have a lot of time to play in the event, and he understands that the blinds are going to have to go up fast to get done in around an hour or a shade more. However, even this type of player, once he has gotten in the money or nearly so, does not mind a chance to have a little play to the game, even though he was prepared to have the blinds keep doubling before he reached this point.

There is little point to using antes in a sit 'n' go tournament. They will not come into play until the event is just about over with. And even then, they will not be in the same ratio to the blinds as in a normal tournament. For example, if the blinds when you are fourhanded are $100-$200 and you use an ante, there is only an extra $100 in the pot, as opposed to the approximately $200 that is the amount for this structure in a multitable tournament.

As can be seen by the varied tournament structuring on the Internet, what I consider the proper way to structure a tournament is followed by few sites, if any. We will see shortly how well the ideas I presented here are actually accepted by the players.

Editor's note: Bob Ciaffone's latest book is Middle Limit Holdem Poker (332 pages, $25 plus $9.95 shipping and handling), co-authored with Jim Brier. MLHP and his other poker books, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Holdem Poker, can be ordered from Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons. E-mail [email protected]. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get Robert's Rules of Poker for free. He is an "expert" on the RoyalVegasPoker website and an advisor for the ChecknRaisePoker website.