Texas Hold’em Poker Tournament

In a Texas Hold’em Poker Tournament, players get given a certain amount of tournament chips after they place a buy-in. If you decide to set up your own tournament, there are several things you should consider in order to set up a successful tournament of your own. Basic game rules will apply but there will be several other extra things you need to consider like the amount of the buy-in, who’s going to play, how many chips everyone will get and when you’re going to increase the blinds to make a fair game. Once players lose all their chips, they’re then out of the game. Play will continue until one player holds all of the tournament chips and they’re declared the winner. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But there are several things you need to plan first.

What is the buy-in going to be?

This needs to be determined before the game starts, and it’s a good idea to determine it before you invite anyone to play. This is so that you can choose an amount that people can afford to put in, while still creating a significant winning sum to make the tournament worth playing.

What is the payout going to be?

An easy way to work out the pot size and determine if the buy-in is worth it is by multiplying the buy-in figure by the number of people who’ll be attending the tournament. If you have between 9-20 players attending, paying out to the top three players is recommended. If you have 9 or less, just stick with paying out to the top player. A simple payout system that a lot of people use if there are going to be three payouts is 50% to the last player in, 30% to the second player and 20% to the third player left in. Naturally, because it’s your own tournament you can choose whatever payout structure you like (but it should still be weighted towards being first place).

Who’s going to play and when?

Ideally, a Texas Hold’em Poker Tournament is for a large number of players if you want to try and create a significant win and have plenty of playing time. Take into consideration the skill levels of the player’s you’re inviting to make the casino game more interesting. If you’re all of the same experience level it makes the game a lot fairer and far more interesting to take part in. You need to make sure that the people you want to play with can afford the buy-in and can attend on the date at the time you specify.

How many tournament chips is everyone going to have?

Something else that needs to be worked out before you start the tournament is how many chips you’re going to give to each player. Numbers that are easy to distribute are best e.g. 100, 200, 500, 1000 etc. There are more important factors that you need to worry about. You just need to make sure that you give each player a substantial number of chips to get a decent casino game underway.

How often are you going to increase the blinds?

The most important factor in Texas Hold’em tournaments is the blinds and the frequency you increase them during the game. If you start out with 100 chips per player and you set the blinds to 1 or 2, increasing them to between 3 and 6, 4 and 8 and so on until you reach a fixed amount like 30 should enable you to have a game that lasts a couple of hours. If you want to make the game go faster then increase the frequency of the blinds, or higher the amounts. You need to predetermine the blinds and the frequency before you start, otherwise you may get arguments once the game is underway. Obviously players who don’t have that many chips left will not want to increase the blinds further and players who want them to increase could try to push for it so that other players will go bust.