Tournament Types

There are several different structures that may be used for poker tournaments. Most of the tournaments that you see on television, such as the WSOP, use a freeze-out structure - you receive 10,000 in chips and are eliminated from the tournament as soon as you lose all your chips. You cannot rebuy or add-on more chips, once you lose your chips, you're gone! This type of structure is fine for professionals but may be a bit too harsh for a friendly home poker tournament.

Freeze-out
You are eliminated from the tournament when you lose all your chips. You cannot rebuy.

Rebuy
You can buy more chips when you go broke or when you are close to going broke. Some tournaments allow only one rebuy while some tournaments allow multiple rebuys. The rebuy period only lasts for the first several blinds levels.

Shootout
Each table plays down to one winner. All the table winners are seated at the final table.

Free Roll
A tournament that costs nothing to enter. There is no buyin fee.

Guaranteed Payout
A tournament with a guaranteed minimum payout.

Mixed (HORSE, HOSE, etc.)
A tournament where different variations of poker are played. Hold'em is played for the first blinds level, then Omaha is played for the next blinds level, then Stud is played for the next blinds level, etc..

Heads-up
A tournament where all matches are one-vs-one. There is a playoff bracket system where the winners keep advancing until there is one final winner.

Satellite 
A tournament that will win you a seat at a higher buyin tournament.

TOURNAMENT SETUP - STRUCTURE

BUY-IN

This depends on how much your players are willing to spend. It is better to have a lower buyin if you are going to have rebuys and add-ons.

PAYOUTS

Payout structures can vary from conservative to top-heavy (where most of the money goes to the winner). Most people like top-heavy payouts so they can get a big windfall if they win. If you are playing a game with inexperienced players it might be better to have a more flat payout structure to reward marginal players. If bad players keep playing without winning any money they may stop going to your games.

In most cases, when 2 players get busted out at the same time, the one with the most chips gets the higher place.

BLINDS

It will take a few times to become comfortable with a blind structure. There is one huge rule you need to use when hosting a tournament for the first time - if you aren't sure what the blinds are then make them low! There is nothing worse than setting up a tournament that people look forward to enjoying but the blinds go up too fast and it becomes an all-in festival. My opinion on blind structures is that the majority of blinds schedules are WAY too fast and the tournies end up being crapshoots at the end. Devilfish has stated this opinion publicly also. The reason for the fast blind increases is because when it gets down to 2 players left, then the people who are waiting for the next game to start (or the dealer for that matter) gets impatient and all the railbirds don't like watching all the folding - they want to see action - even if it means rushing you into making a move you don't want to. It also has to do with the fact that poker rooms ultimately make money by the hour and want the tournies to finish faster. Unfortunately some players enjoy the fast blind structures. The reason for this is something most people don't realize. In games where the blinds are high, it encourages more aggressive betting because the pots (relative to the average stack size) are much bigger. This means that the more aggressive no-limit players (and hence, the BETTER no-limit players) favor high blinds. Although this is good for the aggressive players it is not necessarily fair. Having blinds that are so high that it becomes a crapshoot at the end means that luck plays the biggest part when the most money is as stake. This doesn't make sense. People are willing to play for an hour to squeeze in-the-money to get $50 but yet when it comes to a $500 difference then players are supposed to give up control of the game to mandatory all-ins at the end.

A good rule of thumb is that at the beginning of a tournament the big blind should be 1% of the average stack size (i.e. the starting stack size). For more aggressive games the big blind can be 2-3%. It should never be higher than 3%. Near the end of a tournament the big blind should be 5% of the average stack. To most players that seems low but think about this. If the big blind is 5% of the average stack then calling a bet to the river (without raises) means you will lose 20% of your stack. That is a lot. If you watch the WSOP of the $500 buy-in Pokerstars tournies then you can see that when it gets down to the final 2 players then the big blinds is usually 2-4% of the average stack.

Small tournies (10 players) should last about an hour. Medium sized tournaments (10-25 players) should last 2-3 hours and large tournaments (30 or more players) should last 3-5 hours. Blind increases are usually 50-100% of the last blind and the blind intervals are usually 20-30 minutes. Most home games tend to be casual, and therefore there are fewer hands dealt per hour because of people talking and socializing. The blind structure should not be altered during a tournament. The reason being is that the chip leaders will always want faster blinds and will always campaign for them, but blinds levels should be at a reasonable level to allow the average player room to play.
Make sure your color-ups are in line with your blinds. For example, if you color up the $25 chips then don't have blinds that are $250/$500 if you only have $100 chips.

STARTING CHIPS & CHIP VALUES

You typically need 4 different color chips in order to play a tournament. Three of the chips will have values of $5, $25, and $100. The fourth chip will have a vlue of $500 and will be brought in during a color-up. For really big tournaments you will want to have a 5th chip with a value of $1,000. It is best to have the starting chips be either 1,000 or 1,500. This is because most tournaments (especially online tournaments) have these as the starting values. Not only does it make it easier to run the tournament with conventional values, but it makes it easier for the players because they are used to betting the same amounts at the beginning of a tournament.

ANTES

Some tournaments use antes in order to speed up the tournament. To me this is pointless because if you want to speed up the tournament then just make the blinds bigger. If you use antes then before every hand you have to make sure all the players put their antes in. This can get annoying. But this is a personal preference. If the person running the tournament is a Stud player then there is a higher likelihood that there will be antes since Stud uses an ante.

SAMPLE BLIND STRUCTURES