Live Poker has always been as much a social game as gambling focused. Many people play live poker in their homes or organise fun live poker tournaments for charity and fundraising events. Organising a live poker tournament for fun is a great way to utilise the growing popularity of poker to promote fundraising, corporate days, or even for teams in sports league to compete off the field! Before the cards hit the table, there are several things you can do to insure everybody has a good time and your tournament runs smoothly.
First check the gaming regulations for the premises you are holding the live poker event in. In the UK non casino licensed venues will have a limit of the cash prize that can be won. For more information consult the Gambling commission at www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk.
The Rules of live poker
First decide the game variation you want to play. The most popular is No Limit Texas Hold'em poker, however Draw variations are widely known. It is a good idea to provide the basic rules to the players to avoid any disputes later on. You can get the basic rules of poker from LTDPokerschool
Equipment Needed for a fun poker tournament
Poker Tables: It's important to consider how many players you can fit around each table. Figure that each poker table needs to hold an equal amount of players. You will want each table to hold no less than 6 players. Also, plan on covering the tables with either a table-cloth, or if you can purchase a fold-out poker table-top or a poker felt. From experience do not allow drinking and eating across the tables.
Chairs: Whilst you may not be able to control the chairs provided by the venue, try to ensure the chairs are as comfortable as possible and at the correct height for the poker tables.
Poker Chips + Cards: If you plan on using the poker chips on a regular basis, I strongly suggest you purchase a large enough set to handle at least 50% more players than you are expecting to show up. And, purchase a decent quality chip set. If you want a Casino fee; I suggest buying at least 11 gram chips or 14 gram. Cards as with the chips should be the best possible quality but remember if you are trying to make money from running a live poker event you will want to keep an eye on your budget. There is a wide variety of equipment on ebay.
How big should the winner get?
A Fun poker tournament should be more about having an enjoyable evening than about winning a large sum of money. Consider the poker evening a night of entertainment for your guests. Dinner and a movie will run between $20 - $30 dollars. This is a good place to start and is likely in everybody's comfort zone. Of course consult the gambling commission guidelines on cash prizes.
How many chips do you give players in a live poker tournament?
The physical number of chips is going to depend on how many chips you own or can borrow. The chip values, in reality don't matter either since everybody is going to be starting with the same total value in chips. However, to make it easiest on yourself and your players, I suggest keeping to a pretty simple formula. Start each player with $2000 in chips. The configuration that I start each player with looks like this:
- (10) $5 chips
- (10) $25 chips
- (7) $100 chips
- (2) $500 chips
In order to make this as easy as possible, make the cost of the initial buy-in, re-buys and add-ons the same cash value and worth the same number of tournament chips.
As a side note, to cut down on the amount of physical chips you will need, for all re-buys and add-ons, either give the player (4) $500 chips or (2) $1000 chips.
Should you allow re-buys?
Playing No-Limit Texas Hold 'em means that it's possible for players to lose all their chips very quickly. Allowing players to purchase more chips if they lose them all during a specific amount of time is one way to make sure that everybody gets a chance to play for an ample amount of time prior to being relegated to watching the tournament from the sidelines. The other benefit to re-buys is the additional money in the prize pool for the winners. Set the number of rounds for which you will allow re-buys.
Should you allow add-ons?
While a re-buy lets someone buy more chips once they have lost all theirs, an add-on is a way to let all players, regardless of the amount of chips they have, to purchase more chips. There is usually a specific time for making the add-on purchase and once that time has passed, no additional chips can be purchased. At this point, if you lose all your chips, you are out of the tournament for good. It's typical for re-buys and add-ons to be available for the first hour of play.
What are the blinds in a live poker tournament?
Here is an example of a relatively simple blind structure:
- level 1 - 5/10
- level 2 - 10/20
- level 3 - 25/50
- level 4 - 50/100
- level 5 - 100/200
- level 7 - 200/400
- level 8 - 400/800
- level 9 - 800/1600
- level 10 - 1600/3200
Each blind level should last 15 to 20 minutes. Just remember, the more levels you add, the longer the game is likely to last.
Breaks in Live Poker Games
It is important to schedule breaks for refreshments, cigarettes etc.. I suggest every 45 minutes. Providing a print out of the blind structure and breaks is a good idea. Play resumes once all tables are seated.
How many winners will there be?
The number of players who will win part of the prize pool largely depends on how many start the live poker tournament. If there are going to be 10 players or less, I usually do a 60%/40% split of the prize pool for the final 2 players. Between 11 and 30 players, split the prize pool 50%/30%/20%. If your tournament is going to be larger than 30 players, for each 10 additional players, add another payout spot. Take a few percentage points off each of the higher payouts as needed.
If you are lucky enough to have players who are experienced enough to also know how deal, see if one of them would be willing to be the designated dealer for each table. If so, automatically sit them in seat 1 in the middle of the table giving them the easiest access to deal to the entire table.
It's time to play cards. Shuffle up and deal!
LivetheDreamPoker runs several live poker events in Top London venues. You can book a private poker night, hire poker equipment or join in our free live poker lessons.
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