Host a Home Texas Hold'em Poker Tournament

Have you noticed how the popularity of televised poker tournaments is causing the traditional home poker game to disappear?  No longer do a group of friends get together and play dealers choice games with the many variations of seven card stud such as Chicago or the many non-traditional poker games like Guts.  Players now want the excitement and challenge of a home poker tournament.

Because tournaments have a fixed buy-in, home poker tournament players know the amount of money they may lose ahead of time.  If the cards are not going their way, they do not have to worry about dipping into their bankroll throughout the night.  Home poker tournaments are great way to learn the game without the intimidation of sitting down at a table in a casino poker room.  So get your Poker Chip Sets out, set up your Poker Tables and let's get started...

When planning a home Texas Holdem poker tournament you have two options - Limit or No Limit.  For the purposes of this article we will discuss how to host a No Limit tournament.

Tournament Buy-in
You want to set the price for your tournament at a level that makes the players comfortable with the amount they have to spend, but make sure that you set it high enough to provide a nice payout for the top players.  We recommend tournament buy-ins of $20, $30, $50, or $100 per person.  Just make sure it is an amount everybody is comfortable with.

Poker Chip Sets

Here are the typical poker chip denominations.

Most home Texas Holdem poker tournaments start with each player receiving three different poker chip colors (denominations). If you are playing a T1000 tournament we recommend starting with the following poker chip distribution of Red, Green, and Black from your poker chip set.

Each player should receive:

Allocating chips in this manner allows players to feel as though they are playing with a big stack.

When playing a T1500 tournament each player should receive the following chip distribution from your poker chip set:

For a T2000 tournament, we suggest the following chip distribution from your poker chip set:

If you do not have Purple chips in your poker chip set, we recommend substituting the Red chips as your $500 denomination chip.

Poker Tables

Blind Schedule
Below is the recommended blind structure for the T1000 and T1500 Hold'em tournaments.

Here is the recommended blind structure for a T2000 Holdem game.

You should set a time limit for each round. Commonly accepted blind level times are either 15, 20, or 30 minutes. Theoretically, the shorter the amount of time for each blind level, the quicker your tournament will go.  Make sure you give your players a 5,10, or 15 minute break every few rounds.

Tournament Start
In a multi-table tournament you will need to assign seats to each of the players before play begins. When you have determined the number of players in the tournament separate a deck of cards into it's respective suits (S, D, C, H). Assign one suit to each of the poker tables you will be using.  In a two poker table tournament you will use two of the suits and in a three table tournament you will use three of the suits, etc. If you have eight players at each table you will want to have the Ace - Eight for each suit. Shuffle the cards for the suits you have chosen and have each player draw a card. This card will represent their assigned table and assigned seat. The Ace will sit in position one, the Two will sit in position two and so on.

Re-buys
A re-buy provides the opportunity for a player to buy more poker chips during the game. Re-buys are generally limited to the first hour or two of play and are often limited to just one re-buy per player. However, you can offer the opportunity for a player to re-buy more than once. Just make sure everybody agrees to the terms before the poker tournament begins. The cost of a re-buy should be at least the same as the buy-in amount. There are a couple of benefits to offering re-buys. The first is that it keeps players from being knocked out early and the second is that the money collected through re-buys adds to the amount of money available for the payout to the top players at the end of the tournament.

Coloring Up
Coloring up is the process of exchanging the lower denomination chips for higher denomination poker chips. This normally takes place several rounds into the tournament when the blinds no longer make use of the smaller denomination poker chips and some players may have already busted out.

With the recommended T1000 and T1500 blind structure you will typically want to replace the red poker chips with green poker chips after the 3rd or 4th round. Give each player a green poker chip for every five red poker chips they have. You can also color up the green poker chips after the 8th round giving each player a black poker chip for every four green chips they have.

With the recommended T2000 blind structure you should consider coloring up after the 4th round.  Give each player a black poker chip for every four green poker chips.  You may also consider coloring up after the 8th round giving each player a purple (or red) poker chip for every five black chips they have.

In all cases, if players have an odd number of poker chips the standard practice is to have a race off for them.  Deal cards face up to each player based on the number of odd poker chips they have.  If a player has one poker chip they receive one card, if a player has two odd chips they receive two cards and so on.  The dealer then takes all the lower denomination chips and exchanges them for the appropriate number of higher denomination poker chips.  In some cases there will still be an odd number of poker chips after this exchange.  In this case, if the odd chips add up to greater than half of the larger denomination (i.e., 3 red chips equal $15 and your are coloring up to green $25) an additional chip will be added to exchange.  The dealer then awards one chip to the player with the highest card (As is the highest).  The dealer then gives the next chip to the player with the second highest card and so on until all the chips are gone.  Once a player has won a chip they cannot win another.  Finally, you cannot eliminate players during the color up process.  If a player does not have enough chips to color up on their own and they do not receive one of the highest cards, they are automatically awarded a chip from the bank.

Dealing
If you do not have a designated dealer you need to have a dealer button.  The dealer button should be passed from player to player around the poker table as the deal passes.  If you are playing a multi-poker table game and your home Texas Hold'em poker tournament is down to the final poker table, consider asking one of the players that have been knocked out to act as the dealer.  In this case, the dealer button continues to move around the poker table with the dealer dealing the cards accordingly.

Moving Players
If you are running a multi-table tournament you will need to balance the poker tables as people bust out.  If there are more than two players missing from a poker table, you should move a player from the poker table with the most players.  If possible you want to move a player into the same position they had on the previous table.

Payout
Payouts are a percentage of the total prize money including the buy-in amount collected and any re-buy purchases.  The player paces paid are determined by the number of player in the tournament.  Generally, if you have a 10 player tournament you will payout to the top three players.  If you have a tournament with 11-20 players you should pay the top four players.  In a tournament with 21-30 players pay for the top five places.  If you happen to host a tournament with more than 30 players you should consider paying at least the top six.  Here are some recommended payout schedules for tournaments of these sizes.

Make sure to always announce the payout structure prior to the beginning of your poker tournament.

Conclusion
Don't forget to have some food, beer, sodas and water for everybody.  Your tournament will probably last 3 to 4 hours and sometimes longer.  That's it, not much to it.  Hosting a home Texas Hold'em poker tournament is easy and fun all you need is the desire to host the tournament, poker tables and poker chip sets.