I’ve run a few home poker tournaments (playing no-limit Texas Hold’em) and they’ve went quite well. I figured someone else could benefit from the rules and setup that I use. My rules/setup is a compilation from various things I found on forums, newsgroups, and websites.
I’m posting this as a guide so that people don’t have to go through all the work that I had to when I wanted to setup tournaments. It’s meant as a simple starting point, change it to fit your situation.
Shuffle Up and Deal!
THE GAME
- No Limit Texas Hold’em
- Buy-In: $20
- Payout:
- 1st – 60%, 2nd – 40% (4-6 players)
- 1st – 50%, 2nd – 30%, 3rd – 20% (7-8 players)
INITIAL CHIP DISTRIBUTION
| Players | $10 | $20 | $50 | $200 | Total |
| 4 | 45 | 30 | 25 | 11 | $4,500 |
| 5 | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 | $4,000 |
| 6 | 30 | 25 | 16 | 8 | $3,200 |
| 7 | 28 | 21 | 14 | 7 | $2,800 |
| 8 | 24 | 18 | 12 | 6 | $2,400 |
SEATING
- Seating will be determined by drawing cards (A-8 are used for 8 players).
The A will be the button (first to deal), deuce will be small blind
(SB), 3 is big blind (BB), etc.
BLINDS
- The two players to the left of the dealer are required to post “blind”
bets before seeing their cards. The 1st is the SB and the 2nd is the
BB.
- If the SB is knocked out, the button essentially goes into his empty
seat.
- If the BB is knocked out, then the BB moves on to the player who
would have had it next and there isn’t a SB on this hand (SB
moves into the empty seat). On the following hand, the button would
wind up in the empty seat. The player who just had the BB would have
SB, and the BB moves on normally to the next player.
- When play is down to two players, figure out who would get the BB
next if nothing had happened. He will be the BB on the next hand.
The SB is always on the button and the other player is the BB.
THE DEAL
- The player to the right of the dealer must cut the deck before the
cards are dealt.
- The dealer is responsible for making sure that all bets have been
called before dealing each round of card(s).
- Order of the deal:
- Dealer deals two cards (one at a time) face down
to each player.
- Betting round 1 occurs.
- Dealer burns one card and
deals 3 cards (flop) in the middle of the table face up.
- Betting round 2 occurs.
- Dealer burns one card and deals one card (turn/4th street) in the middle.
- Betting round 3 occurs.
- Dealer burns one card and deals the final card (river/5th street).
- Betting round 4 occurs.
- Dealer deals two cards (one at a time) face down
- Mucked cards cannot be retrieved from the pile.
- If a card is exposed during the deal, the deal is declared a misdeal
and the hand is re-dealt. The button does not move.
- If a burn card or a mucked card is exposed, the card is made available
to the table. The hand is not re-dealt.
- If a community card is exposed prior to the action being completed,
the card remains as is. It will not be burned.
- If there was a bet or raise on the end, the person who made that last
bet or raise shows his/her cards first. If it’s checked around, the first
person to act (left of dealer) shows first.
- If a player is shown a better hand, he is not required to reveal
his cards.
BETTING
- Check and raise is allowed.
- The minimum bet is equal to the size of the BB.
- The raise must always be at least the size of the previous bet or
raise.
- Any player can bet all of their chips at anytime (ALL-IN).
- Betting round 1 begins with the player to the left of the BB.
- Betting rounds 2-4 begin with the player to the left of the button.
- When only two players are left sitting at the table, the BB is dealt
to first, the button acts first before the flop, and the BB acts first
after the flop.
- Do not splash the pot. Stack your bets in front of you and push them
into the post after the betting round is complete. This will eliminate
some confusion that may occur with no limit betting.
- Do not bet, check, call, fold, or raise out of turn.
SCHEDULE FOR BLINDS
| Time |
SB |
BB |
| 20 minutes | $10 | $20 |
| 20 minutes | $20 | $40 |
| 20 minutes | $30 | $60 |
| 20 minutes | $40 | $80 |
| 20 minutes | $60 | $120 |
| 20 minutes | $100 | $200 |
| 20 minutes | $200 | $400 |
| 20 minutes | $300 | $600 |
| 20 minutes | $400 | $800 |
OTHER
- Agreements can be made between players at anytime to split the payout.
- If two players tie for the high hand, the pot is split. If there
is a split pot, not equally divisible by the number of players in
the hand, the “extra” chips will be awarded to the player
closest to the left of the button.
- If two players get eliminated in the same hand, the person who started
the hand with the most chips gets the higher finish and awarded the
corresponding prize pool for that placement.
Nick Momrik 
Nice. My only difference of opinion is when two players get eliminated in the same hand. We play that the payouts for the two posistions are split.
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no time to read it all, but is there mention of poker etiquette (sp?)? for example: string bets, table talk and more…
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Home Poker Tourney
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Hey these are great. One question though. I am running a small (7 player) tourney at my house this weekend. Can you explain the section on the blinds? Why do you have rules regarding what happens when players get knocked out? I always thought that if a player gets knocked out then the blinds and button just rotate around and his spot is just gone. Am I missing something here?
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Well, you don’t want the Big Blind to skip someone…each person should have to pay the small blind and big blind once during each trip around the table. Basically it’s as simple as that.
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We ran into a situation and I just wanted to get some more opinions on it. We were playing a poker tourney at home, and someone (who happened to be chip leader) wanted to leave. It was $15 buy in and he left with 5 people left (started with 9) and took his $15 buy in plus $5. So $20 total. Ends up winner took $60 and second place got $20 ($15 buy in plus $5, the same amount). Where do you guys stand on this, I mean in theory 5th got as much as 2nd. Is there a rule that in tourney you have to stay? I am really looking forward to hearing from you guys on this and thanks all for commenting…
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I would say that he should get whatever 5th place pays. If you only had 9 people playing, 5th place shouldn’t get anything though. He could make a deal, but everyone left at the table would need to agree on it, and who in their right mind would make a deal with 5 people left in a 9 person tournament? I’d say he’s shit out of luck and should have gotten a “Thank You” for his donation, then send him on his way.
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I would have to agree with MtDewVirus…when you get into a tourney you cant just stand up at any time and ask for money, you need to play to the end to get a pay out. It doesnt matter if he was chip leader or not.
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i had a situation that came up that a person moved all in out of order does his bet still stand or does he have to pull it back
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If you had him pull it back, he could just push it all right back in when it is his turn to bet. I’d say give him a slap on the wrist and tell him to bet in turn!
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Thanks for the rules. I am having a $50 and a $100 buy in…Do I just double and triple the chip distribution?
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No need to change chip distributions. A buy in just an entry fee and doesn’t have any correlation to the amount in chips.
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I was just wondering, does the person right of the dealer have to cut the cards or is it the dealers preference?
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Someone should always cut the cards in case other players saw the bottom card. The cards are always cut in a casino and a cut card is then place on the bottom of the deck so that the bottom card is never exposed throughout the hand. It doesn’t really matter who cuts, but after shuffling, the deck should always be cut.
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Comment about 26-28
I played my first tournament in March of 2004.
The payout was as follows:
1st 60%
2nd 30%
3rd 10%
There were 18 people at $100 each.
Started at 8 PM and at 4:30 AM there were 2 people left, me and one other guy. We decided to split the remaining cash 50-50. We shook hands, played one more round to determine first and second and that was the end. I actually took second but made more money by splitting than playing to the end. Great game…….Had a blast. Haven’t been in the money since then but oh well. The point is that the two of us agreed on the payout. 😀
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Hey i have a question concerning the table structure. I am having a tournament soon with about 20 people in it, and I am wondering how i am going to filter in people to the tables when a certain number of people bust out. I have 3 tables of about 7, so what should i do when one table gets down to 4 and the other two tables still have 7 and 6? Should I equalize the tables by putting new people at the table with 4?
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Definitely! It would be very unfair to the people playing short handed vs. the other table, or vice versa. Depends on how you look at it, but you want to keep the tables as equal as possible through the tournament. I think Home Poker Tourney has some good information on a way to do it the right way.
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If you home tourney guys are using a blinds timer, one I downloaded from http://pokerino.gmoore.net worked pretty welll for my home games.
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What are your thoughts on late entries? I’m hosting a charity tournament with 1 rebuy. Some people can’t make it at the start time. I was thinking of allowing them to enter late without the option of the rebuy. Your thought?
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If people can’t make it at the start time, just make sure they have paid in advance. Then what you do is seat “them” with their chips and take their blinds each rotation. That way it’ll be as if they had just folded every hand so far and when they arrive they won’t have all of their starting chips. This is a common practice in most professional tournaments from what I’ve read. If they arrive in time for the rebuy, let them rebuy if they wish. No sense in penalizing them for arriving late when they are paying the same entry fee as everyone else.
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