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 
Great, with the help of your site and homepokertourney, I’m sure to have a successful tournament. Thank you!
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I am starting my own home game, but your site should really explain what happens when 3 or more people go ALL IN. Some people really don’t understand what happens when there is a second or third pot. …..nice site!!! it will help
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there are two ways to move the button. forward moving and dead. i like forward. this way there always is a bb and sb.
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Me and my friends play no limit hold-em every Friday night. We usually only have 8 -10 people so we play only one table. We played one night and had 18 so we split into 2 tables. Problem was we decided to combine when there were 8 people left, and one table ended up getting down to 3 while the other table was still at 6 players. So the players at the table with 3 left got to stop and wait for the other table to lose 1 player. This took almost an hour of waiting. We are having another big tourney this weekend (30 people probably) and would like to know how the tables at casinos (or wsop) shift players from table to table.
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Running a home tourney. Expecting between 20-30 players.
Here are the chip colors i have
White – 250
Red – 250
Blue – 150
Green – 150
Black – 100
Purple – 100
$20 buy in, 1-$10 rebuy/add-on in first hour.
Any suggestions or help on chip values for the amount of chips with max 30 players would be a great help.
Thank you.
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That many chips might work if you have 20 players, but if you get 30, each player will barely have any chips. Check out homepokertourney.com for tons of info on chips counts and other stuff.
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When you are playing a multi-table tournament, when one table has 2 or more people less than the table or tables with the most people, u must randomly pick someone from the higher table to go to the short-stacked one. Best way to do this is high-card. This person takes the empty seat, if he comes in on a blind position, he doesnt post and sits til the dealer button passes, any other position and he plays automatically.
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We are setting up a ten week tournament where the winners get points each week and try for a position to play for all the prizes at the end. Do you have any suggestions for this kind of tournament? Particularly I am intersted in what to do if someone can not play… how can we make it inviting for them to participate even though they will not be able to play each week (we have some players that work offshore and can not be here consistently). Any input will be helpful
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I would just like to thank you for posting a straight froward set of rules. I have been looking and have found that many sites post much more information than I need. I play at a local bar and we vary our blind’s increasing them when ever someone is elemitated. This keeps the game between 1 hour and 1.5 hours for 10 players.
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I am hosting a no limit texas hold em tournament fundraiser $50 buy-in no rebuy and was wanting you to know what the payout % should be. We are expecting 30-60 players.How much should we keep for the fundraiser and hosting the tournament?
Thank you!
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Hey Nick. Im having a home tourney soon. I have about 20 people coming. Everyone will start with 75,000 worth chips. How should my blind structure go?
I was thinking:
500-1000
1000-2000
1500-3000
2000-4000
3000-6000
5000-10,000
7000-14,000
8000-16,000
10,000-20,000
20,000-40,000
30,000-60,000
50,000-100,000
At about 20 mins blinds. If you see anything wrong(it could all be wrong) please let me know. This is my first HOSTING so I need some help
Thanks,
Jack
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That looks pretty good to me if you want it to last 3-4 hours.
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Im having 15 people at a home tournament. What would be the starting chip counts. And the pay outs. With 20 dollar buy ins.
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what is your procedure for buying out chips in higher denominations. IE – changing $25 chips for $100 at a higher blind level? What if there are an odd number of $25’s that don’t total $100? Is there a procedure for this?
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we’re having our first tourney, but i’ve played in several before this with a different squad…these guys want to make each chip worth one and just go from there….i know there’s something wrong with doing that but i can’t explain it to them….any suggestions?
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When the blinds go up it’ll be a pain in the ass counting out 20, 50, 100 single chips to post your blind. And when you get down to the final couple of players everyone will have a massive chip stack. This will all take away from the poker itself and make the tournament last much longer than it should.
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thanks….don’t know why i couldn’t verbalize that myself…it makes total sense
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My question is about the Small Blind getting knocked out. I see and agree with your rule that the dealer button moves to the empty seat to keep all the blinds in there correct spot. That is how I have ALWAYS run my tournaments. But in a recent tourny, I had a HUGE uproar about it. Half of the people playing was mad cause they said the dealer button couldnt set infront of an empty chair. They felt it should go to an actual person to be considered a dealer.
Now my question is…. How does the World Poker Tour do it? What is the OFFICAL rule on this? If the Small Blind goes out in a Professional tourny, would the button move to the empty seat to keep the blinds correct? I cant imagine they would let a player just skip paying blinds due to the luck of a player getting knocked out. I am hoping to find some hard proof of this rule to beable to print out for these Jerks that ruined my last tourny. Any help on this rule would be appreciated.
Thanks
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I have a question about the blinds. Let’s say a player has left the tournament with intent to return and his blinds are being posted and folded. If he is the big blind and no one raises, are his cards active?
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If that happens on Party Poker, his cards are folded. They call it post and fold.
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