Please help/critique this home game structure

Im having issues with the poker league I am in. 10 of my friends and I started this poker league. Due to everyone being very busy we can only play 1 day per month. We play 2 $15 games every month on the same day. There is also a $15 league fee every month that pays out the top 6 at the end of the year. Points are awarded after every game to determine who the top 6 are:
1st- 16 pts 5th- 8 pts 9th- 3 pts
2nd-14 pts 6th- 6 pts 10th- 3 pts
3rd-12 pts 7th- 5 pts
4th- 10 pts 8th- 4 pts


Thats all fine and dandy. My issue is the blind structure. Blinds are 12 minutes. Here is the structure:
Starting stack is $2500
12 minute blinds
50-100
100-200
200-400
*250-500
300-600
400-800
500-1000
750-1500
1000-2000

*"We got rid of the 25-50 blind and added 250-500. This will speed up the action early on."

This is a very hard game to win. The blinds increase so fast that the games seem like a complete crap shoot. How would you guys play this type of game? Anyone have any recommendations?

Get aggressive from the off if The pot odds are good.

Starting stack? 12minutes is also hyper fast even with very generous stack sizes. Id play it similarly to how id play a hyper turbo online. 12minutes might not even be a single orbit at slower games O.O Also if your state side, be sure you know any legal caveats that might be relevant to your state and hosting games.

starting stack is 2500

Originally Posted by JKDS

Starting stack? 12minutes is also hyper fast even with very generous stack sizes. Id play it similarly to how id play a hyper turbo online. 12minutes might not even be a single orbit at slower games O.O Also if your state side, be sure you know any legal caveats that might be relevant to your state and hosting games.

Yes the problem is we are all friends so there is a lot of BSing/convo during the game which wastes a lot of time. I would say the avg orbit takes 15-20 minutes.

Its not like it's a substantial amount of money plus it's an excuse to hang out with friends and play some cards once a month. It's inexspensive entertainment however with that being said, if these guys weren't buddies of mine I certainly wouldnt be playing.

Yikes! Uhm...well...its still fun with friends! I wouldnt play it for poker though

This blind structure is very tough for 12 minutes imo as it's only 25 blinds. We have a similar game with about 8 guys every Friday. We start 10/20, then 20/40 and then go 50/100. The rest is virtually your structure. It gives you time to settle in for 20 mins and our games finishes usually within 1 to 1.5 hours. Be ultra aggressive stealing blinds when you have anything decent in your hand Enjoy

I'd up it to 10k stacks, if that's not an option then I'd be playing loose aggressive poker and hope for the best. Basically it's a crapshoot because after 1 level the average is barely above 10 big blinds, everyone is short stack. Get more chips on the table and you might see some good poker, otherwise just accept it for the gamble it is and play fast and loose bingo poker.

Become epic at push/fold poker and exploit my favourite tendency of live home game tournament fish: "They play too many hands when the blinds are low and too few when the blinds go up".

Seriously, in my game 90% of the field would allow themselves to be blinded away. I've seen people with 1.5 BBs in their BB fold for their last 0.5BB! This from players who will call with T8o for a raise in the early rounds.

What you have to learn is how to play proper push/fold poker based on ICM, then enjoy the wins as players make ridiculous folds against you near the bubble. I reccommend the SNG forum and the digest in there to get you started.

Push/fold it is.

Lots of good advice, guys. thank you.

If you want it not to be such a big crapshoot, you could always make the starting stack larger or take a zero off each of your blind levels, so that there would be more play involved. The first few level you may be able to minraise to steal if they're tight, but after that it's really shove or fold. Unlikely minraising would be any good though since I assume that everybody is ultra loose.

Originally Posted by ColdDecked

If you want it not to be such a big crapshoot, you could always make the starting stack larger or take a zero off each of your blind levels, so that there would be more play involved. The first few level you may be able to minraise to steal if they're tight, but after that it's really shove or fold. Unlikely minraising would be any good though since I assume that everybody is ultra loose.

The problem is that way it takes too long. we need to play 2 games per night and have them last 1.5hrs each.

25-50
50-100
75-150
100-200
200-400
300-600
400-800
600-1200
1000-2000

This allows a little more play early on but you still finish up just as quickly. I don't understand why getting stacks so shallow so super early is important as it does not really speed the game up but does make it more of a crapshoot. I would probably avoid push/fold for as long as possible(sub 10bbs) by limping(playables)/mring(junk/call it off). Push/fold DOES make it a crapshoot BUT if people will not be abusing the fuck out of your limps then just play to see flops etc.

mring whenever I come in if stacks are deeper then 20-25ish bb and always mring >15ish bb if people are not 3bing you.

what does "mring" mean?

Update: I keep wanting to think this game is a crap shoot, but there are a couple guys who finish in the top 3 consistently. I dont get it. Everyone plays very tight. You have to because if you lose one hand you are crippled.

Anyone have any other advice?

mring = minraising

If everyone plays very tight, then you should be trying to steal as often as you can.

If everyone plays very tight, play looser and get people to fold and take their blinds when the chips increase.

Without knowing how much you know about poker (I'm fairly bad myself) most people aren't anywhere near as aggressive as they should be.

Im a noob compared to some of the guys on this forum. The problem is when you try to steal and get caught you end up wasting 20% of your stack.

You don't want to be trying to steal with any two cards. Anything with potential to make a hand though when you're in an unopened pot from later position.

Your opening range should get more and more up to and including the button. If you get called and you know people are tight you should have a decent idea of their ranges and you can keep applying pressure post flop. This is why it's especially important to have position.

A good thing to calculate whilst playing is your M-ratio.

M = (your stack / (big blind + little blind + total antes)) * (players left/10)

As you're playing with no antes, total antes is obviously zero.

M> 20 - Means you can play how you want basically, you're failry safe

10<M<20 - You don't really want to be playing speculative type hands like suited connectors and pocket pairs trying to hit a set. (If someone is short stacked and shoves all in obviously things like mid pocket pairs can be ok to call with depending on the players history of going all in whilst shallow)

6<M<10 - Basically you want to be the first person in the pot. You want to be shoving or folding a lot of flops. Obviously mix it up a bit though.

M<6 - Shove/fold is all you should be doing

M<1 - Shove every hand


This coupled with learning how likely certain hands are to win preflop should give you the edge if the standard isn't very good.

In a home game I used to play, we started with tiny blinds and played for long periods, then as time went on, the blinds would increase more and more quickly. Also, we allowed re-buys for the first couple of levels. It made the start of the game more fun. Also the early game would last longer while most of the gang was still involved, but the game ended quickly when there were only a few left.

I liked it, because I'm primarily a cash game player, which gave me a nice edge in the early game, which could roll me into a nice chip lead when it got short handed.

thanks for the help savy. Would this game be considered a "turbo sng"?

You can also use this free tool to automatically come up with a suitable blind structure which should respect your constraints:
http://blindvalet.com
http://blindvalet.com/en/blind-structure-calculator

You have to factor in the "bullshitting and drinking" in the desired tournament duration. In my experience in similar home games as yours, I would enter a duration 50 to 75% of your actual desired duration depending on how often you are going to stop the timer to refill drinks, roll spliffs, talk to angry girlfriends on the phone, attend to screaming children, etc.

With your constraints you will probably end up with a structure somewhere between a turbo and a super-turbo (super turbos are essentially 100% push/fold games with 10bb stacks from the start (except when two players who doubled up early are pitched against each other), although some players don't seem to grasp that and are still open limping with 10bb or less in their stacks).

No time for "real poker" in your structure, as the stacks are only 25bb deep at the first level and at 12-15bb at level 2, you are already approaching push/fold territory.

That's a nifty little web page, daviddem.

Here is another one. Everything for your home game in one place:
http://www.homepokertourney.com/