Last weekend's tourney introduced the latest incarnation of the T4000 deep stack blind schedule. In this latest revision I flattened out the curve a little and shortened the blinds slightly to compensate. The tourney had 15 runners across two tables and though the result was a chop between the last two players it still ended sooner than estimated.
I have always felt that the deep stack format allows for adequate splashing around early on and permits a miscue or two while still remaining viable and I think the new schedule supports that as well. I don't think anyone felt that they *had* to go with ATC and everyone was pretty much able to exit on their own terms which I think is a trademark of a good structure. The shallower jumps also takes some of the bite out of getting hit by an increased blind since it is not as drastic between blind levels.
One factor that I feel contributed was playing 8 players or less at the tables and combining at 7. That allowed for many more hands/hour than a full ring would have and therefore more action for everyone.
I think the only change I would make for next time is to bump up the round lengths to their initial lengths of 30 minutes before the first break and 20 minutes after the break.
Any input on the format is welcome. For your reference, both the latest blind schedule and the previous one are listed below.
Latest blinds schedule:
5/10 (first three rounds 25 minutes)
10/20
15/30
15 minute break - color up 5s
25/50 (this and all other rounds 18 minutes)
50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300
10 minute break - color up 25s
200/400
300/600
400/800
600/1200
800/1600
10 minute break - color up 100s
1000/2000
1500/3000
2000/4000
2500/5000
3000/6000
4000/8000
5000/10,000
6000/12,000
8000/16,000
10,000/20,000
Previous blinds:
5/10 (first three rounds 25 minutes)
10/20
15/30
15 minute break - color up 5s
25/50 (this and all other rounds 20 minutes)
50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300
10 minute break - color up 25s
200/400
300/600
500/1000
700/1400
10 minute break - color up 100s
1000/2000
1500/3000
2500/5000
4000/8000
7000/14,000
10,000/20,000
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4 comments:
Another point to bring up is that both players who showed up late and had their stack blinded down ended up cashing.
I loved the format, great job! The only thing I would've changed was combining at 7. I personally would've rather combined at 8 (or even 9 over 7), but that's just me. Other than that, I thought everything was pretty perfect.
@Jeh
The reason for combining at an odd number is so to keep the tables balanced leading up to the final table. If we were to combine at eight players then one table would be playing four handed and one table would be playing five handed right before the final table.
I also think combining at 9 would be odd since the starting tables both had less than that. And keeping the tables shorter handed means more hands of play for everyone.
That's the rationale at least. If there is consensus among the group to combine at a larger number then we can try that instead.
I enjoyed the format quite a lot. I like having the final table a few seats short, since short handed games are much more action oriented in tournaments.
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