The Blinds

   We had one million bales of the best Sligo rags,
   We had two million barrels of stones,
   We had three million sides of old blind horses hides,
   We had four million barrels of bones.                              The Pogues

  Since I started playing tournament poker I've had a passing interest in different blind structures, but it's only recently, when I've been running a tournament of my own, that I've looked deeper into the way that poker tournaments are structured. When I started seriously considering the idea of running a tournament at my local club I started thinking about the way that the blinds worked in different games that I've been involved in over the years. I also spent some time looking at a number of websites that suggested various ways of structuring the blinds, usually for those intending to run home games. But in the end my conclusions on the perfect tournament structure were irrelevant as the final decision was based on practical considerations such as what the potential players were used to and the types of chips that were available.
   Nevertheless, for what it's worth, here are my conclusions about blind structures. As a general principal, the blinds should be going up by between 30% and 50% . This results in a reasonable amount of pressure on players' stacks without making thing move too quickly. So where do you start? Obviously, if you start with 1/2 (small blind 1/big blind 2) then you immediately run into trouble at the next level. Is it 1.5/3? You can't have half a chip. So what is the lowest level you can start on without running into this problem? It turns out to be 10/20. Then you can go to 15/30, 25/50. This is the way all 888 Poker tournaments and Pokerstars SitnGos start. Other online tourneys are similar to this, although Fulltilt has a more gentle progression.

   The next couple of levels usually pose a problem. If you go to 40/80 then the next logical step would be 60/120. While Fulltilt does this, most other sites can't resist having a 50/100 level. They achieve this by going from 25/50 to 50/100, a level where the blinds double. The result is that the blinds increase by about 50% for the first three levels, then double in the fourth level.  So players need to adjust to the fact that their stacks are halved in value at this point in the tournament. Personally, I don't have a problem with a blind structure that maintains a consistent rate of increase by missing the 50/100 level but, on the other hand, I can live with a single double up every once in a while, as long as know it's coming.
   When it comes to the live tournaments I've played in, things are a bit different. For some reason, local tournaments start their blinds at 100/200. There are the occasional exceptions that start at 50/100, but they are in the minority. And I've never seen one that starts at 10/20.  I have no idea why local organisers feel the need to add that extra zero. Possibly it has something to do with the type of chips that are available, or maybe someone started out that way and everyone has since followed their example. But this doesn't actually affect the blind/stack ratio because the stack sizes are also larger. So while an online tourney might have a starting stack of between 1500 and 3000, a local tourney might start out with 15,000 to 25,000 chips. So the end result is the same.
   Every Friday night I play in a live tournament that has the following blind structure:
 100/200,  200/400,  300/600,  400/800,  500/1000,  600/1200,  800/1600,  1k/2k,  2k/4k,  3k/6k...
The organiser tinkered with the blinds for a while and finally stuck with the above structure. It works pretty well except for one thing. The first double-up happens in the first level. So if you start with 20,000 chips, you initially have 100 big blinds. But after the first increase your effective stack size is 50 big blinds. I would avoid having such a sudden change in the early stages if it was up to me, but I've learned to adapt to this structure over time. Occasionally the organiser will set up a tournament where the starting stack is 15,000 and the blinds go 50/100,  100/200, 200/400... This starts out as a deep stack tournament, but then the blinds double twice in a row, making for a very interesting first three levels. Fortunately, we play the standard structure most of the time.
   An even more challenging blind structure was the one used in the North Island Clubs NZ Tournament (see 'Club Champs', 11/06/14). This one started out the same as the weekly tournament but after the 500/1000 level went:   1k/2k,  2k/4k,  3k/6k... Not only did it start with a double-up, but there were two consecutive double-ups in the 6th and 7th levels.  Tough. My Poker DIY software also has a number of blind formats pre-loaded, one of which is the WSOP 2010 structure, which goes like this:   25/25,  25/50,  50/100,  75/150,  100/200...  This one starts with two consecutive double-ups then settles down a bit. There are also a number of tournaments that add antes in the later stages, but that's another story altogether.
   Having looked at all these possible blind structures I finally decided that my ideal set of blinds would like like this:
 100/200,  150/300,  250/500,  400/800,  600/1200,  1000/2000,  1500/3000,  2500/5000...
In this structure the big blind increases by around 50% each time, with the largest increase being 67% at the 1k/2k level. I've used the 100/200 format here rather than the 10/20 simply because it suits the available chips. But it would work just as well if you knocked a zero off every number. I've omitted the 500/1000 level in order to keep the increases fairly uniform from level to level and thus avoid double-ups. However, the best theoretical blind structure is not necessarily the best blind structure in a particular situation, and I never got to trial this structure, although I did get close.

   The tournament that I ran this year was set up by a committee, and the structure we used was based on the chip set that was available and the type of format that the committee members and the players were used to playing in.  In the end we decided to use the same format as the Friday night tournament mentioned above as it was familiar to many of the potential players. I still held out hope of trialling different structures, provided that the tournament was successful enough to continue through the year. As it happens, this was not the case; I struggled to get enough players and by the end of the year I was ready to give the whole thing up. But for the last game I decided to do something a little different.
   Up to this point the tournament had been a standard buy-in event so I decided to try a re-buy and add-on format with a lower entry fee. And I figured that the blinds would need adjusting for the new format. If there were re-buys allowed during the first few periods and add-ons during the first break the blinds would have to be structured accordingly. I decided to start with a relatively short stack and to have a reasonably slow increase in the blinds until the first break. Then there would be a double-up after the break. That way the short stack would encourage more aggressive play and therefore re-buys, especially in the stages just before the break and the approach of the double-up stage would encourage players to add-on during the break. That was the theory anyway. So the blind structure I used went like this:
 100/200,  150/300,  250/500,  400/800,  500/1000, (break) 1000/2000,  1500/3000,  2500/5000...
   This was as close as I was ever going to get to my ideal structure. I had to insert the 500/1000 level to make it work, even though this slows down the rate of increase, and then make the next level a double-up, but I was pretty happy about the final format. Once the players adjusted to the different blind structure it all went quite well. Unfortunately, that was the last game because we just weren't getting the numbers but at least I got to try something a little different.
   Looking closely at blind structures has focused my attention on how tournaments work and how important it is to be aware of where you stand in relation to the blinds. I'm certainly very wary of playing in a tournament where there is inadequate information about the blind structure. I would rather play in a game that has a steady increase in the blinds rather than one with sudden increases at intervals, but the important thing is the ability to adjust to the structure of the tournament you are playing in. So although I'm not running tournaments anymore, I'm certainly playing in them and I think this diversion into blinds management has helped me in my overall game strategy. And maybe one day I'll get to run my perfect tourney.
  
  

Decisions, decisions

     Well a house of cards
     Was never built for shock,
     You could blow it down in any kind of weather       Dire Straits


 Now that we're into December I've had a chance to take a look at my poker stats for the past year, and it makes interesting reading. Without going into too much detail, what it boils down to is this:
  I've had a profitable year over-all, clocking up a 16% return on investment (ROI);
  I've done very well in live games, and especially in live tournaments where I've come close to doubling my money;
  despite having a poor few months recently, online Texas Holdem ring games are showing a decent profit;
  other online games continue to be a problem, with the biggest loss coming from 9 player SitnGos.
   So in line with my recent decision to concentrate my efforts on one game type (see 'Fish finder', 29th September) I've been weighing up my options for the coming year.  Live games are not a problem; I'll just keep playing in my current games and keep looking for more of the same. You don't fix it if it ain't broke.
   As for online poker, it should be blindingly obvious that I need to concentrate on my most successful game: No limit Texas Holdem ring games. But I've been having some doubts about this. For starters, although I'm in profit over-all, my recent results in this game type have been pretty poor. I've only come out ahead in two of the last six sessions and my ROI has gone from positive in the first quarter to slightly negative in the second quarter to a significant loss in the third. In other words, my results in this game type have been getting worse. The problem is I haven't played enough sessions to know whether my early good results were a lucky streak or whether the over-all profit is a true measure of my ability in this game.
   On the other hand, SitNGos have been pretty consistently bad, although I almost scraped into positive territory in the last three months. The thing is, I really enjoy playing in this game type and I can't help the feeling that I'm on the edge of figuring out how to play them successfully. What's more, I've had reasonable success with these games in the past but somehow I've lost my SitNGo mojo in the last year or so. The other favourable aspect of these games is that they are so convenient. They are available at almost any time and typically take an hour to play if you make it to the end.
   The other online game type that I might consider pursuing is multi-table tournaments. Although I haven't played these much recently, I have had moderate success in past seasons. Unfortunately  I've had some pretty bad results playing in on-demand (27 player) tournaments, which are the most convenient type to play. So if I did play tournaments this year it would have to be the regular multi-table tourneys, which are not necessarily available at the most convenient times. But I can't really justify playing in a game type that I've hardly played in and not done well in recently.
  In the final analysis, I need to play to my strengths. This means persevering with the online ring games. But I only want to play in 'cashies' if I have a reasonable amount of time available. I wouldn't normally play in one of these games unless I was able to play for at least four hours, preferably five. The whole point of ring games is that you have time to wait for the good spots, so playing them for an hour two defeats the purpose. I guess that means that I'll be continuing to play in at least one ring game session each week, on my regular poker night. I'll keep plugging away at the same level and I guess by this time next year I'll have a pretty good idea of my ability in online cashies.
   Meanwhile, I'll continue playing SitNGos when I have a few hours to spare here and there. I think I need to stick to one site and stay at the same level all year. If at the end of the year I'm still in the red, then I'll know for sure that my SitNGo mojo has gone forever. So it's goodbye to my mission to try every possible poker variant and back to the basics. It's time to stick to the KISS principal: Keep It Simple, Stupid!