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.