BJ Tourney format ideas needed

A friend of mine wants to take advantage of my monte-carlo night skills and have a fundraiser. I need ideas for how to stage a BJ tournament. They look to have 100 people there an undtermined number of who will play. With one table, this is why I am thinking tournament. So a few questions:P


1. Should it be sructured by "hands" or "time." The rounds need to last not much more than 15 mintues each based on potential number of players. I am leaning towards 20-30 hand rounds.

2. What should the unit spread be? I don't want it too limited but as well I do not want people betting hundreds of units on the final hands.

3. Should players get new stacks each round or should they have the same stack no matter if it is 1 or 100 chips?

4. Inspired by the contest Wiz was in, I need some good trivia questions. Not sure how to work them in yet. Maybe if they get them right they can pick their seat first, which would possibly be an advantage. Or should we offer more chips? Keep in mind this is an average group of people and not a world-class group of players at the Mirage.

All help appriciated, goes to a good cause.

There are several threads with advice about PLAYING a BJ tourney. There is good info there about how a tourney runs.

1 - 15 minutes is nice, but when you add the time it takes to seat, instruct and tally at the end, there is NO WAY you're going to get even 20 hands in. Additionally, I think most casino tourneys run 15 hands per round.

2 - Most I've played in were 2,000 starting chips, and 100 units. Any 50 chips earned from a BJ could not be played unless the player was betting everything. The minimum was 100. No maximum.

3 - It depends on the rules. Is one person from each table in the preliminaries moving forward, or is it the highest ranking players?

4 - Yeah, average players are different than the contest the Wiz was in. Additionally, that contest was held in the host's home. I.E. I doubt there was any end-of-game, vacate-the-remises issues to deal with.

I've played in a few. One method used (perhaps not the best but certainly efficient and quick for large fields) is to fill a table (7 players) and then play 7 hands. There is a button as in poker so that each player has the opportunity to be the first (then second, third, etc...) to wager. If you're strapped for time you just take the top player from each table and continue with this method as you thin the field. If the field is a bit larger then you begin with more players per table and if it's a smaller field you could play 2 full rounds OR take the top two from each table to move on.

Quote: TheNightfly

I've played in a few. One method used (perhaps not the best but certainly efficient and quick for large fields) is to fill a table (7 players) and then play 7 hands. There is a button as in poker so that each player has the opportunity to be the first (then second, third, etc...) to wager. If you're stapped for time you just take the top player from each table and continue with this method as you thin the field. If the field is a bit larger then you begin with more players per table and if it's a smaller field you could play 2 full rounds OR take the top two from each table to move on.

This method would work well for a fund raiser. It allows folks to re-buy for a later flight, increasing the charity's hold.

While on a cruise, I played in a BlackJack tournament. $20 buy-in, $500 winner-take-all prize. Not sure how many people ended up buying in.

During the first three hours, they would have preliminary rounds. 7 players, 7 hands, rotating button for starting position. I do not believe they had a rule about order of betting in prelim rounds, but may be useful to institute. Each player was given P$1000 (play money), in P$100 chips. I cannot remember if Blackjack paid 3-2, or 2-1. For a charity event, 2-1 may be the way to go.

Top 6 chip scores from any prelim round would advance to the final table. We even had a tie for 6th, so they had a playoff round to see who advanced. The 7th position was determined by random draw; Any paying player got a ticket in a raffle drawing. Whoever held the drawn ticket got 7th position.

No person could have two positions in the final table, so entering a prelim round twice would only allow you to improve your chip count ranking. If a raffle winner was already in the top 6, the raffle would be re-drawn. You could play any number of prelim rounds, and have any number of raffle tickets in the pot.

Based on winning chip count, the top player got first choice of seat at the final table, so on down the line, where the raffle winner got the last empty seat. Each player was staked with a new P$1000. The rotating button not only noted who got first cards, but who had to bet first; Betting order was strictly followed.

Not sure what would've happened had there been a tie at the end of 7 hands... perhaps a 2-hand tiebreaker? Contingencies must be taken into account. They also mentioned if all players busted out on the 7th hand, the leader at hand 6 would win.

Thanks for some good feedbadck, can I ask for a little more? Here is an idea for some rules:


S17
2-1 BJ
Double on any 2 cards
Split any 2 cards, one card only on aces
Re-split any cards including aces unlimited
No surrender
Five Card Charlie

What kind of advantage will this give? My goal is to give about a 1-2% or so PLAYER advantage while keeping it simple for newbies (reason for no surrender.) If this is off from that goal, what could I adjust.

I do not want the advantage too high as I plan a "rebuy round." This will be a very well-off crowd so my hope is a few people win and a few bust out and rebuy.

I think unlimited splitting on any cards is most likely fine. It's rare that players would even have enough to split into 3 or 4 hands, or have the chance to do so. Most people will bet half/less than half of their bankroll to give themselves exactly one opportunity to split or double a hand. Just make sure people understand these rules before playing.

Also, let people know how splitting 10's works. Could I split a K-J? a 10-Q? Or must it be paired, such as J-J?

Will the 5-card Charlie pay 2-1? Since we're throwing around "crazy" rules, I've also seen 6-card Charlies that pay 3-1, 7-card Charlies paying 4-1, etc.

How is your rebuy round going to work? I have seen most tourneys work where you simply buy in as many times as you want during the prelim period.

Quote: Dween

I think unlimited splitting on any cards is most likely fine. It's rare that players would even have enough to split into 3 or 4 hands, or have the chance to do so. Most people will bet half/less than half of their bankroll to give themselves exactly one opportunity to split or double a hand. Just make sure people understand these rules before playing.

Also, let people know how splitting 10's works. Could I split a K-J? a 10-Q? Or must it be paired, such as J-J?

Will the 5-card Charlie pay 2-1? Since we're throwing around "crazy" rules, I've also seen 6-card Charlies that pay 3-1, 7-card Charlies paying 4-1, etc.

How is your rebuy round going to work? I have seen most tourneys work where you simply buy in as many times as you want during the prelim period.

Splitting 10s must match
1-1 on a 5 card charlie
Rebuy round for those who do not make the cut, one rebuy for a regular stack.