Home Poker Tournament Blind Structure
Draw poker is any poker variant in which each player is dealt a complete hand before the first betting round, and then develops the hand for later rounds by replacing, or 'drawing', cards. 1 The descriptions below assume the reader is familiar with the general game play of poker, and with hand values (both high and low variations). Blind structure. Usually you want to increase the blinds by 50% from level to level, so that the big blind doubles every two levels. If you double it every level, it's a fast structure. Example: 100/200 - 200/300 - 200/400. On the other hand, you should probably use some 'natural' blind levels that people expect, rather than rigidly doubling every two levels. Blind Structure: is the structure that blinds go up based on. Typically the first big blind should be 1/50 of the starting chips amount. Blinds usually double after each blind period. Deeper explanation of this topic can be found in the Tournament Blind Structure page.
The Holland Casino in Amsterdam is preparing to host the 2019 edition of the Masters Classic Of Poker (MCOP), one of the most eagerly anticipated live poker events of the year. This year’s festival runs from November 22nd and concludes on December 1st and it is going to be huge.
The MCOP takes over as soon as the WSOP Circuit Rotterdam festival crowns its final champion; you can follow the action from some of the WSOPC Rotterdam events right here on PokerNews. Our team of live reporters will be on the ground in Amsterdam and brings you coverage of the €9,800 No-limit Hold’em High Roller and the €4,300 MCOP Main Event.
The High Roller costs €9,800 this year with both the 2017 and 2018 editions featuring a €10,300 buy-in. Joris Ruijs won the 2017 MCOP High Roller, topping a field of 65 entries to bank €206,242. Ruijs defeated Ole Schemion heads-up for the title.
Hakim Zoufri triumphed in 2018 as 68 players bought in. Zoufri found himself heads-up against Jan Schwippert and emerged from the battle victoriously to lock up a cool €215,761.
It is the €4,300 MCOP Main Event that everyone wants to win. This year’s Main Event has two starting flights, with Day 1B having a turbo blind structure. Germany’s Claas Segebrecht, who recently finished second in the WSOP Europe Main Event, was the winner in 2017. The German scooped €235,087.
Alberto Stegeman is the reigning MCOP Main Event champion having outlasted 293 opponents in 2018 and turning his €4,300 into €240,183.
2019 Masters Classic Of Poker (MCOP) Schedule
| Date | Time | Tournament |
|---|---|---|
| Fri 22 Nov | 1:30 p.m. | €550 NL Hold’em MCOP Meets WSOP Day 1B |
| 7:00 p.m. | €2,250 PLO High Roller Day 1 | |
| 8:00 p.m. | €550 NL Hold’em Hyper Turbo | |
| Sat 23 Nov | 1:30 p.m. | €3,250 PLO High Roller Final Day |
| 1:30 p.m. | MCOP Meets WSOP Final Day | |
| 7:00 p.m. | €1,600 NL Hold’em Day 1 | |
| 8:00 p.m. | €330 NL Hold’em Hyper Turbo | |
| Sun 24 Nov | 1:30 p.m. | €1,600 NL Hold’em Day 2 |
| 5:00 p.m. | €330 NL Hold’em Day 1 | |
| 8:00 p.m. | €330 Satellite to MCOP Main Event Day 1A | |
| Mon 25 Nov | 1:30 p.m. | €1,600 NL Hold’em Final Day |
| 1:30 p.m. | €330 NL Hold’em Final Day | |
| 1:30 p.m. | €1,100 PLO 8-Max Day 1 | |
| 5:00 p.m. | €1,100 NL Hold’em PKO | |
| 8:00 p.m. | €800 Satellie to MCOP Main Event | |
| Tue 26 Nov | 1:30 p.m. | PLO 8-Max Final Day |
| 1:30 p.m. | NL Hold’em PKO Final Day | |
| 8:00 p.m. | €1,100 PLO Hyper Turbo | |
| Wed 27 Nov | 2:00 p.m. | €4,300 NL Hold’em MCOP Main Event Day 1A |
| 8:00 p.m. | €330 NL Hold’em Hyper Turbo | |
| 9:00 p.m. | €1,100 Satellite to NL Hold’em High Roller | |
| Thu 28 Nov | 12:30 p.m. | €4,300 NL Hold’em MCOP Main Event Turbo Day 1B |
| 1:30 p.m. | €330 NL Hold’em Freezeout | |
| 7:00 p.m. | €4,300 NL Hold’em MCOP Main Event Day 2 | |
| Fri 29 Nov | 1:30 p.m. | MCOP Main Event Day 3 |
| 1:30 p.m. | €880 PL Omaha | |
| 3:00 p.m. | €1,100 Satellite to High Roller | |
| 8:00 p.m. | €9,800 NL Hold’em High Roller Day 1 | |
| 8:00 p.m. | €275 NL Hold’em Hyper Turbo | |
| Sat 30 Nov | 1:30 p.m. | PL Omaha Final Day |
| 1:30 p.m. | €825 NL Hold’em Day 1 | |
| 1:30 p.m. | €9,800 NL Hold’em High Roller Day 2 | |
| 3:00 p.m. | MCOP Main Event Final Day | |
| 8:00 p.m. | €5,250 NL Hold’em Day 1 | |
| Sun 1 Dec | 1:30 p.m. | €825 NL Hold’em Final Day |
| 1:30 p.m. | €5,250 NL Hold’em Final Day | |
| 1:30 p.m. | €220 NL Hold’em Team Event | |
| 3:00 p.m. | High Roller Final Day | |
| 6:00 p.m. | €275 NL Hold’em Hyper Turbo |
Bookmark our Live Reporting pages if you want to keep up-to-date with all the action stemming from the 2019 MCOP festival in beautiful Amsterdam.
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Ole Schemion
I'm sure you're capable of buying beer and nuts. If your friends want coke and sweets, fine, that's what you get them. Mussels and red wine? Do it.
I won't touch on that part of your poker night. You should know your friends. However, there are a few small things that may ruin the fun.
If you don't set up a good blind structure and sensible chip values, people will be confused and annoyed. Do it well and your home tournament will run smoothly.
Blind periods
In a home game, I would go with 20 minute periods at least, seeing how slowly most people deal.
If you think the tournament will drag on too long, it's probably better to adjust the starting stacks than the blind periods.
Ending time
There's no way of knowing for sure when a tournament will end, but here's a rule of thumb that will help you avoid disasters.
The tournament will end in the blind period where the big blind is more than 5% of the total chips.
Example: If 10 players start out with 10,000 in chips each, the total chips are 100,000. Hence, the tournament will end in the period where the big blind reaches 5,000.
Again, this is a very crude rule, but you will avoid having to stay up the whole night - unless you want to.
Blind structure
Usually you want to increase the blinds by 50% from level to level, so that the big blind doubles every two levels. If you double it every level, it's a fast structure.
Example: 100/200 - 200/300 - 200/400
On the other hand, you should probably use some 'natural' blind levels that people expect, rather than rigidly doubling every two levels.
Example: rather than 200/400 - 300/600 - 400/800 - 600/1200, you might want to go with 250/500 - 400/800 - 500/1000 - 750/1500.
On the third hand, you should avoid mixing in small chip nominations late in the structure. Blinds of 1250 or 3725 will give your friends a really bad headache.
Example: To avoid this, it's quite fine to do 300/500 instead of 250/500, or 800/1500 instead of 750/1500.
There are a lot of parameters, but you'll be fine if you avoid the worst mistakes.
Example blind structure
1. 25/50
2. 50/100
3. 75/150
4. 100/200
5. 150/300
6. 250/500
7. 400/800
8. 500/1000
9. 800/1500
10. 1000/2000
11. 2000/3000
12. 2500/5000
13. 4000/8000
14. 5000/10,000
Starting stack
The standard starting stack would be 100 to 200 times the big blind of the first blind level.
Home Poker Tournament Blind Structure
Example: If you start with blinds 25/50, you could use a starting stack of 5,000 or 10,000.
The starting stack affects both how deep stacked the players are and the length of the tournament. Regarding the ending time, see above.
If you want to start with deep stacks to get some real play early on but don't want to play all night, you could use a faster structure.
Example: To get a faster structure, remove level 1, 3, 5 etc. from the blind structure above.
Chip nominations
To make the betting easy, chip values should go up by a factor 4 or 5 between each step.
Example: Avoid using both 100 and 200 chips. It gets messy.
Example: Comfortable chip nominations for the above blind structure would be 25, 100, 500 and 2000. If your people find 2000 too weird, you can go with 1000 or 5000 instead.
