Best Buy In Amounts
22 June 2008How Much Should You Make Your Buy In Be?
One thing you need to decide before you host a poker tournament is how much you want they buy in to be. You want to tell people this at the same time you invite them to the tournament. You don’t want people to come expecting a $5 poker game and then get shocked when the buy in is $50, more than they are willing to lose. At the same time you don’t want to be forced in to playing for low stakes if 80% of your players were expecting a $100 poker tournament. If you tell people up front what the buy in to your tournament will be, $10, $25, $50, $100 they will be able to decide for themselves whether to come or not.
However, that still leaves the question, exactly what should your buy in be? In general you should make it a large enough number than the game is serious, but not so large that it will hurt to lose too badly. Estimate what you yourself would be willing to lose at a poker game and pick a buy in around that amount. For college students this may mean hosting a $10 or $20 game. That is especially true if you are inviting new poker players to the game, who won’t feel comfortable gambling too much. Many people in professional jobs would be willing to play in a $40-$50 game, especially if they are experience poker players and feel they have a reasonable chance of winning and won’t just be throwing away their money. If you hang out with a lot of serious poker players, i.e. people who are paying their tuition from money they won online, you might be able to get a $100 buy in tournament going. Keep in mind, the more expensive the tournament the more serious the players will take it. They will expect the rules to be clear, the tournament handled well, and their prize money to be promptly paid at the end of the night.
In order to make picking a buy in easier, it would be wise to invite guests with similar incomes. If half your guests are teachers, and the other half are stock brokers, then half your guests will likely be stuck playing stakes that are either too high are too low.
Other considerations
If you are doing something other than a single freeze out tournament, you will want to make your buy in lower than you otherwise would. There are many other tournament structures where a lower buy in would be appropriate. Instead of hosting a single $50 tournament, you could host two smaller, quicker $25 tournament. Alternatively you could have a tournament with rebuys and add ons. Have a $25 initial buy in, and as players bust out they can get an additional stack for another $25. This can put a similar amount of money in the purse as a large tournament, without forcing any one to spend more money than they are comfortable doing.
What to do before the Buy Ins
Before your guests arrive and begin buying in you should break up the chips into their starting stacks. Separate each stack and put them into a zip-lock bag. If you are allowing for rebuys and add ons than be sure to make additional stacks for those. Separating the chips out ahead of time will make starting the game faster and eliminate any temptation for a guest who might palm a few high denomination chips before the tournament begins.
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