The blind structure (or schedule) is one of the most important details of running a successful tournament. Gradual increases of the blinds at each level and finishing on time are characteristics of a good blind structure.

To calculate a blind structure, the minimum information you need is the number of players, target duration, and the starting blind level (which is usually the smallest chip denomination you have). It is also necessary to know how many chips there will be in play and how many rounds there will be. The blind calculator tool below can take care of that and help set up your perfect structure.

To calculate a blind structure, you need the starting blind level, the estimated total value of the tournament chips in play (initial buy-ins plus rebuys and add-ons) and the desired length of the tournament. Use the tool below to help set up your perfect structure.

Poker Tournament Starting Chips Game

1. The following blind schedule is for a tournament with 10 people, set to last 3 hours with 20-minute rounds. Each player will begin with 5000 chips and the small and big blinds will start at 25/50.
2. Total number of physical poker chips to start with: 21 X 20 = 420 poker chips At some point during the tournament the “25” chips will be useless since the blinds will be in even “100’s”. At that point you can “color up” the “25” chips. So, you will need more “100”.

Please enter the smallest chip denomination

Please enter a tournament length

Poker Tournament Chip Count

For a typical 10-player tournament with each player starting with $1000 in chips (this will be the default tournament in other sections of this article), a set of 500 poker chips should be plenty. You will also want at least four colors.

Please enter the number of players

This section discusses some tournament blind structure theory, which explains why the PokerSoup.com tournament blind structure calculator suggests blind levels the way it does and what you can change to create the right blind structure for your game.

Starting Number of Blinds

Most tournaments start with 50-100 big blinds. Anything around 200 big blinds is considered a 'deep stack' tournament. Deep stack tournaments are considered to be full of skillful poker play and not just pushing your money all in before the flop. The latter occurs quickly in tournaments that start with less than 50 big blinds, which are also aptly nick-named 'luck-fests'. There just aren't enough chips to maneuver and play real poker.

If all other variables are held constant, starting a tournament with larger chip stacks will increase the length of the game.

Rebuys and Add-ons

The number of rebuys and add-ons in a tournament also effect the total number of chips in play during a tournament. If no other changes are made, more rebuys and add-ons make for a longer tournament.

Blind Level Round Length

Most live tournaments employ blind level lengths of 15, 20, 30, 45, or 60 minutes. The blind calculator can calculate blinds for any of these blind levels. With a set tournament length, longer blind levels result in less number of rounds and shorter blind levels result in more rounds.

Gradual Blind Increase

The greatest benefit of using the PokerSoup.com tournament blind structure calculator is the assurance of constantly increasing blind amounts. This is an important aspect of tournament play. If the blinds increase (preferably slowly) at a constant rate, players do not spend an inordinate amount of time being deep- or short-stacked and there are no game-altering blind increases in the middle of the tournament.

Poker Tournament Chip Setup

For example, if the blinds increase from 150/300 to 200/400, that is an increase of 33%, or (200+400)/(150+300). This is a comfortable increase. Similarly, in the later stages of the tournament after many players are knocked out, a blind increase from 3000/6000 to 4000/8000 is also 33%.

End Goal

Eventually, the blinds (and antes) induce action to end the tournament. After all, a tournament usually does have a set duration (or a goal, anyway). As a player, it is up to you to figure out how aggressive it is necessary to play in order to keep up with the blinds. Constant gradual increases make this easier to figure out.

How many chips does each player start with?
As a rule of thumb the starting amount of poker chips per player should be 40-80 chips. Starting with this many chips gives each player enough of each of the starting chip colors.

However, I have played in many tournaments were everyone starts with 20 chips and this works. The one problem with having just 20 chips is that you don’t get enough of the smallest denomination chips and at some point everyone has to ask another player for change with a larger denomination chip.
My personal opinion (for whatever it is worth) is starting with about 40-50 chips. This give everyone a stack of the smallest denomination and a stack of the next denomination and then the rest of the chips are made up of what is needed to get to the dollar amount that everyone starts with.

Example: everyone starts with $5000 and the blinds start at $25/$50.

Everyone gets 45 chips; (20) $25 chips, (20) $100 chips and (5) $500 chips. In smaller tournaments, everyone could get 80 chips to start; (40) $25 chips and (40) $100 chips.