home game
Blind structure.
Most blind structures are inherited. Someone copied one from a casino, it was built for a field of four hundred, and it is now being used by nine people who want to be in bed by one. A structure is not a tradition, it is a calculation with two inputs: how many chips are on the table, and how long you want to play.
the model
Work backwards from the end of the night.
A tournament ends when the last players are short relative to the blinds, and that moment can be aimed at. The chips on the table are players times starting stack, and that total never changes. Three players left hold a third of it each on average, and a game where those three have ten big blinds each is in its final stretch. So the last big blind is the chip total divided by thirty. That is the target.
The first big blind is the starting stack divided by a hundred, because everyone begins a hundred big blinds deep. The number of levels is your evening divided by your level length. What remains is one growth rate that gets you from the first big blind to the last across those levels, and for a typical home game it lands near a third per level.
chips in play = players x starting stack
first big blind = starting stack / 100
last big blind = chips in play / 30
levels = minutes of poker / minutes per level
growth per level = (last / first) raised to 1 / (levels minus 1)
For nine players with 5,000 chips each, that is 45,000 chips in play, a first big blind of 50, a last big blind of 1,500 and twelve twenty minute levels. The growth works out at about 1.36 per level, so the big blind rises by roughly a third each time and doubles every two levels. Each level is then rounded to an amount you can pay with real chips, which is why the steps are not perfectly even.
the structure
Nine players, 5,000 chips, four hours.
These are the twelve levels that model produces. The average stack column is the one to read: it is the chips in play divided by three, measured in big blinds, so it says what the game looks like for the last three players if they reach that level. Above forty big blinds there is real poker being played. Below twenty it is mostly all in or fold, which is right at the end of a night and a waste at the start of one.
| Level | Starts after | Small blind | Big blind | Average stack |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | the start | 25 | 50 | 300.0 bb |
| 2 | 20 minutes | 30 | 60 | 250.0 bb |
| 3 | 40 minutes | 50 | 100 | 150.0 bb |
| 4 | 1h 00m | 75 | 150 | 100.0 bb |
| 5 | 1h 20m | 100 | 200 | 75.0 bb |
| 6 | 1h 40m | 150 | 300 | 50.0 bb |
| 7 | 2h 00m | 200 | 400 | 37.5 bb |
| 8 | 2h 20m | 250 | 500 | 30.0 bb |
| 9 | 2h 40m | 300 | 600 | 25.0 bb |
| 10 | 3h 00m | 400 | 800 | 18.8 bb |
| 11 | 3h 20m | 500 | 1,000 | 15.0 bb |
| 12 | 3h 40m | 750 | 1,500 | 10.0 bb |
Level 12 starts three hours and forty minutes in and runs for twenty, so the evening finishes at four hours exactly. Add one ten minute break after level six if you want people to eat.
reading it
Where the structure changes the game.
Levels 1 to 5 are deep poker. Three hundred big blinds down to seventy five means position and post flop play still decide pots, which is the part of the evening worth having, and it is the stretch where knowing which hands to open from which seat is worth the most.
Levels 6 to 9 are the middle, from fifty big blinds down to twenty five, where stacks become short enough that raising all in starts to be a real option rather than a panic. By level 10 the average is under twenty and the game has changed shape completely: which hands are a shove and which are a fold becomes a table you can learn rather than a judgement call, and what a stack is actually worth against the remaining prizes stops matching its chip count.
One caveat that the arithmetic will not fix for you. Level 2 asks for 30 and 60, and a table whose smallest chip is 25 cannot pay a small blind of 30. Play it at 25 and 60, or skip the level. The chip distribution page explains which chip values avoid this, and the rule there is short: the smallest chip is the starting stack divided by two hundred.
If your evening is not four hours, or your stacks are not 5,000, the table above is the wrong table and the model is still the right model. Change the two inputs and the twelve levels change with them. That, and the rest of what a poker night needs before the first hand, is the whole job.
next step
Let it build your structure instead.
Type in your players, your stacks and the hours you have. The blind timer runs the same model as this page, prints the levels, and then counts them down in the browser.
blind structure questions
What is a good blind structure for a home game?
One that reaches ten big blinds for the last few players at exactly the time you wanted to stop. For nine players with 5,000 chips each and twenty minute levels over four hours, that is twelve levels running from 25 and 50 up to 750 and 1,500. Every number in that sentence is derived, not chosen: the chips on the table decide where the blinds end.
How fast should blinds increase?
By about a third per level, which doubles the big blind roughly every two levels. That is not a convention, it is what comes out when you divide the distance from the first big blind to the last one across the number of levels your evening has room for. A shorter evening with the same chips needs steeper steps, and a longer one needs flatter ones.
How many blind levels does a four hour tournament need?
Twelve, at twenty minutes each. Level length is a taste question and the count follows from it: fifteen minute levels give you sixteen, thirty minute levels give you eight. Longer levels mean more poker per level and a steeper climb between them, because the last big blind is fixed by the chips and not by the clock.
What blinds should a poker tournament start at?
A hundred big blinds deep, so the first big blind is the starting stack divided by a hundred. With 5,000 chips that is 25 and 50. Starting shallower than fifty big blinds turns the first hour into a series of coin flips, and no blind schedule can repair that afterwards.
Do you need antes in a home game blind structure?
No, and the structure on this page leaves them out. Antes speed the game up and slow the table down, because someone has to collect them every hand. If you want them, the tournament clock runs a fixed structure with an ante equal to the big blind from level five.
What if a level asks for a blind my chips cannot pay?
Round the small blind and leave the big blind alone. Level two on this page asks for 30 and 60, and a table whose smallest chip is 25 cannot make 30. Play it at 25 and 60, or skip to level three. The big blind is the unit the structure is built on, so it is the one number that should not move.