The Blind Struture of a Tournament is an Important Factor

There is a term called “The Patience Factor” (PF) in tournament poker. It is the time it takes for a player to get blinded out if they never play a hand.

The concept is, the faster you would get blinded out – based on the blind levels and how fast they go up – the FASTER you have to play the tournament.

In other words, if you buy into tournament (not that I would recommend it) and you get 2000 chips – and the blinds start at 250 – 500 and go up every 5 minutes – you may want to open your starting hand selection a little. Ok, a lot! You just won’t have time to wait for AA, read players or establish an image. The blinds will take your chips. It will basically be bingo poker and may the best hand win.

If you buy into a tourney with a starting with 2000 chips and the blinds start at 1 – 2 and go up every half hour, then you have found a poker tournament where skill will be much more of a factor.

Let us take a look at the tourney structure at the Premier Poker Lounge where NPP recently held our get together:

Blinds increase every 15 minutes and you start with 7000 chips:
25 – 50
50 – 100
75 – 150
100 – 200
200 – 400 50 ante
300 – 600 75 ante
400 – 800 100 ante
500 – 1000 100 ante
1000 – 2000 200 ante (the most patient player just went broke in 2 hours, 6 minutes)

I won’t bore you with the math, but this calculates to a PF of 4.23 – which translates into a Skill Level for the tournament of 2.5 out of 6, with “Six” being the tournament where poker skill would be a more prevalent factor.

As a measure stick, lets look at our Tuesday tourney on PokerStars. On-line tourneys use a different scale since the hands are dealt so much faster. We start with 1500 in chips, but the PF = 8.51 – which translates into a 4.4 skill level.

Keep the blind structure in mind before plunking down your money for a tournament. Be aware whether you should be in more of a gamble mode or is there time allowed for play. There is no “bad” or “good”, unless you prefer one or the other. But you better adjust your play based on the PF.

Are you LISTENING Faldo?