It was crazy, about 25 poker players from around Dallas… and probably 30 or so folks that had never played…

They would stay in till the river, not knowing whether they had anything or not…

The prizes were like a Free Ac service check up…

They had sold table sponsorships on these tables for some outrageous amount and not even half the money was in the prize pool.. (yes, poker players add that kinda stuff up)

So, self dealing, cheap ass paper cards, round metal tables and metal chairs, commercial chips other could walk in with from off the street..

And then all we heard was….

Oh, it doesnt matter… It’s for charity… the charity was a softball team…. Puulease… that’s not charity…

That’s fundraising….

Huge difference…. I wouldnt go back to another one
of those again in my life… unless the prizes were huge
and you knew it was organized….

Because a fundraiser ain’t charity…. not the same thing….

Occasionally I have a home tourney… that’s 3 times as organized as that one was complete with dealers and all… and all the money is in pot…

The tournament will typically end as soon as the Big + Small = 10% of chips in play.
Ex: With 3,000 to start and 100 players, the tournament will end when the blinds are 10/20k. Knowing that, you can set your structure for a timely ending, assuming you can reasonably estimate your attendance.

In Charity events, Prized make ALL the difference.
I have helped advertise several events in the area and 90% of the time the often vast differences in attendance can be directly attributed to quality of goods for grabs. It’s important to understand who you want playing and how your revenues are generated. But if you want to make the most from re-buys on an event with a $150+ buy-in, you’ll not only need a pretty kick-ass prize, but it will have to Guaranteed (Not always easy) AND it will have to be attractive to semi-serious poker players, because outside of those close to the benefited charity, these guys will spend the most in re-buys and come totally prepared to do so. This means not only with enough cash, but sans-wife to pull him away after 1st or second bust out.

The most successfull prizes are typically a WSOP entry of some sort. Here in Dallas, you could now get away with giving the top 2 or 3 a Winstar River entry, etc.

But the difference is you are talking about getting the hardcore poker players out there. But this strikes me more as the kind of thing a bunch of non-poker players will wanna be playing, just for fun. (Again, not many theater folks in poker.)

In this instance, not only will stacks be less protected, but I’ve thrown corporate charity events of this sort, and people like the lack of professional dealers — makes them more comfortable. And with terrible blind structures and token prizes at best, they still rebuy and rebuy … because they are having fun around the action. They pay $20 more because they want to keep playing.

The tournament I describe above works better in an uber-fast-paced, three-hour event. But it seems like Nick is going for a combo … Good fun times, but in the end rewarding to the skillful players.

I agree prizes do make a big difference then. And he doesn’t say if anything is being pulled out of the buy-in for a prize.

The problem with starting at 3000 or 3600 is that people will never run out of chips enough to have a good number of rebuys. I say 1500 is a good number. Rebuys anytime under 1000 at $20 for 1500, addons are $20 for $1500 and $30 for 3000. Oh, make sure you double the blinds every 20 mins after break or else you will play until midnite.

100 people? that’s 10 tables, you gonna need 10 dealers, I don’t think I be a happy camper if the cards are passed around with no dealer. Your cost is about $100 per dealer. Don’t forget tables/chips rentals.

What are the prizes again? If the prize suck, I’m not gonna rebuy. Every player is going to allot a budget for the game versus the top prize, from $20-$100. So it better be a good one, like a plasma TV. Need 2nd and 3rd prizes too.

Good luck. Watch out for the PO-PO and PO-BA (poker bandits)