Clay chips come in several weights, and textures. I bought a set of low end 9.5gram "diamond" chips, and doing chip tricks with a brand new set of sticky chips like those is quite the feat. The glossier 11.5g chips slide much easier, but they aren't as easy on the wallet. Buying a set of chips can certainly be an investment, and part of the decision comes down to how much you are willing to "invest", and how much your players will expect from you.

I bought the lower end chips because i wanted to have them customized, not so much for the sake of my ego, but because I never wanted to hear someone accusing another player of bringing their own chips to the table and padding their stack with them. The extra money was worth avoiding that potential headache, even if it did cause me to buy "down" a little.

Also, in order to make the most use out of my chips, I got them without denominations. Not that I envision using them in 40 years when $10 is more like $.10, but that may happen. I wanted to leeway to make red any denomination I wanted, depending on the particular tournament. I also picked up some standard, distinct colors because one of the guys in our group is color-blind, and it is very important that he be able to tell the difference between the chips at first glance.

The amount of chips you'll have to buy depends on the amount of players you'll be having, obviously. But, if you'll be hosting simple one table tourneys in your rec room, a 300 chip set works well for 8 players and under. Consider getting 500 chips for a full ten player game, and 1000 chips will work for up to two dozen players (that's three tables of 8, nice and even).

I suggest four colored chip sets. Most come with enough of each color to make things easy on the host. I went with 40% red, 40% green, 10% black and 10% purple. With 1,500 chips the set works nicely for up to 40 players. And we could accomodate more if need be.

Twenty minutes seems like a nice quick pace, a half-hour is a bit more leisurely. An hour is painstakingly long, unless you are planning an all-day event.

There are several different places online to pick up "Blinds Schedules" for poker tournaments, including The Borgata and the Trump Taj Mahal.

The blind structure I've been using is: 10-20, 20-40, 30-60, 50-100, 75-150, 100-200, 150-300, 200-400, 300-600, 400-800, 500-1000, 600-1200, 700-1400, 800-1600, 1000-2000

I use it for a 14-16 man tournament (starting with 800 chips), and the tournaments usually last between three and four hours rasing blinds every 20 minutes. If there are less players, you may want to increase the blinds more slowly since there are less chips in the tournament.

Here is an example of a single table tournament blind structure (800 chips): 10-15, 15-30, 20-40, 30-60, 40-80, 50-100, 75-150, 100-200, 200-400, 300-600, 400-800, 500-1000, 700-1400

There is a big difference between having a table full of players that see every flop and will chase a top pair/top kicker to the river with every chip they have, and having a two table rock garden. You will have to adjust the blind schedule and timing to reflect the type of players you regularly play with in order to have the tournament run the way you want it to run.

One thing to mention, while I don't generally run tournaments with antes, they are an effective way of bringing things to an end should a tourney begin to run too long. We set an ante "time" for our weekday tournaments, and set them at 25% of the small blind.

If the player on the small blind is knocked out, the blinds are posted as usual, and the same dealer deals again. It's ok to deal twice in a row, but the big blind escapes no one.

If the player on the big bind is eliminated from the tournament, the big blind moves one seat forward, and the dealer button moves one seat forward. No one posts a small blind (that would have been on the fellow who just got busted out of the tourney, and he's no longer there). The following deal, the Big Bling moves along to the next player as it should. The small blind posts, and someone is the dealer twice in a row. It's ok to deal twice in a row, but remember, the big blind escapes no one.

Should both blinds get knocked out of the tournament, the big blind moves to the next player. No one posts the small blind (that guy got knocked out). And the same player deals twice. The next hand, the big blind moves down one, someone posts the small blind, and the dealer deals a third time.

The crux is the big blind never skips anyone, and you work backwards from there. If a player is present, they post the small blind. If they aren't there, no one posts it. The same player keeps dealing until things are back to normal, with both blinds being posted.

This method of play is called the "Dead Button Rule". Acording to Robert's Rules of Poker, another method of play is possible. It is the "Moving Button Rule". Feel free to consult the Robert's Rules for more information on playing under the "Moving Button" rule.

The process of removing these chips from play is called "coloring up". At some point in time when they are no longer required for blinds, smaller chips are simply "cashed in" for larger chips.

Not everyone will have chips that can be cashed in without remainders. For example, I may have 7 $5 chips, so I can trade them in for a $25 chip, but that leaves me with 2 $5 chips in my pile. In the tournaments I run, we just keep them. I have no desire to hear about the unfairness of the concept of a chip race, and since the tournaments are relatively small, I don't have to. Either I will collect 3 more $5 chips and cash them in later in the tournament, or my last bet will include some $5 chips. We deal with that at that time.

But, if you are interested, the larger tournaments perform chip races. A process whereby ALL of the outlived chip denominations are removed from the tables.

Once players have converted all the possible chips they can, the remaining outstanding chips are then totalled. Suppose there are 9 $5 chips outstanding, and the tournament is coloring up to $25 chips. There are $45 in chips to be replaced. You can replace 5 of them with a $25 chip, but that still leaves four $5 chips in play. That's not acceptable. Since there are $20 in outstanding chips, and that is more than half the value of the new lowest chip on the tables (the $25 chip), the tournament director will add a second $25 chip to the tables. If there would have been 2 $5 chips remaining, that would have been less than half the value of the new lowest chip (the $25 chip). No additional chips would have been put into play in that case.

Now, that's the answer for how many new chips are put into play. The next question is who gets them? Each player with a $5 chip would receive one random card from the dealer for each $5 chip they had. Highest two cards each win a nice $25 chip. End of the race. (Highest card is Ace of Spades, using the ranking of suits).

A chip race can never eliminate a player from a tournament. If a player does not win a chip race, and that would eliminate them, they are automatically awarded one of the chips they were racing for.

Another thing to decide in advance is what happens when two players bust out on the same hand. If, for instance, there are three players in the fnal hand, and one player finishes the hand with all of the chips. Who gets second and who gets third?

We award the higher finish to the player who began the hand with more chips. Another way to deal with this situation is to split the prizes between the two players. In our example, you would add the second and third place monies and award each player half.

It is not unusual for players to make "deals". For instance the last two players

Of course it's easy to create other methods of randomly seating players.

If you have two 10 man tables, and one table goes down to 8 players while the other remains at 10, the time has come to move a player. Move players from fuller tables to smaller ones. It is often best to move players from the same position, into the same position. So, if player #3 is knocked out of Table A, player #3 from table B is moved into that spot. This keeps players from landing on consecutive blinds or buttons.

Although it is nice to move players from and into similar positions, there is no hard, fast rule for moving players.

• Acting out of turn - Acting out of turn is not allowed. Do not fold ahead of time. This gives too much information to the person acting, and can unfairly affect the game.
• No cell phones at the table
• No String Bets - when a player announces they are raising, they must verbally announce the total, or put the entire amount of the raise into the pot. You may not put some chips into the pot, get a read on your opponent, and then decide to place even more chips into the pot.
• Revealing the contents of a hand before the hand is completed.
• Show one show all. You may not how your cardds to one player at the table without showing them to everyone at the table.
• One player per hand.

• No rabbit hunting (seeing what the next card would have been).
• You must show both hole cards to win a pot.
• No reading the board aloud. (Don't say, "Ahh, the third club, possible flush now fellows")

The first round of betting, and the second round of betting begin at the size of the big blind. So, if the big blind is $25, to see the flop, it costs $25 at least. Simple enough.

The third and fourth rounds of betting cost Two Big Blinds. So, after the turn card is displayed, bets would increase to $50 minimum. $50 would also be the minimum bet on the river.

Raises need to be at least the size of the bet. So, in our example, a raise before the flop would need to be $50 (the size of the bet x 2). Players would not be allowed to raise "a little" to say, $35.

Re-raises need to be the size of the last raise. If player A were to raise the pot $250, player B's re-raise would need to be $500. (Player A's raise x 2). If player B re-raised the pot, player C's re-raise would need to be at least $1,000 (Player B's raise x 2).

No Limit means that a bet will never be too big. It does not mean that players may bet anything they wish.