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Home game poker tournament director

A free blind structure calculator, tournament clock and ICM chop calculator in one. Tell it how many players and how long you want to play; it builds the blind levels, runs the timer, shares a live view with the table and settles the deal.

11levels
4:00runs for
10,000stack
$180prize pool
Free · no sign-up
Home game tournament
Everyone sitting down, you included.
4:00hrs
When you want to be done. The blinds are shaped to land here.
First hand. The clock column on the structure counts from it.
Per player. Leave it at 0 for a game with no money on it.
Fine-tune the structure
What these actually change

Minutes per level is the single biggest lever on how the night feels. Twenty minutes is the home-game standard: long enough that a good player can work, short enough that nine people finish in an evening. Below fifteen the tournament turns into a shove-fest; above thirty you need more hours than most kitchens get.

Starting stack is arbitrary on its own — what matters is the stack divided by the big blind. Ten thousand chips at 50/100 plays identically to a hundred chips at 0.5/1. Pick a number your physical chips can actually make.

Start at and finish at together set the whole blind curve. The structure has to carry the field from the opening depth down to a short-stacked heads-up, and the number of levels available to do it in is fixed by your target length. Ask for more hours and the blinds climb more gently; ask for fewer and every step gets steeper. Nothing else has to change.

Breaks cost real time and the calculation already accounts for them — the finish time you see includes them.

Blind structure

LevelSmallBigAnte TimeClockLeftAvg
How this structure was calculated
Reading the “left” and “avg” columns

Left is the modelled number of players still in at that level, and avg is the average stack in big blinds at that moment. Together they are the honest description of what your tournament will feel like.

The average stack is the number to watch. Above 40 big blinds there is room to play poker. Between 15 and 25 the tournament tightens and stealing becomes the main event. Below 10 it is a shoving contest, which is exactly what you want at the end and exactly what you do not want at 9pm.

Bust-out timing is the least reliable part of any structure calculator, this one included. It is a smooth curve fitted to a small, lumpy reality — nine people do not bust on a schedule. Treat it as the shape of the night, not a timetable.

Players

Running with 9 unnamed players. That is enough for everything else on this page to work.
Add names if you want knockouts tracked, finishing places recorded and the chop worked out by name.

Prize pool

How many places should a home game pay?

The working rule is one paid place per full table, then a second, then a third — roughly the top 10–15% of the field. Nine players means two or three paid spots; twenty means three or four.

Paying fewer places makes the game bigger. A winner-take-all nine hander has one happy person and eight who feel they wasted an evening. Paying three out of nine means a third of the room leaves even or ahead, and those are the people who come back next month. For a recurring home game, flatter is almost always the right call even though it looks less exciting on paper.

Whatever you choose, agree it before the first hand and write it somewhere everyone can see. Payout structures renegotiated at the final table are how home games end.

Chop calculator

Someone wants to go home. Enter what everyone has in front of them and this works out what the deal is actually worth.

Chip counts
The deal
PlayerChipsGetsvs chips
Why the chip leader gets less than their chips

This is the argument, every time. The player with half the chips looks at a three-way pot and says they should get half the money. They should not, and the reason is not opinion.

Chips are not money because the prize ladder is not linear. First place might pay $100 and second $60. Doubling your stack does not double your prize — there is a ceiling on what winning is worth, and every chip you gain past the point of survival buys less than the one before it. Meanwhile the short stack already owns a share of the guaranteed money simply by still being alive.

ICM — the Independent Chip Model — puts a dollar value on that. It asks: given these stacks, how often does each player finish first, second, third, and what is that worth on average? The answer always transfers value from the big stack to the small ones relative to a raw chip count. That gap is not a bug in the maths; it is the reason a chip chop overpays the leader and the reason experienced players insist on ICM.

Where ICM is wrong. It assumes every chip is equally likely to move in any direction — that all remaining players are equally skilled, that position does not matter, and that the blinds are not about to eat the short stack alive. In a home game with one clear best player and a short stack facing the big blind next hand, the true numbers drift from ICM. That is why deals get negotiated rather than calculated: ICM is the fair starting point everyone can agree is neutral, and then people haggle from there.

Etiquette. A deal needs everyone to agree, not a majority. Pause the clock while you talk. It is normal to leave something on the table for the eventual winner so there is still a reason to play the hand out — that is what the third tab does. And if one person says no, the answer is no; play on without sulking.

Chip denominations

Most people already have chips and already know what they mean. The structure above works without ever mentioning them — blinds are kept to round, easily-made numbers on their own.

Turn this on only if you want the tool to check that your set can physically make the starting stacks, tell you when to colour up, and keep every blind payable with the chips still on the table.

Send it to the table

Two links. One is the structure so people can look at it beforehand; the other is a live view of your clock so nobody has to lean over and squint at your phone.

Structure link
Live player view

Generated when you start the clock.

How the live view stays in sync without a server

The link carries two things: the structure, and the exact wall-clock moment level one started. Every phone that opens it works out the current level from its own clock. No server, no account, no polling — it simply cannot fall behind.

The catch is pausing. If you pause for ten minutes to argue about a ruling, the viewers do not know and will run ten minutes ahead. Hit Re-sync after a long pause and hand out the new link, or tell people to reload. The viewer screen shows how long ago it synced so nobody trusts a stale number.

If something goes wrong

Phones die. Tabs get closed. Browsers clear storage without asking. This is the part most tournament clocks get wrong. Reopening this page on the same device picks the clock up on its own; the host link picks it up on any other device.

Resume code

Screenshot this. Pasted into the box below on any device, it puts the tournament back exactly where it was.

Recover from a code
Nothing to restore from

Tell it the level you are on and the minutes left. Everything downstream — the remaining ladder, the finish time, the average stack — recomputes from there.

What this actually saves, and where

The clock writes its position on every tick to four independent places: the browser's local storage, its IndexedDB database, the tab's own session storage, and the address bar. Losing one loses nothing. Local storage is the one everybody uses and the one Safari quietly wipes after seven days of not visiting; IndexedDB survives that.

The address bar is the underrated one. Because the level is written into the URL, a bookmark, a browser-restored tab, or the link you texted yourself all carry the tournament state with them — across devices, which storage never does.

And if all of it is gone: the structure is deterministic. The same inputs always produce the same ladder, so rebuilding needs only two facts a human can supply from looking at the table — what level you are on and roughly how long is left. That is the honest floor, and it is why the rebuild button exists rather than an apology.

Guide

What this poker tournament director does

This is a free tournament director for home poker games, and it replaces four separate tools most hosts juggle: a poker blind structure calculator, a poker tournament clock (a blinds timer that runs full-screen on a phone or tablet), a poker chip distribution calculator for the starting stacks, and a poker payout and ICM chop calculator for the end of the night. Tell it how many players and how long you want to play; everything else follows from those two numbers.

  • Blind structure calculator — blind levels, antes and breaks sized so the tournament finishes when you said it would, for 2 to 60 players.
  • Tournament clock & blinds timer — level, blinds, time left and what is next, in type you can read from across the room. Pause, add minutes, skip a level, record a bust-out.
  • Live view for the table — a short link and QR code; every phone that opens it follows your clock exactly.
  • Printable blind structure sheet — the ladder, the payouts and the key numbers on one page.
  • Payout structure & ICM chop calculator — how many places to pay, how to split the prize pool, and what a fair deal is when the last few want to go home.

How to run a home poker tournament with it

  1. Set the players, the time you have, and the buy-in. The blind ladder, starting stack, breaks and finish time are computed from these. Fine-tune the structure opens level length, starting depth and antes if you want to override them.
  2. Check the structure tab. Every level with its blinds, ante, wall-clock time and expected players left. Print sheet gives you a copy for the table.
  3. Add names on the Players tab if you want the clock to track knockouts and keep the payouts table honest. Optional.
  4. Run the clock. It goes full-screen. Prop the phone where everyone can see it. Minimise keeps it running while you use the rest of the page; Exit & pause stops it.
  5. Share the live view. Tap Share on the clock for a short link and a QR code. Every phone that opens it follows yours exactly.
  6. Chop at the end. Enter the stacks on the Payouts tab and the ICM calculator shows what a fair deal is.

How long does a home poker tournament take?

Longer than you think, and the reason is arithmetic rather than luck. A tournament ends when one player holds every chip. Nobody can hold every chip until the blinds have grown large enough relative to the total that stacks are forced together. So the finish time is set by how fast the blinds climb, and almost nothing else.

That gives a usable equation. At any moment, the number of players still in is roughly the total chips in play divided by the average stack in big blinds, times the big blind. Run it backwards: if you want two players left with about ten big blinds each, the final big blind has to be around the total chip count divided by twenty. Everything — how many levels you need, how steeply they rise — falls out of that.

Practical numbers for a kitchen table: nine players, twenty-minute levels, roughly four hours. Six players is closer to two and a half. Eighteen players across two tables is five to six. If you need a hard stop, shorten the levels rather than skipping them — a structure that runs out of levels ends in an all-in lottery.

Poker blind levels: choosing the level length

Level length and blind steepness trade off directly. Twenty minutes with a moderate climb and fifteen minutes with a gentle one can produce the same finish time, but they are not the same game: longer levels mean more hands at each depth, which means more poker and less coin-flipping.

  • 10–12 minutes — turbo. Fine for a filler game, punishing for anyone who plays carefully.
  • 15 minutes — the short-evening standard. Works well up to about a dozen players.
  • 20 minutes — the home game default and the right answer most of the time.
  • 25–30 minutes — only if you genuinely have five or more hours and people who want to use them.

Expect about 20–25 hands an hour at a full home-game table. Casino estimates of 30 assume a professional dealer; your friends shuffle slowly and talk a lot.

Poker starting stacks and what “deep” means

The chip number on its own means nothing. What matters is the starting stack divided by the first big blind — the starting depth. Ten thousand chips at 50/100 is 100 big blinds, and plays exactly like a thousand chips at 5/10.

100 big blinds is the standard and it is standard for a good reason: it is deep enough for post-flop play to exist without the first two levels being irrelevant. Going to 150 or 200 sounds generous but mostly adds an hour of small-pot poker at the front. If you want a longer game, add levels at the end, not depth at the start.

Poker chip distribution: how many chips and which denominations

Three to five denominations in play is the whole answer. Fewer and you cannot make the later blinds; more and the table turns into a bank.

  • Space denominations by 4–5×: 25 / 100 / 500 / 1000 is a clean four-chip ladder. Each value should be a whole multiple of the one below it.
  • Give every player 4–8 of the smallest chip. Running out of the smallest denomination is the single most common physical failure in a home game.
  • Keep 20–30% of the set in the box as a bank for colour-ups and rebuys.
  • A standard 300-chip set genuinely struggles past about six players once you want four denominations. 500 comfortably handles nine or ten.

The rule that catches people out: every blind level has to be payable with the chips still on the table. Once the 25s are gone, a 50 small blind is unmakeable. Blind ladders and chip denominations are one problem, not two.

Late registration, rebuys and add-ons

Home games run late and someone always arrives during level two. Decide in advance and say it out loud:

  • Late registration through the end of level three or four is normal. Latecomers get a full starting stack — do not scale it down, it is not worth the arithmetic and it makes them feel punished for traffic.
  • Rebuys for the first hour, one per player, at the starting stack. More than that and the tournament becomes a cash game with extra steps.
  • Add-ons at the first break, available to everyone regardless of stack. This is the cleanest way to top up the prize pool without distorting play.

Every rebuy adds chips, and chips added late make the tournament run longer than the structure predicts. A rough correction: for every 20% the chip pool grows, expect roughly one extra level.

When and how to colour up

Retire a denomination when it stops being needed to make the small blind — in practice, when the small blind reaches about eight times that chip's value. Announce it at the break before it happens so nobody is surprised.

Round, do not race. The casino method — dealing a card for each odd chip and awarding a bigger chip to the high cards — is designed to protect a house's chip inventory across hundreds of tables. At your table it costs ten minutes and produces a bad feeling. Round every player up to the next denomination instead. The extra chips introduced are a rounding error against the total, and you are back playing in ninety seconds.

Poker tournament payout structure: how many places to pay

Roughly the top 10–15% of the field, minimum two. Nine players: two or three. Twenty: three or four.

For a game you want to run again next month, flatter beats top-heavy. The recurring home game is a social contract, and the people who keep it alive are the ones who occasionally leave even. Winner-take-all is thrilling exactly once.

ICM chop calculator: doing the deal properly

Most home tournaments end in a deal, usually around midnight when someone has work. There are three ways to split, and they are not equally fair.

  • Chip chop — split the pool in proportion to chips. Simple, and it systematically overpays the chip leader, because prize money does not scale linearly with chips.
  • ICM — work out how often each stack finishes in each paid position and pay everyone their average outcome. This is the neutral, defensible answer, and it is what the chop calculator on this page does.
  • Save for the win — set aside an amount for whoever actually wins, and split the rest by ICM. Keeps a reason to play the hand out.

Everyone has to agree, not most people. Pause the clock. And if the short stack is about to post the big blind, be aware that ICM is being slightly generous to them — it does not know the blinds are coming.

Running the tournament clock on the night

  • Put the clock on a phone or tablet propped where everyone can see it, not in someone's hand. Plug it in.
  • Announce the new blinds out loud at every level change. The screen is not enough once people are talking.
  • Do the colour-up at the break, never mid-level.
  • Write the payouts somewhere visible before the first hand.
  • One person is the director and their rulings are final for the night. Decide who that is while everyone is still sober.

Frequently asked questions

Start the clock, then tap Share on the clock screen. It shows a short link and a QR code. Anyone who opens the link on their own phone sees the same level, blinds and countdown as you, and it follows every pause, skipped level and bust-out you make. They cannot change anything.

Yes. Your clock publishes to the site a few times a minute and every viewer reads it back, with all timing measured on the site's own clock rather than on any phone. A device that is five minutes out still shows the right seconds.

The clock's position is saved on every tick to four places in the browser and written into the address bar. Open the page again on the same device and it offers to resume where it was; on any other device, paste the resume code from the Share tab. If nothing survived, Rebuild from where we are takes the level and the minutes left and recomputes everything else.

You can, but it was built for a different number of players and a different chip count, and those are exactly the two inputs that decide when it ends. A structure that finishes a 200-player field in eight hours will finish your nine-hander in ninety minutes.

Almost always rebuys, late entries, or a break that turned into forty minutes. Added chips need added levels: for every 20% the chip pool grows, expect roughly one extra level.

Yes, from around level four. Antes are what force action once stacks shorten; without them a short-handed table can fold for an hour. A big-blind ante, where one player posts for the whole table, is faster than everyone anteing and worth adopting.

Do not just stop, because that leaves an unresolved argument. Either agree a hard end and chop by ICM at that moment using the calculator on the Payouts tab, or announce a shortened final few levels so the tournament actually finishes.

The overall length is solid because it follows from chip conservation: the game ends when the blinds are large enough that one player can hold every chip. The bust-out curve inside it is a fitted approximation and small fields are lumpy, so treat the middle of the table as a shape rather than a schedule.

No account, no sign-up, no cost. Everything runs in your browser; the only thing that touches a server is the live view, and that carries nothing but the clock's position.

Yes. Print sheet produces a one-page structure sheet with the blind ladder, the payouts and the key numbers, with every button and control left off.