Your tournament
Blind structure
| Level | Blinds | Ante | Starts | Avg stack |
|---|
Avg stack is in big blinds, assuming players bust at an even pace. The last levels are spare in case the game runs long.
This poker blind structure calculator builds the schedule for your home tournament from three numbers: how many players, how many chips each, and how long you want the night to last. Nine players with 10,000 chips over four hours, 20-minute levels, gives you blinds starting at 50/100 and rising smoothly to finish heads-up when each player has around ten big blinds. Breaks and antes are slotted in, and one button sends the whole structure to the blind timer. It’s free and prints cleanly.
How the blind structure calculator sets the levels
It starts at whatever big blind gives each player the depth you pick (100 big blinds is standard) and aims for the total chips in play to be worth about 20 big blinds at the final level, which is roughly ten each when two players are left. In between, the blinds grow by the same percentage every level, rounded to amounts you can actually make with your smallest chip.
That steady growth matters more than people think. Home games often go 100/200, 200/400, 400/800, doubling every level, and the tournament turns into a shove-fest an hour in. A smoother climb keeps the poker going for longer and makes the ending feel fair.
Tweaking it
- Shorter night: drop to 15-minute levels or choose a short starting depth.
- Antes: tick the big blind ante and it kicks in from level 5. One player posts it for the whole table, which is quicker than everyone anteing.
- Spare levels: the last three levels are greyed out. You won’t need them if the timing works, but if the night runs long they’re there.
Once you’ve got the structure, press “Run it in the blind timer” and the poker blind timer opens with every level loaded. The poker chip calculator works out how to split the starting stacks into chips, and the tournament payout calculator divides the prize pool at the end.
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