Home Game Blind Structure: Tournament and Cash Game Schedules

A good blind structure makes a home tournament finish on time without turning into an all-in fest after an hour. Below are three tested schedules, all starting from a 10,000-chip stack.

The standard schedule (about 3 hours, 6–10 players)

20-minute levels:

Level	Small blind	Big blind
1	25	50
2	50	100
3	75	150
4	100	200
5	150	300
Break	Colour up the 25s
6	200	400
7	300	600
8	400	800
9	500	1,000
10	700	1,400
Break
11	1,000	2,000
12	1,500	3,000
13	2,000	4,000
14	3,000	6,000

Each player starts with 200 big blinds, and the blinds roughly double every three levels.

Shorter or longer games

• About 2 hours: use 15-minute levels with the same schedule.
• About 4 hours: use 30-minute levels, or 20-minute levels with a 15,000 starting stack.
• More than 10 players: add 20–30 minutes per extra table.

A quick check: the game is usually over when the big blind is around 5–10% of all chips in play. With 8 players × 10,000 = 80,000 chips, that’s a big blind of 4,000–8,000.

Tips that keep it running smoothly

• Use a timer. Any phone clock works; free blind-timer apps show the next level.
• Colour up at breaks. Race off the smallest chips once they’re no longer needed. See poker chip values.
• Add antes late (optional). A big blind ante from level 6 speeds things up without extra chip handling.
• Agree payouts first. A common split for 8–10 players is 50% / 30% / 20%. Use our ICM calculator if the final table wants to make a deal.

When stacks get short (below about 15 big blinds), players should be shoving or folding. Our push-fold charts show exactly what to shove.

Home cash game blinds

In a cash game the blinds never go up. Pick a big blind that is 1/100th of the buy-in:

Buy-in	Blinds
$20	$0.10 / $0.20
$50	$0.25 / $0.50
$100	$0.50 / $1
$200	$1 / $2

Related

• How to host a home poker game
• Tournament structures
• Tournament stack sizes

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