Poker blind structure generator

It fits as many levels as your game length allows, starts everyone 50 (Turbo), 100 (Standard) or 200 (Deep stack) big blinds deep — shallower if the game is too short for it —, and raises the blinds steadily so that around 20 big blinds are in play in total when you want to finish. Every blind is rounded to an amount you can post with your smallest chip, and a few extra levels are added in case the game runs long — but never one whose big blind is more than half the chips in play.

10,000 chips with a T25 smallest chip is a common, easy-to-count home game stack. Bigger stacks don't make the game longer on their own — the structure scales with the stack — so pick what your chip set supports.

Pick your chip set and the generator works out a stack the whole table can be given from what's in the box: about 8 of the smallest chip for posting blinds and making change, at least 4 of each middle chip, and the rest in the bigger chips — usually 20 to 30 chips each. The biggest chips stay in the box for coloring up later.

Every blind has to be something players can actually post. With T25 as your smallest chip, you'll never see a 30/60 level; with T100, the blinds jump in steps of 100.

Color up a chip once every blind from then on can be paid with the next chip up — and once rebuys have closed, or rebuy stacks bring it straight back. From then on it's dead weight, so take it out at the next break — usually when the small blind is a handful of that chip. With “Plan color-ups” on, the generator picks blinds your bigger chips can pay and marks the break for each color-up, with the swap (say, 4 × T25 → 1 × T100).

Everyone swaps what divides evenly into the bigger chip. The leftover small chips are raced off: deal each player one card per leftover chip, and the highest cards win the new chips until the leftovers' value runs out. Nobody can be knocked out by the race — a player left with only small chips gets one new chip.

Antes speed up the middle and late game by putting more chips in every pot. A big blind ante — one ante paid by the big blind for the whole table — is the modern standard and the easiest to run at home.

Rebuys and add-ons put more chips in play, which makes the game run longer. Count each expected rebuy as an extra player, and the structure will pace itself for the bigger chip count.