The #1 home tournament complaint is a night that drags past midnight — or ends by nine. This generator sizes the blind ladder to your players, stacks, and target length, so the math ends the tournament when you want it to.
~10 levels × 20 min ≈ 3.3 hours of play. Suggested breaks every 4 levels.
Total chips in play divided by remaining players tells you when a tournament ends: once the average stack is short — around eight big blinds among the last few players — it's over within a couple of hands. The generator starts you near 100 big blinds, targets that short-stack endpoint at your chosen finishing time, and spaces the levels geometrically between the two, rounding every blind to numbers your chips can actually make.
15–20 minute levels suit most home games: fast enough to finish in an evening, slow enough that skill matters. Turbo nights use 10–12 minutes; deepstack sessions 25–30.
Each level should raise the big blind by roughly 25–50%. Doubling every level feels like a crapshoot; smaller steps play better and still end on schedule because the count of levels controls total length.
Aim for 75–150 big blinds at the first level. A 10,000 stack with 50/100 starting blinds (100bb) is the home-game standard.
Don't print it — run it.
Put this structure on our free tournament clock: big-screen timer, blinds that advance themselves, payouts tracked.
Chips per player and a color-up plan.
Fair prize tables for any field.
Who pays who, fewest payments.
Running the whole night, not just the math?
Rebuy Labs runs a live clock, RSVPs, buy-ins, and standings — free to start.