My missus wants to invite some of her team from work to play a beginners' poker night round our house. I have said she can use our table (generous aren't I? ) and my cards and chips as long as I can play :D

But I am struggling with the format as time is a bit of a factor.

We're looking at 10-12 players, so 1 x 10-seater or 2 x 6-seater tables - we can accomodate either really. But she would like the event over in a reasonable time and not have people sat around waiting for ages once they are knocked out.

I have tried to arrange live tourneys at mine before where the blinds went up every 10 minutes and with a few beginners in the game that means blinds are going up every other hand or so. It quickly becomes a crapshooot and I think that gives a false impression of the game. It also meant a few people were out early on and the final few places took a while to get settled so people got bored.

So has anyone any suggestions for a no limit hold'em format that can be played by the majority of players for the majority of the session (say 2-3 hours)? Cash games are out apparently (at least to start with) because while that means people can up and leave whenever the missus would rather have a top 3 type prize structure.

The best suggestion I could come up with was to play a cash game using chips to keep score and the top three divvy up the prize pool accordingly when a set time is reached. But I don't especially like that idea.

Someone must have a better idea...