It will take a few times to become comfortable with a blind structure. There is one huge rule you need to use when hosting a tournament for the first time - if you aren't sure what the blinds are then make them low! There is nothing worse than setting up a tournament that people look forward to enjoying but the blinds go up too fast and it becomes an all-in festival. My opinion on blind structures is that the majority of blinds schedules are WAY too fast and the tournies end up being crapshoots at the end. Devilfish has stated this opinion publicly also. The reason for the fast blind increases is because when it gets down to 2 players left, then the people who are waiting for the next game to start (or the dealer for that matter) gets impatient and all the railbirds don't like watching all the folding - they want to see action - even if it means rushing you into making a move you don't want to. It also has to do with the fact that poker rooms ultimately make money by the hour and want the tournies to finish faster. Unfortunately some players enjoy the fast blind structures. The reason for this is something most people don't realize. In games where the blinds are high, it encourages more aggressive betting because the pots (relative to the average stack size) are much bigger. This means that the more aggressive no-limit players (and hence, the BETTER no-limit players) favor high blinds. Although this is good for the aggressive players it is not necessarily fair. Having blinds that are so high that it becomes a crapshoot at the end means that luck plays the biggest part when the most money is as stake. This doesn't make sense. People are willing to play for an hour to squeeze in-the-money to get $50 but yet when it comes to a $500 difference then players are supposed to give up control of the game to mandatory all-ins at the end.
A good rule of thumb is that at the beginning of a tournament the big blind should be 1% of the average stack size (i.e. the starting stack size). For more aggressive games the big blind can be 2-3%. It should never be higher than 3%. Near the end of a tournament the big blind should be 5% of the average stack. To most players that seems low but think about this. If the big blind is 5% of the average stack then calling a bet to the river (without raises) means you will lose 20% of your stack. That is a lot. If you watch the WSOP of the $500 buy-in Pokerstars tournies then you can see that when it gets down to the final 2 players then the big blinds is usually 2-4% of the average stack.
Small tournies (10 players) should last about an hour. Medium sized tournaments (10-25 players) should last 2-3 hours and large tournaments (30 or more players) should last 3-5 hours. Blind increases are usually 50-100% of the last blind and the blind intervals are usually 20-30 minutes. Most home games tend to be casual, and therefore there are fewer hands dealt per hour because of people talking and socializing. The blind structure should not be altered during a tournament. The reason being is that the chip leaders will always want faster blinds and will always campaign for them, but blinds levels should be at a reasonable level to allow the average player room to play.
Make sure your color-ups are in line with your blinds. For example, if you color up the $25 chips then don't have blinds that are $250/$500 if you only have $100 chips.
