Tourney Help with Running a League (2 Viewers)

[David O]

I am a helpless Cash Game Player who has been hosting nothing but cash games. Last night at our cash game the subject came up about starting a Private Poker League. As most of you know I am primarily a cash player and occasionally play in a tournament. What I need help with is basically a "Dummy's Guide to Running a NLHE League".

Below I will list my questions and if you have anything that you can add it would be very much appreciated. Anything like tracking spreadsheets and points systems would be greatly appreciated. If you prefer to send anything via email I can provide that to you.

1. What is the recommended number of tournaments within a season. We plan on holding one twice per month.
2. We will make the buy-in $20 - $25. What percentage should go to that days tournament payout, season tournament finale and should a portion go for bounties, and if so how much?
3. Recommended breakdown and starting stack for 8-15 players to run for up to 4 hours or is that too long?
4. Tourney Software
5. Trophies?
6. I am working on a League Name so if you have any suggestions, shoot them this way!

I know I am probably forgetting a bunch but I appreciate any input. We are looking at starting up after the first of the year so I have some time.

Thank you in advance for your help!

David O

 

[AK Chip]

fwiw We would have $25 buy ins with $20 for tourney $5 to final table. Normally play two tourneys per night giving a point per person in the tournament with a 5 point bounty on the winner of the last tournament if that person was absent the next highest finisher present. We played 30 tourneys using the highest 20 finishes to determine final table players. This would allow players to miss a few tourneys and not hurt standings as much. We also would change starting stacks along with speed and blind structures to try and keep you thinking on how to play each tourney..
Of the 30 tourneys 2-4 were deep stack tourneys doubling the buy-in 40 for payout and the same 5 to final table.

 

[CdnBeerLover]

I am a helpless Cash Game Player who has been hosting nothing but cash games. Last night at our cash game the subject came up about starting a Private Poker League. As most of you know I am primarily a cash player and occasionally play in a tournament. What I need help with is basically a "Dummy's Guide to Running a NLHE League".

Below I will list my questions and if you have anything that you can add it would be very much appreciated. Anything like tracking spreadsheets and points systems would be greatly appreciated. If you prefer to send anything via email I can provide that to you.

1. What is the recommended number of tournaments within a season. We plan on holding one twice per month.

We run once a month for 9-10 months. Hosts tend to run games in-between to give us a chance to see how a new player fits in before including them in league games.

For points, we use a reverse of the number of players (so, 1st place gets points = # of players, last place gets 1). It is by no means the best system, but it works well for us. There are other systems as well. There are pros and cons to every point system, so you will have to figure out what works best for you.

2. We will make the buy-in $20 - $25. What percentage should go to that days tournament payout, season tournament finale and should a portion go for bounties, and if so how much?

We use a $20 buy-in with one rebuy. All of it goes to the tournament payout. The season final has a higher buy-in and increased chipstacks based on points accumulated during the season. When I run a bounty tournament, players pay an extra $5 per buyin/rebuy for the bounty.

3. Recommended breakdown and starting stack for 8-15 players to run for up to 4 hours or is that too long?

We use T12k. It's pretty much the same as a T10k tournament. Only real twist is that players who do not rebuy exchange their rebuy chip for 1 BB at the end of rebuy period. A running time of 4-5 hours is pretty good.

For breakdown, just search the various threads for one recommended by BGinGA for your starting stack.

4. Tourney Software

We use PokerDIY (www.pokerdiy.com). Works fine for our hosts. When I want the display on multiple screens, I use either RealVNC or TeamViewer to display the timer on a remote machine.

5. Trophies?
6. I am working on a League Name so if you have any suggestions, shoot them this way!

Can't help you there. Good luck!

 

[detroitdad]

Send me your email address sir.

 

[David O]

Send me your email address sir.

Sending pm

 

[detroitdad]

[email protected]

I have some links for my league. I'll send them to you tomorrow.

I'm old. I might need a reminder

 

[T_Chan]

1. What is the recommended number of tournaments within a season. We plan on holding one twice per month.

My league does 15 games per year plus the final.

2. We will make the buy-in $20 - $25. What percentage should go to that days tournament payout, season tournament finale and should a portion go for bounties, and if so how much?

We do $50 buy in, $10 goes to final.

3. Recommended breakdown and starting stack for 8-15 players to run for up to 4 hours or is that too long?

We do $5k starting stack, go from 7:30pm to midnight'ish. Blinds starts at 25/50 with a moderate pace with the small blinds going up by about 50% except for the first few levels. The side cash game usually starts around 10pm for busted players, thought a cash game doesn't always get going.

4. Tourney Software

I use tournament director to run the game, and I use homepokersystem.com to track points, send invites for games, send news, etc. Free for under 50 players. For bigger tournaments, I use blindvalet.com to run the game. For our league games we track knockouts, who knocked out who which we track on homepokersystem but blindvalet doesn't track the actual players, only that someone has KO's but not who they KO'd.

5. Trophies?

We used to have a big trophy where we would put each winner's name on a nameplate and add it to the trophy. That ended a few seasons ago now we don't have one due to laziness.

6. I am working on a League Name so if you have any suggestions, shoot them this way!

Can't help you there, mine's the Runner Runner Club. I inherited the league from someone else who got too busy to do it anymore.


Points is a tricky part, how you want to structure it. We do a point scale out of 100 for each game:

Winner: 100 points
2nd: 90 points
3rd, 85 points
Each player after that gets 3 points less.
After 10th place, points are 2 points less per spot.

We drop the 2 worst scores for each player at the end of the year. This helps balance the points a bit for players who can't make it to all the games which nobody ever does except 1 or 2 people, the host being one of them.

 

[Pinball]

1. What is the recommended number of tournaments within a season. We plan on holding one twice per month.
2. We will make the buy-in $20 - $25. What percentage should go to that days tournament payout, season tournament finale and should a portion go for bounties, and if so how much?
3. Recommended breakdown and starting stack for 8-15 players to run for up to 4 hours or is that too long?
4. Tourney Software
5. Trophies?
6. I am working on a League Name so if you have any suggestions, shoot them this way!



David O

1. In our old league we played ten tournaments and the best 8 games count for the standing. So all people who missed on evening still have a chance on winning.

2. If you play $25 per evening I would put $5 to the league pot.

3. We played with 6'000 chips and used the structure from blindvalet.fr

4. The Tournament Director 3

5. We still have card guards for the Club Champion. It's Champion 201X written on it.

6. Onyx Poker League, O's Tournament League ect.

 

[Dr. Neau]

We would play 10. You had to play a minimum of 5 to potentially qualify for league championship. Top 7 scores counted. Top 7 qualifying players got a seat, remaining qualifying players went into a heads-up tournament for the remaining seat.

 

[Redbelly]

Please check PM.

 

[David O]

Got it! Thank you Sean

 

[detroitdad]

My buddy will send me the requested information later today (hopefully). As soon as I get it I'll email it to you.

 

[Max D]

- $30 entry fee (20 for current game and $10 for championship & points)
- 9 game +championship
- Starting Chips
- 5,000 Tournament Chips (T)
- All players arriving by the stated start time will receive an additional 500T
- If you bring exact change you will receive an additional 500T
- Unlimited re-Entry/re-buy 6,000T for $30 up to the end of the 4th blind.
- Must have 500T or less to re-buy
- Must have no chips to re-enter (re-entry the player can change table and/or wait until the end of the 4th blind)
- Field size- limited to 20 players for Hold’em (If we have a low number of response within a week of the game we may cap the game at one table to avoid having two short tables) - we have 36 active players, but only 17 on average at each game.

Prize Pool for Events
- 1 Table (Up to 12 players): 50%, 30%, 20%
- 2 Table (13-20 players): 40%, 30%, 20%, 10%

Bounty
- 1 $10 bounty for knocking-out the previous month winner (no matter if the bounty target re-buys)
- Bounty cannot be won by bounty target
- If previous month winner wins again and did not get knocked out during the re-buy period , bounty carries over to the following month
- If bounty target does not attend the next tournament bounty is held until bounty comes back
- Any unclaimed bounty at the end of the season gets applied to the championship purse

Bonuses
- There are at least $30 per game (TD discretion)
- $5 - Aces Cracked: Getting beat when you have pocket Aces
- $5 - King Cracked: Getting beat when you have pocket Kings
- $5 - Queens Cracked: Getting beat when you have pocket Queens
- $5 – The Worst Starting Hand: Bluff: Winning a hand with 7-2 off-suit in the hole

Points leaders
- Points: Lots of methods, including @Dr. Neau way...
- Prizes will be awarded to the top points winners for the season based on the following schedule:
- 1st - 50%
- 2nd - 30%
- 3rd - 20%
- You must play in at least 7 events to qualify for point Leader Money, irrespective point total
- No shows will automatically remove you from eligibility.

Championship Tournament
- Field: 16 players
- The top 16 players in points
- You must play in at least 7 events to qualify for the Championship Tournament, irrespective point total
- Prizes will be awarded to the top 4 players in the Championship tournament
- No shows will automatically remove you from eligibility.

 

[Max D]

Tourney software is @Dr. Neau http://drneau.com/
tropheys eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Poker-Trophy-5-Coin-Tournament-Set-Weights-Card-Guard/380076340715

 

[David O]

I have a bunch of reading to do. I thank each of you for your responses. Hopefully I get some time to catch up on this in the rooms over the next several days. This holiday lunch and dinner travel takes time. Starting in Houston tomorrow, Phoenix on Wednesday, Dallas on Thursday and Houston and finally San Antonio on Friday!

 

[Dr. Neau]

Tourney software is @Dr. Neau http://drneau.com/

I use that too!

 

[Max D]

I use that too!

LOL, I would hope so