How do you run your "leaderboard" / player of the year? (1 Viewer)

[ShervinS]

Hey all,
I've been running a poker club for a couple of years now and I'm iterating on my player of the year concept.. would love to hear your thoughts, and if you've had anything similar

First year, we didn't have a leaderboard / player of the year concept.
Last year - I built a site for the tournaments with a leaderboard feature (poker-nights.com) and introduced the concept to the club.
People can follow the board live in the tournaments or on the leaderboard page

It concluded before Christmas with winners and prizes like these custom made card protectors which people loved:

I used the same Ranking Formular as the national Swedish casino:

• N: Total number of participants in the tournament.
• P: Your final placement (finishing position).
• B: The buy-in amount

Ie, The more players in the tournament + the better position you get + how expensive the tournament is = your final score.
I set a limit so "only" the top 50% got points.
I reasoned that, while I wanna reward attendance, you should at least achieve something to get points

Here's from one of our games:

The leaderboard concept has been very well received, and people are really engaged about it!

For this year, I wanted to achieve a few things:
1. I want to reward fun play. We do have some people who have been folding their way to the top 5 every tournament. That's ofc OK - but not super fun.
So I want to reward knockouts, to incentivize some action.
2. I want to give not-so-strong players a little bit more rewards, so they feel it's fun.
I've been thinking of some balancing factor, similar to ELO in Chess.
If a strong player beats a weak player, the strong player don't get as much points as if it was the other way around.

So, on top of the scoring model above, you also get points for the knockouts you've had.

Scoring formula:
5 points per KO + 1 point per difference in position on the leaderboard.

Ie, if I'm rank 10 and knock out:
- Rank 15 player = I get 5 points (since rank 10 is better than rank 15)
- Rank 1 player = I get 5 points + 9 points (the rank 1 player is 9 positions ahead of me) = 14 points.

Adding an example of what this did for our last game, where James who was previously far down the board, knocked out several players, including Betty on 2nd place
(ps. I've anonymized the names here)

So in summary, you get the points for the position you land in the tournament + the knockouts you've had.

I personally think this feels super fun, and I've so far received positive feedback on it.
But before I commit the full year for it, it would be great to hear your thoughts on it

Long post, kudos if you actually made it through

Best,
Shervin

 

[thePokerClub]

The leaderboard concept has been very well received, and people are really engaged about it!

For this year, I wanted to achieve a few things:
1. I want to reward fun play. We do have some people who have been folding their way to the top 5 every tournament. That's ofc OK - but not super fun.
So I want to reward knockouts, to incentivize some action.
2. I want to give not-so-strong players a little bit more rewards, so they feel it's fun.
I've been thinking of some balancing factor, similar to ELO in Chess.
If a strong player beats a weak player, the strong player don't get as much points as if it was the other way around.

So, on top of the scoring model above, you also get points for the knockouts you've had.

Scoring formula:
5 points per KO + 1 point per difference in position on the leaderboard.

Ie, if I'm rank 10 and knock out:
- Rank 15 player = I get 5 points (since rank 10 is better than rank 15)
- Rank 1 player = I get 5 points + 9 points (the rank 1 player is 9 positions ahead of me) = 14 points.

Adding an example of what this did for our last game, where James who was previously far down the board, knocked out several players, including Betty on 2nd place
(ps. I've anonymized the names here)

View attachment 1638410

So in summary, you get the points for the position you land in the tournament + the knockouts you've had.

I personally think this feels super fun, and I've so far received positive feedback on it.
But before I commit the full year for it, it would be great to hear your thoughts on it

Long post, kudos if you actually made it through

Best,
Shervin

I love this post. This is exactly the kind of structure thinking I nerd out on. We must be brothers from another mother.

I run a pointed season format with a LeaderBoard as well (3+ years now, ~15-18 players). Main thing is to use that LeaderBoard often to generate competitive banter between Events. Also, keep things fresh year over year. You may find the Structures Pack in the SeasonStack vendor forum interesting!

A few thoughts:

On rewarding knockouts:
We use bounty cards - each player starts with one, you collect them when you knock someone out, and they convert to LeaderBoard points at the end of the night. Simple version of what you're doing.

Your ELO-style modifier is interesting. I like that it gives lower-ranked players a path to close the gap. One question: have you thought about how this plays out late in the season? If a top-ranked player gets knocked out by someone at the bottom, the swing could be huge. Could create some wild variance in the final standings - which might be exactly what you want, or might feel unfair depending on your group.

On the "folding to top 5" problem:
We haven't really solved this either. The bounty system helps because tight players miss out on knockout points, but they can still min-cash their way up the LeaderBoard.

One thing that's worked for us: participation points are flat (everyone gets 2 LBPs just for showing up), but finish points scale steeply. So yes, you get something for being there, but the gap between 1st and 5th is meaningful. Rewards showing up, but doesn't let you ladder by just surviving.

Question for you:
How do your players feel about the knockout points being public during the tournament? Does it change behavior at the final table - like people targeting the leader to steal their knockout equity?

Curious how it plays out over a full season. Keep us posted.

-Chris

 

[ShervinS]

I love this post. This is exactly the kind of structure thinking I nerd out on. We must be brothers from another mother.

I run a pointed season format with a LeaderBoard as well (3+ years now, ~15-18 players). Main thing is to use that LeaderBoard often to generate competitive banter between Events. Also, keep things fresh year over year. You may find the Structures Pack in the SeasonStack vendor forum interesting!

A few thoughts:

On rewarding knockouts:
We use bounty cards - each player starts with one, you collect them when you knock someone out, and they convert to LeaderBoard points at the end of the night. Simple version of what you're doing.

Your ELO-style modifier is interesting. I like that it gives lower-ranked players a path to close the gap. One question: have you thought about how this plays out late in the season? If a top-ranked player gets knocked out by someone at the bottom, the swing could be huge. Could create some wild variance in the final standings - which might be exactly what you want, or might feel unfair depending on your group.

On the "folding to top 5" problem:
We haven't really solved this either. The bounty system helps because tight players miss out on knockout points, but they can still min-cash their way up the LeaderBoard.

One thing that's worked for us: participation points are flat (everyone gets 2 LBPs just for showing up), but finish points scale steeply. So yes, you get something for being there, but the gap between 1st and 5th is meaningful. Rewards showing up, but doesn't let you ladder by just surviving.

Question for you:
How do your players feel about the knockout points being public during the tournament? Does it change behavior at the final table - like people targeting the leader to steal their knockout equity?

Curious how it plays out over a full season. Keep us posted.

-Chris

Haha, hello there my brotha from anotha motha!

Your ELO-style modifier is interesting. I like that it gives lower-ranked players a path to close the gap. One question: have you thought about how this plays out late in the season? If a top-ranked player gets knocked out by someone at the bottom, the swing could be huge. Could create some wild variance in the final standings - which might be exactly what you want, or might feel unfair depending on your group.

That's observant of you and a very good point. I forgot to add the detail in my post: The score for a KO caps at 20.
So even if you're place 100 and knock out place 1, you can't get more than 20 points for one KO.
This is to avoid KO's being "overpowered"

One thing that's worked for us: participation points are flat (everyone gets 2 LBPs just for showing up), but finish points scale steeply. So yes, you get something for being there, but the gap between 1st and 5th is meaningful. Rewards showing up, but doesn't let you ladder by just surviving.

That is a really neat variant. I guess I'm somewhere in between, since I do reward attendance.. but you need to land in the top 50%.
Maybe I'll try out your idea here though.. I like it!

How do your players feel about the knockout points being public during the tournament? Does it change behavior at the final table - like people targeting the leader to steal their knockout equity?

That remains to be seen haha! We're only 2 tournaments in this year with this format, so not really sure yet how it will pan out over the season