Poker Billie, I'm happy to share resources. However, when we added 2 additional tournaments, my spreadsheet hasn't worked properly and is currently being updated. Since I lack the skills to update my sophisticated one, I'm waiting on someone else. There are, I think, several formulas that might work.
First, I'd set a "base" for attendance. I'll use 5 as the base, for example. For attendance, every player who comes gets for attendance the base, plus some additional for each additional player. I use 4%, but you could use 5%, or some other number. As long as it is a percentage and not a fixed number, your system won't be linear. I'd personally be inclined to throw out any number of players below 5, but it's not required. For example, using 4%, here would be the attendance points from 2-10.
Attendance | Att Pts |
2 | 0.889 |
3 | 0.925 |
4 | 0.962 |
5 | 1.000 |
6 | 1.040 |
7 | 1.082 |
8 | 1.125 |
9 | 1.170 |
10 | 1.217 |
Second, for the finishing points, I follow the same concept. Each higher place is an identical percentage above the next lower place. However, with 10, I'd have no more than 3 or 4 extra points places. I'll use 4 as the example. You could use 25% to 60%. I'll use 40% for example.
Finish | Fin Pts |
1 | 3.842 |
2 | 2.744 |
3 | 1.960 |
4 | 1.400 |
5 | 1.000 |
6 | 1.000 |
7 | 1.000 |
8 | 1.000 |
9 | 1.000 |
10 | 1.000 |
There are a couple of things I look for. I always want a 1+4 to equal more than a 2+3, or a 1+3 to be more than a 2+2. The higher finish always gets the edge when the finishing places are equal. Thus, the system is not linear.
Then I multiply the attendance points x finish points. I'm going to show you the scoring for 3 tournaments using this system. For this example, I'm going to measure 10, 8, and 6 players. The players are labeled A B C D E F G H I J.
Note: For the examples below, only attendance and finish are calculated. Re-buys and varying entry amounts are not calculated.
Player | T1 - 10 | T1 - Att | T1 - Fin | T1-Total | T2 - 8 | T2 - Att | T2 - Fin | T2 - Total | T3 - 6 | T3 - Att | T3 - Fin | T3-Total | Total |
A | 1 | 1.217 | 3.842 | 4.674 | 5 | 1.125 | 1.000 | 1.125 | 3 | 1.040 | 1.960 | 2.038 | 7.837 |
B | 2 | 1.217 | 2.744 | 3.338 | 6 | 1.125 | 1.000 | 1.125 | 2 | 1.040 | 2.744 | 2.854 | 7.317 |
C | 3 | 1.217 | 1.960 | 2.385 | 0 | 1.125 | 0 | 0.000 | 6 | 1.040 | 1.000 | 1.040 | 3.425 |
D | 4 | 1.217 | 1.400 | 1.703 | 0 | 1.125 | 0 | 0.000 | 5 | 1.040 | 1.000 | 1.040 | 2.743 |
E | 5 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 8 | 1.125 | 1.000 | 1.125 | 1 | 1.040 | 3.842 | 3.995 | 6.337 |
F | 6 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 7 | 1.125 | 1.000 | 1.125 | 4 | 1.040 | 1.400 | 1.456 | 3.798 |
G | 7 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 4 | 1.125 | 1.400 | 1.575 | 0 | 0 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 2.791 |
H | 8 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 3 | 1.125 | 1.960 | 2.205 | 0 | 0 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 3.421 |
I | 9 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 2 | 1.125 | 2.744 | 3.087 | 0 | 0 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 4.303 |
J | 10 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 1 | 1.125 | 3.842 | 4.321 | 0 | 0 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 5.538 |
I believe the ratio between attendance points and finish points is important. In this case, the ratio was 10:1. Thus, higher finishes will in theory count 10x as much as attendance. You can see that A and B had very similar performances -- both placing in the points twice in the same tournaments (A 1 & 3; b 2 & 2). Since their attendance was identical, A's edge is his 1st place finish.
I'll show one more example. Same finishes for A and B, but this time, the tournaments are 10, 8, and 10.
Player | T1 - 10 | T1 - Att | T1 - Fin | T1-Total | T2 - 8 | T2 - Att | T2 - Fin | T2 - Total | T3 - 10 | T3 - Att | T3 - Fin | T3-Total | Total |
A | 1 | 1.217 | 3.842 | 4.674 | 5 | 1.125 | 1.000 | 1.125 | 3 | 1.217 | 1.960 | 2.385 | 8.183 |
B | 2 | 1.217 | 2.744 | 3.338 | 6 | 1.125 | 1.000 | 1.125 | 2 | 1.217 | 2.744 | 3.338 | 7.802 |
C | 3 | 1.217 | 1.960 | 2.385 | 0 | 1.125 | 0 | 0.000 | 6 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 3.601 |
D | 4 | 1.217 | 1.400 | 1.703 | 0 | 1.125 | 0 | 0.000 | 5 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 2.920 |
E | 5 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 8 | 1.125 | 1.000 | 1.125 | 1 | 1.217 | 3.842 | 4.674 | 7.015 |
F | 6 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 7 | 1.125 | 1.000 | 1.125 | 4 | 1.217 | 1.400 | 1.703 | 4.045 |
G | 7 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 4 | 1.125 | 1.400 | 1.575 | 10 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 4.008 |
H | 8 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 3 | 1.125 | 1.960 | 2.205 | 9 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 4.638 |
I | 9 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 2 | 1.125 | 2.744 | 3.087 | 8 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 5.520 |
J | 10 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 1 | 1.125 | 3.842 | 4.321 | 7 | 1.217 | 1.000 | 1.217 | 6.755 |
You can see A still has the edge over B. A's 1+3 is slightly more than B's 2+2, so by A winning, this shows him to be the best overall player. E would finish 3rd. His win without another minimum finish wouldn't help him pass B.
Players get attendance points by showing up and playing, and every player in a tournament receives the same number for attendance. Some would count lower finishes as 0. That's not wrong -- just different. The only way I know of to compare all players to each other is to give something just for coming. For elite performances, I don't think it matters to determine the best overall player, but I like this better. It does reward attendance. Suppose a only shows for these 3 games, but D, with the lowest point total, only misses 3 games. He will pass A in points merely by showing up.
There are competing views on the third scenario.
View 1 -- If measuring performance over all games, D is ranked higher than A, but A performed better in the games he attended. Another way I'd rank them is by average performance, but set a minimum # of games used. I use 1/2 + 1 (9 games in your situation). This system does reward attendance, but it rewards elite performances much more heavily. A no-show is treated like a forfeit.
View 2 -- Total points is all that counts. That rewards attendance, but also rewards elite performances. A no-show is treated like a forfeit.
View 3 -- Players who finish below 4th get 0 finish points. Someone who showed to all 17 games and finished 5th gets fewer points than someone who finished 4 once, and 10th the other 16 times. Such a player is not going to stack up well against those with 9 games who have an elite performance above 4th. To me that makes no sense, but some are OK with it. Again, they aren't wrong, just different. It's simplicity is it only measures the best performances. A 5th or lower finish, or a no-show, is treated like a forfeit.
view 4 -- Some would let every player throw out some of their lowest performances. If we used 5 for example, the best 12 finishes for each player count. To me, that distorts a player's performance, but some like that. I does encourage players to come because they can't really put themselves in a worse position by showing up, and if they do better than another performance, they improve their standing.
I'm sure there are other views.
The reality is with 17 tournaments, some will attend way more than others, so it's hard to compare players who possibly never even played in the same tournament, or 2 players like A and D above. You have to decide what you are really going to count. Every system is somewhat arbitrary because everyone has a different view of what to measure and how to do it.
Other things to consider ~
- You might do something like this. 8-10 get 1 finish points; 5-7 get 1.4x that, and 4th and above get the next lower number x 1.4. That makes not finishing at the bottom more painful, and rewards survival a little more.
- You could do bottom gets 1, then each additional place gets 1.4x more. The problem with this is the winner with 10 players counts almost 4.67x as much as the winner with 5 players. I honestly don't think it should. I don't even think it should be 2x as much. If you only count the top 5 places, it is 1.217x more. I think that is better.
- Re-buys might be counted. Some don't think re-buys should count the same as the original buy-in, some do, and others don't consider them at all.
- Buy-in amount. Some think a $100 entry should count 2x as much as a $50 entry, some think it should count more but not as much as 2x, and some think it's irrelevant.
- We've used a version of what I call Olympic scoring. We measure 8 categories (4 actually, but one for overall totals and one for average performance). The first, second, and third best at each of those 8 things could be counted. You would probably vary how much each thing counted depending on how important you thought each was. Our categories were [1] total points, [2] final table finishes, [3] in the points finishes, and [4] tournament wins.
- How many player do you need to measure. Last year, we had 45 different players, but never more than 19 at one tournament. The more players you have, the more difficult the task of measuring.
- Ultimately, you need to ask, "Why am I keeping score?" Is it to give an award for the year? Is it to have a championship tournament you have to earn your way to? Is it to get a bigger chip stack in that last game? Is it a combination of earn your way and build your stack? One might employ a different scoring system for each of those.
OK -- anyone who wants to PM me with your email address, I'll send the simple spreadsheet I used for the numbers in this post.