Tourney Looking for advice - League Play (1 Viewer)

[karsus]

There has been a lot of interest within my playing group for us to start up a poker league. I have done some research both on the forums here and elsewhere and want to vet the proposed format out here, prior to introducing it to our players.

A couple of questions / uncertainties I have:
1. What is your experience on the length of the league? We were thinking of running it year long, and attempt to get in 2 games a month. Have you seen that cause issues? (point disparities, etc)
2. How do you keep it interesting for people that fall behind in points early in the year? Should I think about raising the potential points mid-year and maybe again towards the end to give lower ranked players a chance to 'catch-up'?
3. Maybe a way of dealing with item #2 would be to do payouts for quarterly winners and then a large payout for the overall league winner?
4. I am thinking of trying to so a championship game with the top 8-10 at the end of the year with starting stacks being reflective of your rank in the standings. What is your experience on how that works out and any suggestions on how I should structure those stacks?
5. Your thoughts on a good league management tool. I was thinking about http://www.pokerdiytournamentmanager.com/ but open to suggestions on other tools. Also, are the paid tools worth it? If so which ones?
6. Is there anything else that I am missing?

With that out of the way here is what I am thinking:

Game: Texas Holdem NL with a progressive blind structure setup to encourage a 4 hour tournament
Fee: $25 entrance, no Rebuys or Add-ons (there will be a cash game for when you get knocked out); $20 of the fee will be paid out that night, $5 goes for league payouts
Payout structure: 1 Table (60%/30%/10%); 2 tables (50%/25%/15%/10%); 3 tables (45%/25%/15%/10%/5%)
Points:
1 point for attending
1 point for hosting (want to encourage more people in the group to host, also the host has an inherent handicap as they are focusing on hosting, not just poker)
1 point bounty on the prior games winner
1 point bounty on the overall point leader

For 1 table tournaments additional points for top 3 (5 points / 3 points / 2 points); 2 tables top 5 (7 points / 5 points / 4 points / 3 points / 2 points) and 3 tables top 7 (9/7/6/5/4/3/2)

Thoughts?

 

[asian bino]

These are good questions.

Put out a poll to your players.......

 

[Newtons1st]

My league runs for the year.

I do a year end tourney where the top points people get a discount buy in to the end of year big tourney. End of year is $150 buy in. Top 4 get $120 discount, 5-8 get a $100 and so on. I hold back $5 per player per event and that pot covers the discounted buy ins. Everyone else can still play the year end event but just pay higher amounts. All hold backs are paid out in the year end event.

My points are
You will earn points based on your finish. The number of points you earn are as follows
(#of Players - Your Finish Spot) +1
Bonus Points
Final Table (10) = +5
Top Place Finished = 1st = 25, 2nd = 15, 3rd = 10, 4th = 7, 5th = 4
$100 Buy In Event = +10

As Example: In a 35 Person tourney you finish 5th.
(35-5) +1 = 31
Final Table = 5
5th = 4
Your total points = 40

 

[karsus]

My points are
You will earn points based on your finish. The number of points you earn are as follows
(#of Players - Your Finish Spot) +1
Bonus Points
Final Table (10) = +5
Top Place Finished = 1st = 25, 2nd = 15, 3rd = 10, 4th = 7, 5th = 4
$100 Buy In Event = +10

I thought about that points format as well, but I thought it might be a pain to track exact finishes when you get to more than 1 table. Has that been a fairly easy process for your group?

 

[Daddy N]

Here is what I do. A lot of people here will not like that cash games reward points but for $20 buy ins we are there for the social aspect more than making money and that is reflected in the league structure.
$5/night goes into jackpots and the final tourney. Points are added to 10k starting stacks for the Championship Tournament. It runs 2/month for 10 months.

All Games

• Early Bird Registration (48 hours before event)- 50pts
• Early buy in (15 min before game time) - 100pts
• Bring A Friend - 250pts.

Tournaments

• 150pts for each person you place ahead of in a tournament*.
• Bounty/KO - additional 100pts for each person you knock out of a tournament.

*If you are knocked out of a tournament, you may rebuy, however, your placing will not change. If you are knocked out 1st, you will receive 0pts for placing, but can still win top prize and earn 100pts per KO.

Cash Games

• Buy into a cash game - 200pts
• Cash out of a cash game- 20pts for every $1 you cash out. ($34=680pts)

Mid Season Bonuses
-Events 1-6 Award 100pts Each

• If you play all 6 get a 200pts Bonus

-Events 7-12 Award 150pts Each

• If you play all 6 get a 300pts Bonus

-Events 12-17 Award 200pts Each

• If you play all 5 get a 400pts Bonus

*Must have played in a minimum of 6 games to play in the Championship Tournament.

 

[Newtons1st]

I thought about that points format as well, but I thought it might be a pain to track exact finishes when you get to more than 1 table. Has that been a fairly easy process for your group?

No. I have been doing it for 15 years and usually have 3-4 tables. My groups knows to let me know when they go out and I write down each bust out. You can do excel and track it all

 

[timinater]

1. What is your experience on the length of the league? We were thinking of running it year long, and attempt to get in 2 games a month. Have you seen that cause issues? (point disparities, etc)

We do one game roughly every three weeks - seems to be the right frequency for our group, but YMMV.

2. How do you keep it interesting for people that fall behind in points early in the year? Should I think about raising the potential points mid-year and maybe again towards the end to give lower ranked players a chance to 'catch-up'?

We have set up the points in such a way that consistent attendance is rewarded. I also throw a few different tournaments into the mix. We'll do Omaha and a heads up tournament this season.

3. Maybe a way of dealing with item #2 would be to do payouts for quarterly winners and then a large payout for the overall league winner?

I always figure the top players are rewarded through their tournament payouts, so I'd find something else to do with this money. We like side payouts. A donkey payout (first one out gets $10 of their $50 buy in back), and 7-2. Plus there is always a $10 bounty on the last league game winner.

4. I am thinking of trying to so a championship game with the top 8-10 at the end of the year with starting stacks being reflective of your rank in the standings. What is your experience on how that works out and any suggestions on how I should structure those stacks?

It works really well to keep people interested and coming out, however you sometimes run the risk of those players that are completely out of the running will stop coming late in the season. We are currently at a games played minimum to qualify rather than top 10. It does a good job of filtering the interlopers out from the final table/championship, while rewarding attendance.

As for the stacks, I find it works best to pick number you would start the tournament with normally, say T20,000, and making that the average stack and distributing chips based on point totals. For example:

If the average point total of qualified players is 50, the point multiplier would be established at 1 point = 400 chips. If you finished the season with 37 points, you would receive 14,800 chips to start the final table. The multiplier will be finalized at the end of the eight preliminary tournaments.

5. Your thoughts on a good league management tool. I was thinking about http://www.pokerdiytournamentmanager.com/ but open to suggestions on other tools. Also, are the paid tools worth it? If so which ones?

I couldn't find something I liked with what I wanted to do built in, so I made my own on Google Sheets. (explanation in the thread linked below)

6. Is there anything else that I am missing?

You've got a good start here. My crew loves the side payouts, especially 7-2 (first to drag a pot). If it's not claimed it builds. Lots of fun.

I might encourage you to switch your tournament format to single re-entry, depending on your group of players. Sometimes it's nice to be able to re-enter if you go busto early.

There is lots more information here in the thread I've got going to blog my poker league:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/tales-from-sunday-night-poker.35689/#post-655417

 

[bsdunbar1]

Different things work for different groups. I will at least give you feedback on how I run some of these items in my league.
It has been morphed over the years utilizing info in threads just like this.


1. What is your experience on the length of the league? My league runs weekly, 15 to 20 week seasons. We drop each players lowest 3 scores.

2. How do you keep it interesting for people that fall behind in points early in the year? We run a season end freeroll for top 8 players. The top 7 are automatically in the freeroll. Positions 8-15 play a "play-in" game at the end of the season for spot #8 in the freeroll. Adding the play-in game has been the biggest improvement for keeping late season interest. We have roughly 20 players per season with 15-16 of them regulars weekly so everyone has something to play for. The last week of the season position #15 is still playing to increase his chip count for the play-in game.

4. I am thinking of trying to so a championship game with the top 8-10 at the end of the year with starting stacks being reflective of your rank in the standings. We use Dr Neau's points system for our league scoring. We award freeroll chip stacks based on 400 chips per point + 1000 per win + 100 per kill. ALL positions earn a post season chip stack. Those making the play-in game have the same chip formula, so everyone every week has something to play for.

5. Your thoughts on a good league management tool. I think some guys like @CraigT78 have said Tournament Director manages everything he needs for his league. I haven't found a solution outside of Excel to manage all our exceptions an special quirks.

Fee: $25 entrance, no Rebuys or Add-ons (there will be a cash game for when you get knocked out); $20 of the fee will be paid out that night, $5 goes for league payouts. Our weekly buy-in is also $25 with $5 going to the season end freeroll. We also allow each player 1 re-buy with the same $25/$5 split. We have a $10 add-on at the first break and all $10 of that $ goes towards the freeroll. This has been a source for a big increase to our freeroll. We only allow 1 rebuy or 1 add-on per player, not both.

 

[wonderpuddle]

@WhiteMamba1646

 

[CraigT78]

1. What is your experience on the length of the league? My league runs monthly - 12 games plus a tournament of champions - 1 game is a 4 table deep-stack.

2. How do you keep it interesting for people that fall behind in points early in the year? I have not found this a problem that needed a solution. I can only seat 20 - and I have a waitlist every month. I manage three groups of players - my legacy list who are players who have played regularly since 2015, the 2nd group is my 2017-2018 players, and the final group is my 2019 players. I am usually full by the time the third email group gets the invite.

4. I am thinking of trying to so a championship game with the top 8-10 at the end of the year with starting stacks being reflective of your rank in the standings. We also use Dr Neau's points system for our league scoring. I award freeroll chip stacks based on the criteria below - top 10 qualify with a 5 game minimum:

Chips will be awarded in the following format

a. The player with the lowest number of games attended will set the baseline ​

b. All scores below baseline will be thrown out and the new scores will be calculated ​

c. Starting Stack will be issued at 1k chips per point, rounded up to the next whole number ​

d. Bonus chips will be awarded as outlined ​

i. 1000 chips for each win ​

ii. 500 chips for each bounty earned ​

iii. 500 chips for each event appearance​

5. Your thoughts on a good league management tool. I LOVE Tournament Director - there's a learning curve to it - but it is all in one for me. The only manual calculations I need to do is adjust the bonus chip stacks for the ToC. Seriously - the BEST poker investment I have made.

6. Fee: $80- $20 goes to the house for food and beverage, $50 to the prize pool and $10 to bounty. I hold back $150 each game for the ToC free-roll and POY payout. The top finisher this year gets $600 and the rest (minus the cost of trophy and ToC gift) goes into the prize-pool.

I offer unlimited re-buy ($60) until the first break (average 7) and then a $20 add-on at the break (average 19)

Special events - Deep-stack and Circus tourney are $120 to enter and covers catered dinner (4 table, 8 hour events)

7. Is there anything else that I am missing? A hotdog roller - seriously

 

[Moxie Mike]

1. What is your experience on the length of the league? We were thinking of running it year long, and attempt to get in 2 games a month. Have you seen that cause issues? (point disparities, etc)
2. How do you keep it interesting for people that fall behind in points early in the year? Should I think about raising the potential points mid-year and maybe again towards the end to give lower ranked players a chance to 'catch-up'?
3. Maybe a way of dealing with item #2 would be to do payouts for quarterly winners and then a large payout for the overall league winner?
4. I am thinking of trying to so a championship game with the top 8-10 at the end of the year with starting stacks being reflective of your rank in the standings. What is your experience on how that works out and any suggestions on how I should structure those stacks?
5. Your thoughts on a good league management tool. I was thinking about http://www.pokerdiytournamentmanager.com/ but open to suggestions on other tools. Also, are the paid tools worth it? If so which ones?
6. Is there anything else that I am missing?

First off, I run a league with an evolved set of rules. If you (or anyone else) want to see how we do things, send me a PM. One thing though, feel free to modify it to your own purposes but I DON'T want this shared publicly or linked anywhere. Thanks for understanding.

To answer your questions:

1) We run a 12 week league 3 times a year with bi-weekly games culminating in a championship event. A player must play in 3 regular season events or have won 2 of them to qualify for the C.E.

2) Since there are only 6 regular season events, this isn't an issue. People that don't make it to any of the first 4 events usually just try to join us the following season. This also makes it easier for people who are busier during certain times of the year... they can miss a season of league without being left out for a year.

3) If you're going to have mid-season prizes you might as well break your league into shorter seasons and start fresh each time.

4) We award points for where a player finishes a given tournament, and for the number of knockouts they earn during the tournament. Those points = additional starting chips in the C.E.

5) I just use excel. I keep track of knockouts and placement on paper as the game progresses, then I update the spreadsheet the next day. We use The Tournament Director software to run the game.

6) Probably a lot - get feedback from your core players since they're the ones driving the game. Realize that you can't please everyone but keeping the people who faithfully show up every week happy is very important.

 

[Mr Winberg]

Haven't read that many posts (the colors are nice though!), I just joined to give my 2 cents that if I ever hosted a league I would not give more points to someone who finishes 13th than 16th, for example. The performance is the same in my opinion. Also, if one table is faster, then you can finish 13th and have been dealt less hands than the 14th place finisher. Have you really lasted longer then?

The extreme of taking this line is only giving points ITM, but that's a bit harsh. Somewhere around final table - 1 is probably where I would be giving more than just participation points.

However, you should probably take advice from those who have actually hosted leagues instead of me.

 

[karsus]

I always figure the top players are rewarded through their tournament payouts, so I'd find something else to do with this money. We like side payouts. A donkey payout (first one out gets $10 of their $50 buy in back), and 7-2. Plus there is always a $10 bounty on the last league game winner.

It works really well to keep people interested and coming out, however you sometimes run the risk of those players that are completely out of the running will stop coming late in the season. We are currently at a games played minimum to qualify rather than top 10. It does a good job of filtering the interlopers out from the final table/championship, while rewarding attendance.

As for the stacks, I find it works best to pick number you would start the tournament with normally, say T20,000, and making that the average stack and distributing chips based on point totals. For example:

If the average point total of qualified players is 50, the point multiplier would be established at 1 point = 400 chips. If you finished the season with 37 points, you would receive 14,800 chips to start the final table. The multiplier will be finalized at the end of the eight preliminary tournaments.


I couldn't find something I liked with what I wanted to do built in, so I made my own on Google Sheets. (explanation in the thread linked below)

You've got a good start here. My crew loves the side payouts, especially 7-2 (first to drag a pot). If it's not claimed it builds. Lots of fun.

I might encourage you to switch your tournament format to single re-entry, depending on your group of players. Sometimes it's nice to be able to re-enter if you go busto early.

There is lots more information here in the thread I've got going to blog my poker league:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/tales-from-sunday-night-poker.35689/#post-655417

Thank you for the information. I like the idea of the side payouts, its a great way to reward more than just the best players (they are already getting rewarded with cash). The method of using points to regulate the chip totals seems sounds and easy to understand as well.

The reason why we decided on doing no-rebuy was to reduce the amount of people just waiting around after they bust out. By limiting you to the chips you start with, it is more likely that you will get 3-4 people out relatively close to each other allowing for a cash game to start up. If we allow re-buys, then the only thing that will realistically take place that night is the tournament. Also, limiting rebuys makes the points easier to work out and doesn't reward people with large bankrolls.

I'll check out the link and the blog

 

[karsus]

2. How do you keep it interesting for people that fall behind in points early in the year? We run a season end freeroll for top 8 players. The top 7 are automatically in the freeroll. Positions 8-15 play a "play-in" game at the end of the season for spot #8 in the freeroll. Adding the play-in game has been the biggest improvement for keeping late season interest. We have roughly 20 players per season with 15-16 of them regulars weekly so everyone has something to play for. The last week of the season position #15 is still playing to increase his chip count for the play-in game.

4. I am thinking of trying to so a championship game with the top 8-10 at the end of the year with starting stacks being reflective of your rank in the standings. We use Dr Neau's points system for our league scoring. We award freeroll chip stacks based on 400 chips per point + 1000 per win + 100 per kill. ALL positions earn a post season chip stack. Those making the play-in game have the same chip formula, so everyone every week has something to play for.

I really like the idea of a 'playoff' night for those that missed the guarantee to the final table. I might adjust it a bit to only put the top 6 in automatically and then have a playoff game also using point totals for their initial stack.

In that case everyone has a reason to play as often as possible

 

[karsus]

Chips will be awarded in the following format

a. The player with the lowest number of games attended will set the baseline ​

b. All scores below baseline will be thrown out and the new scores will be calculated ​

c. Starting Stack will be issued at 1k chips per point, rounded up to the next whole number ​

d. Bonus chips will be awarded as outlined ​

i. 1000 chips for each win ​

ii. 500 chips for each bounty earned ​

iii. 500 chips for each event appearance​

5. Your thoughts on a good league management tool. I LOVE Tournament Director - there's a learning curve to it - but it is all in one for me. The only manual calculations I need to do is adjust the bonus chip stacks for the ToC. Seriously - the BEST poker investment I have made.

I'll check out Tournament Director. Ideally, I would like something that can both manage the tournament itself, but also notify the players (ideally via email) of the next tournament and allow signup. Currently we use facebook for that, however; there are a number of our regulars that are not on that platform.

I see a common theme with offering a bounty for each person you knock out. In your experience does that end up encouraging more aggressive play? What behavior are you trying to encourage with that system.

I initially just thought of putting bounties on the point leader and last tournaments winner as a way to put additionally pressure on the likely more skilled players. Not sure the impact on putting out bounties across the board.

7. Is there anything else that I am missing? A hotdog roller - seriously

I usually cook something a bit larger than a hotdog for my players.. Not sure if it would fit on a roller

 

[karsus]

Haven't read that many posts (the colors are nice though!), I just joined to give my 2 cents that if I ever hosted a league I would not give more points to someone who finishes 13th than 16th, for example. The performance is the same in my opinion. Also, if one table is faster, then you can finish 13th and have been dealt less hands than the 14th place finisher. Have you really lasted longer then?

The extreme of taking this line is only giving points ITM, but that's a bit harsh. Somewhere around final table - 1 is probably where I would be giving more than just participation points.

However, you should probably take advice from those who have actually hosted leagues instead of me.

I had the same concern, which is why I initially wanted to restrict points to only the finishers at the last table. I am okay with going a bit wider than just those ITM, but not convinced yet that I am okay expanding beyond the last table. In either case, I think we will usually be only running 2 tables anyways (moving to a third table is a bit aspirational at this point)