I personally like/use:
- 100% (2-4 players // Field payout percentage: 50%-25%)
- 65% / 35% (5-9 players // Field payout percentage: 40%-22%)
- 50% / 30% / 20% (10-16 players // Field payout percentage: 30%-19%)
- 40% / 25% / 20% / 15% (17-24 players // Field payout percentage: 24%-17%)
- 37.5% / 25% / 17.5% / 12.5% / 7.5% (25-33 players // Field payout percentage: 20%-15%)
This is a similar concept to what we use for up to 30 players, except our awarded percentages are based on ratios, and we pay 25% on field sizes of 2-17 players, and 20% on field sizes of 18-30 players (rounded up).
I am a big proponent of the 12-player baseline 60/30/10 concept, where every pay step gets larger proportionally: 3rd gets 10% more than 4th, 2nd gets 20% more than 3rd, and 1st gets 30% more than 2nd). Two paid places would be 70/30 (2nd gets 30% more than 3rd, 1st gets 40% more than 2nd). It can also be extended to apply to larger fields that pay more places.
BM's #3 and #4 payouts above are perfect examples of how NOT to do it, imo:
re: #3 (50/30/20) -- it has never made sense to me to award 3rd place 20% more than 4th, yet only award 2nd place 10% more than 3rd -- and then award 1st 20% more than 2nd. My view is that 60/30/10 is a much better structure, for the reasons stated above.
Similarly, re: #4 (40/25/20/15) -- 4th gets 15% more than 5th, but 3rd only gets 5% more than 4th, same with 2nd only getting 5% more than 3rd, then 1st gets 15% more than 2nd -- makes no sense to reward 4th and penalize 3rd and 2nd. A better and more balanced structure is 50/30/15/5, where the pay jumps are 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%.
Using ratios (up to 21:15:10:6:3:1) to determine payouts, paid to the top 20-25% of the field size (rounded up):
field - paid - ratio - percentages paid
2-5, 1, -
100%
6-9, 2, (3:1),
75%/25%
10-13, 3, (6:3:1),
60%/30%/10%
14-22, 4, (10:6:3:1),
50%/30%/15%/5%
23-27, 5, (15:10:6:3:1),
43%/28.5%/17%/8.5%/3%
28-30, 6, (21:15:10:6:3:1),
37.5%/26.5%/18%/10.5%/5.5%/2%
Percentages are applied to the available prize pool, rounded to the nearest $5.