Tourney Poker (Tournament) League Startup (1 Viewer)

Mick

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Hey guys! New here, and this is my first post. I'll be using this thread to pick your brains about things league related.

We're thinking about starting a weekly poker league, and I'm looking into what we need for chips. I think we'll cap the league at 40 players to start, 10 players to a table. Starting stacks are going to be 1000, and we'll start with a 5/5 blind. Here's the chip breakdown I think we'll need:

Starting stack per player: 10 red(t5), 10 green(t25), 7 black(t100)= t1000.
x40 players= 400 red, 400 green, 280 black.

Per player for chipups I've allowed for 3 black, and 2 yellow(t1000)
x40 players= 120 black, 80 yellow.

Total minimum: 400 red, 400 green, 400 black, and 100 yellow. Maybe get 100 t10000 chips to round it out.

How does this breakdown look?
 
A couple of other things, I was too slow to edit OP:

Does anyone know the best places for Canadians to order chips? Leaning toward Milanos, but not married to them. Sluggo chips are out of the question, I'd prefer china-clay to ceramic, but if there's some great ceramic deal I'd be open.

Are there any other threads here about starting a league that I could peruse? Links would be appreciated.
 
A couple of other things, I was too slow to edit OP:

Does anyone know the best places for Canadians to order chips? Leaning toward Milanos, but not married to them. Sluggo chips are out of the question, I'd prefer china-clay to ceramic, but if there's some great ceramic deal I'd be open.

Are there any other threads here about starting a league that I could peruse? Links would be appreciated.
Hey there man!

Welcome to the fold!

If you are dead set on CCs or Milanos, give Straight Poker Supplies a look. They got a great website and fast shipping. I think they have a few different styles of chips.

They also have decent selection of playing cards and other poker related swag you might need. They even make custom tables, but if you are an Edmontonian, then @T_Chan is the man for ya !
 
Hey there man!

Welcome to the fold!

If you are dead set on CCs or Milanos, give Straight Poker Supplies a look. They got a great website and fast shipping. I think they have a few different styles of chips.

They also have decent selection of playing cards and other poker related swag you might need. They even make custom tables, but if you are an Edmontonian, then @T_Chan is the man for ya !
Thanks! I've been lurking for awhile, so have come across T_Chan's work a lot here. I'll definitely be looking to him for some custom cloth if this league takes off. As it is the league's going to cost me thousands before we ever deal a hand, so I'm trying to keep costs to a minimum (without skimping on quality too much). I'm a carpenter, so building my own tables won't be a hardship. I've built several already over the years. I think I'm going to make Barrington inspired folding tables for this venture.
 
Might be worth considering some extra for rebuys! But overall I think it’s a solid start! Good luck!!
 
How is the league structured? What’s the purpose of having a league? What points will be awarded? What value do points have? The biggest factor for a league is how do you incentivize continuous play, why should someone who’s “out of the running” continue to play.

Commitment is difficult for many people. Once a week is a very lofty pursuit. Our league went from 15 tournaments from September to April to 10 tournaments due to everyone getting older and starting families.

Good luck and we all look forward to hearing what you have planned.
 
Hey guys! New here, and this is my first post. I'll be using this thread to pick your brains about things league related.

We're thinking about starting a weekly poker league, and I'm looking into what we need for chips. I think we'll cap the league at 40 players to start, 10 players to a table. Starting stacks are going to be 1000, and we'll start with a 5/5 blind. Here's the chip breakdown I think we'll need:

Starting stack per player: 10 red(t5), 10 green(t25), 7 black(t100)= t1000.
x40 players= 400 red, 400 green, 280 black.

Per player for chipups I've allowed for 3 black, and 2 yellow(t1000)
x40 players= 120 black, 80 yellow.

Total minimum: 400 red, 400 green, 400 black, and 100 yellow. Maybe get 100 t10000 chips to round it out.

How does this breakdown look?
Welcome!!

No 500's?

I recommend the new trend of using the 100 base.
 
Also, there will probably be a discussion on various points systems in this thread. Since all points systems add artificial value, my best advice is to construct the system so it encourages the play you want. I wrote about it here:
My 2 cents:

I agree with all those that have said that the point system should encourage what you want from your players. If I ever started a league, I would for that reason reward participation, because that's what I want from my players. I could still use BG's approach, just that everyone who participates gets 1 point, then the top finishers get bonuses. (If every tourney was maxed out and there was always a waiting list, then I might drop the participation points!)

I also think that in, for example, a 20 player tournament you shouldn't get more points for finishing 16th than 17th, cause there really isn't any difference. Heck, the one finishing 17th might be on another table and actually lasted longer (in terms of played hands) then the one finishing 16th! I'd probably have small point jumps at table breaks instead, if I wanted to differentiate between early and middle finishes.

My real point is that any point system that is used will add an artificial reward, so make sure you reward what you want to encourage. If you give a good chunk of points to consistent players who regularly make deep runs but rarely cash (and then usually min cash), then your model means that they are better players than those who often bust early but occasionally win, even though the latter make more money.

tl;dr: Points are fun but add artificial rewards. Make sure to reward that which you encourage.

And voila, behind that quote there's a thread with a lot of different views! :)
 
How is the league structured? What’s the purpose of having a league? What points will be awarded? What value do points have? The biggest factor for a league is how do you incentivize continuous play, why should someone who’s “out of the running” continue to play.

Commitment is difficult for many people. Once a week is a very lofty pursuit. Our league went from 15 tournaments from September to April to 10 tournaments due to everyone getting older and starting families.

Good luck and we all look forward to hearing what you have planned.
Very loosely (early planning) the structure would be something like this:

$20 one time reg fee for the year. This would go towards league equipment, tables, chips, etc. It will probably take a few years for my initial outlay to be paid back, but once it is members can decide what to spend additional funds on. All dues collected and expenses will be 100% transparent, and available for review at any time.

First 40 paid entries get to play on any given week. Miss out on your seat, you can still come out for microstakes cash games as tables open. Must have played at least 50% of tournaments since you registered to be eligible for cash games.

$20 entry for league night. $10 to go towards tonight's tournament payout, $10 towards the year end tournament payout.

Your year end starting stack is:

base 500 chips 5/5 starting blind structure
+100 chips per league night played
+100 chips per 3rd place finish
+200 chips per 2nd place finish
+300 chips per 1st place finish
+100 chips per new member recruited
Stack x 1.5 if you've played at least 75% of league nights
Stack x 2 if you've played 100% of league nights

Both the nightly tournaments, and the final tournament, will probably pay out 25% of the field.

This is all very early planning, and it's loosely based on a league we played years ago. There is a core group of 3 of us planning this, and we'll have to hash out the final form, but we host a monthly cash game that has about 12 players that would be regulars in this style of league, and I doubt I'd have a hard time drumming up enough players to fill the rest of the spots. There's a lot of players that would come out for a competitive poker experience on a microstakes budget.
 
We make final tournament for our league participation based and not performance. The more you attend the more chips you’ll start with.

Leagues are difficult and sound “easy” but quickly you’ll learn losing players don’t want to continually contribute and get nothing for it.

Here’s my league https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/the-league-of-extraordinary-degenerates-season-10.93342/ I’m going to be giving updates on the league every few weeks this year.
 
Mick, I've been playing and hosting a long time. Here are some "rules" for determining how many chips you really need. Hint -- It's probably way more than you are initially thinking. There are spreadsheets on this site that can help determine the number of chips, but you need to base it on the smallest chip value you will use and the largest stack, including re-buys, add-ons, and bonus chips (lots of ways to determine that) in the biggest game. I don't think you said how many games. Your formula for stack sizes for your final game is where to start. Think in terms of Big Blinds (BB). For your info, the sets I'm talking about below are T25 base, but I have chip sets that could start with T100. You can do T5, but honestly, I'd at least go to T25.

My T25 sets have some T100,000 chips, and they get used. Especially when you get near the end, higher value chips on the table make things faster. For example:
  • The other night we had 10 players with 40,000 to start.
  • Our games are designed to last about 4 hours (playing time).
  • Our starting stacks are 12/12/5/11/5 (T25, T100, T500, T1000, and T5000, with T25000 and T100000 in reserve).
  • We use the round up method of coloring up (every player rounded up to the new lowest value chips remaining.
  • 400,000 starting chips in tournament.
  • We had 113xT1000s on the table when it got down to about 4 players.
  • We only rounded up at color ups a total of T3000.
  • Round up method typically adds 2% or less in value to the tournament. (Yes, I track the percentage it adds.)
  • I had everyone color up if they had more than 15 of any value. It got down to around 40xT1000s.
  • We used 1xT100000 and 10xT25000. A lot of people would not have chips higher than T5000 in such a situation. That's 70xT5000s that really aren't needed and only slow down play. The 11 higher value chips are easy to count and very fast to play with.
  • That makes for much faster play with than large stacks of smaller chips. My players are used to that.
  • While we started with 5/5 at 2 tables, and tabled up when the first guy went out, I do an unscheduled color up when we go to final table.
  • I shoot for trying to have no more than an average of 10 chips per player of any value. As players are KO'd, the average number of chips per player rises, so coloring up does continue.
Rules I use:
  1. You may use different amounts for different games. I’ve used, with a base of T25, 10,000 starting to 250,000 starting stacks and several amounts in between.
  2. I have sets designed for 3 tables x 10 players, but could be stretched to 45 players. I normally use 12x25 and 12x100 for starters. I found 12 each works better than 8 as it involves less change making. However, 16 per player was not as good as 12 as it curiously involved more change making as players over-used the smaller chips. I added some additional 100s for the times when I might start with a base of 100. When going to 40 players, I use 8x25 and 8x100. That easily fits within the 30x12 model, but requires adjustments in higher chips.
  3. For comparison, our 40,000 starting breakdown is 12/12/5/11/5. The T25s come off the table after 3 or 4 rounds. I could just as easily do 12/12/3/12/5. That would save 30 chips and make the T500 more rarely used. I personally prefer 5 of them, but 3 works fine -- we’ve used it several times.
  4. Additional higher value chips add flexibility to your sets. If you can’t later get more chips when you see the need to change, it is way more expensive to buy a new set of chips than to buy extras the first time. I have found, especially with China Clays, that what is available today might not be when you decide to expand your set. Therefore, build for flexibility!
  5. For color-up chips, I use mostly 1,000s for coloring up 25s. We use the round up method. I have 3 or 4 T100s per table and 1 or 2 T500s for players who can’t give me 1,000 in chips easily. I just found that was faster than having them swap with each other, but I know some don’t like that.
  6. The aggressiveness of your blind structures and the length you want the tournament to last will affect the number of chips you need. In fact, to help determine chips, we need to know those two things along with the number of players.
  7. How many rebuys you offer will affect how many chips you need. With rebuys, use higher value chips (T5,000s minimum) and let them buy change from other players. I personally would count on twice as many rebuys as you are expecting. Some nights are just weird and you get more than expected, and other nights fewer. Going by the average is like building a bridge ships must pass under, then measuring the height of the next 100 ships, and then setting the bridge high enough to handle 90% of the ships. I've seen plenty of chip sets where that was the thinking and the purchaser didn't realize it.
  8. If you start with 25,000 or more, about every 3rd or 4th rebuy you could just give them a T25,000, but that’s hard to change without extra T5,000s on the table.
  9. Don’t overlook a small number of T100,000s. They can add great flexibility when you have a special game with either very large stacks or start with a higher base.
  10. Always buy a few extras of each chip. Some places will be giving you the precise order, and others will give you a few extras. There is nothing more frustrating when you’ve purchased a precise number of chips and then losing a chip, whether it disappears or is damaged beyond repair. I always buy 5 extras minimum, and would buy at least 1 extra per table (not based on players but on tables).
  11. Some like only 3-4 starting chip values. We start with 5, and sometimes 6. With denominated chips designed to not have any too similar to each other, that is not a problem, unless your tables are too small.
  12. Here is a 1600 chip breakdown that includes 5 extras, designed for 30, but could easily work for 40 players for starting stacks of 125,000 with 24 rebuys: 365xT25; 365xT100; 125xT500; 365xT1,000; 210xT5,000; 135xT25,000; 35xT100,000. I’m not saying this is what you should do -- just showing you how I would do it if I were planning for 40. For this breakdown, I never counted on 40 players starting with a base of T100, but always starting with T25. You would need some additional chips, about 40 more T100s, to accommodate that.
Our Main Event (I don't have a league any more, but we always used an open Main Event instead of a final table-type game) this year started with T25, but players started with T250,000 with 1 re-buy. It was designed to last 6 hours using 20 min blinds. What that means is it was designed to end between 5:20 and 6:20. Our average blind increase is 58%, so fairly aggressive, but consistent. I overshot the starting stacks a bit. Game lasted 6:21 with 16 players. That's only 1 minute over, but I still think we started with too many chips. It's very deep stacked, and a fund event to play in. Players had the option when the re-buy period ended of turning in their stack for a fresh stack. We finished with T4,750,000 chips on the table but only 24BB when it got down to 2 players.

My point is bigger value chips make your set flexible. Whatever your base, plan on getting 2 values higher than you think you will need most nights. Your game will change. My players preferred larger increases with bigger starting stacks. Some complained about less aggressive increases, even though I could design for a set length and average very close to that (within a few minutes). I figured out they were attracted to bigger chip stacks.

Anyway, hope something here helps. I've bought chip sets I practically gave away because they didn't fit what my group turned into. I learned the hard way flexibility matters. The problem with some of those sets was that I never thought my game was change. Hint: The WSOP Main Event for many years started with T10,000, but that's changed. Your game will change too.
 
Miss out on your seat, you can still come out for microstakes cash games as tables open. Must have played at least 50% of tournaments since you registered to be eligible for cash games.
I'm curious about this, what's the purpose of this limitation? Do the cash games have any other impact on the league or is it just to prevent randos from showing up?
 
or is it just to prevent randos from showing up?
Basically this. Just to prevent people from showing up to one tournament just to get access to the cash games. Also, it's an incentive to get out and play the tournament when you just want to stay at home and sit on the couch. "Ah, I better go. Don't want to lose my cash status."

That was my thinking anyway. Maybe 50% is too restrictive, 30% might be better.
 

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