Cool, I'm breaking this into two posts since all together it is too long.
Yes, I’m willing to share what we use! PM me your email address and I’ll send you the spreadsheet, though at the moment it’s being updated and that might take a couple of days. The only issue is my own inability to provide technical assistance on it. Here is how we are structured and why. I’m not claiming it’s the best way, but if you understand the why, it will help you focus on what you want or what would work best for your group.
Main Event vs. Table of Champions
I’m going to start with the end of the year tournament. While there might be several formats, it seems to me there are two basic structures. I’ll label them the Tournament of Champions (ToC) and the Classic (terminology stolen from Zombie). We call our classic the Main Event (ME) and I’ll use that term here.
In a ToC, you are trying to be exclusive about who comes. Some will use staggered chip stacks, awarding those who scored the most, however that is done, with larger chip stacks, though that doesn’t have to be done. If you have people who aren’t eligible for the ToC paying for it, especially if they are paying a lot for it, I think eventually you will have people dropping out.
In an ME format, you aren’t trying to be exclusive, but inclusive. Players have paid all year toward the ME in hopes they will all play. The way we have done it, the ME is only open to our members. Everyone pays exactly the same to get in, and everyone gets exactly the same chip stack.
Neither one is right or wrong of course. It’s a matter of taste and what you are trying to accomplish. But I think if you are going to try to keep interest high, the ME type format works better to do that since at no point is anyone excluded if they’ve attended a game. The minimum number of games attended could still be used, but for us it’s 1.
When I first put our league together I let people vote on which they preferred. The Main Event won by 3-2. Oddly, only 2 of our players who voted for the ToC would have qualified for it.
Interestingly, of the people who have dropped out of our group, all of those who voted in that poll voted for a ToC. I’m not sure what to make of that, but what I suspect is some people get intensely involved in poker and things like leagues and ToC’s sound good, but when they realize they aren’t near the top, they leave, burn out, or move on to something else. The ones who like the ME type format may be very competitive, but they do this for the social aspects and are more likely to stay long-term. It’s a small sample, but definitely thought provoking.
There are two sub-issues related to this topic.
Winning, Break-even, and Losing Players
I’m surprised at how many poker groups seem to focus on doing stuff for their winning players. Truthfully, a successful poker game revolves around losing players. Without them, your game would quickly shrink, and when. Based on many years of observation and record keeping, I find that consistent winning players make up between 10-35% of players. Losing players make up between 25-50% of players. The others are the break-evens, meaning slightly ahead or behind. Chase those losers and break even players out, and your game disappears.
My philosophy is to try to keep those losing and break-even players happy. If I have a loser make a suggestion, if I can accommodate it, I will. I don’t mean I’d ignore a suggestion from a winning player, because I’ll consider any suggestion made by one of my players, but winners will stay because they are winning. Losers are never going to stay because they are winning. If they stay, it will be for other reasons. A good poker group (league, game, club, or whatever) has to be able to attract losing players and replace them over time. Some winning players contribute nothing other than their presence – they don’t help make it a good event. Honestly, I’m not doing anything for those types. They are there to win and that’s it.
When I make decisions about things, I want to find way to make it attractive to losers. Some of them get quite a kick out of playing in a much bigger event, but to make that attractive, they want to feel like they have an even chance. The other thing about this is they can't afford to play at those buy-ins all the time, but once a year, they will do.
Staggered Buy-in vs. Same Buy-in
One thing I heard from several players when I started is how annoyed they were at groups where for the big event, some players paid less to get in than others. I didn’t poll players, but did talk to several and found that most players didn’t like the staggered buy-ins. They think it’s unfair and wanted everyone paying the same. They weren’t as universal on everyone starting with the same chip stack, but most preferred that as well.
I’m personally not a fan of league fees where its purpose is to provide prize money for the big event. Our club fee goes to cover expenses and if expenses are less than anticipated, the overage goes to the ME prize pool.
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My conclusion from these three issues led me to the ME format, trying to include everyone, make it even to start, and have everyone pay the same to enter it. I definitely don’t want to have people paying who don’t qualify for it as I fear they would just drop out the next time and never come back. Over time, I’ve found that when people drop out for a perceived unfairness, it’s very difficult to talk them into coming back. When they drop for other reasons, sometimes they will come back.
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Now Part II.
How We Evaluate Players
When I put this together, I tried to think of things we could actually measure without too much difficulty. It may be possible to develop a points system that will do that comprehensively, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. But I could figure out ways to distinguish between players who performed better than others in several measurable categories. From there, I tried to figure out from those categories which ones were easier to accomplish and which were the most difficult. I also considered some things other players suggested that I ultimately rejected. I won't try to cover those here.
First is Total Points (TP), calculated by multiplying their participation points by their finish points. Players are rewarded for attending by receiving 1 point (which is their “participation” point) x (# of entrants/10) = Total Points. If we have 30, all get 3 points just for attending. Points are the easiest thing to accumulate in our system, so as I’ll explain, by themselves, they count less than other criteria. I’ll get to how we are doing the top 7 finish points in a bit. This is exactly the structure Bluff Magazine uses -- # of entrants x finish points. The reason for dividing the entrants by 10 is because that duplicates the ratios Bluff Magazine uses for all but the very lowest levels. Since we started this, we’ve not had fewer than 16, which is above their lowest points.
First is Total Points (TP), calculated by multiplying their participation points by their finish points. Participation points = # of entrants/10. If we have 30, all get 3 points just for attending. Finish Points base based on where they finish. Everyone receives 1 finish point. The top 7 get more points (see below for how many more).
Points are the easiest thing to accumulate in our system, so as I’ll explain, by themselves, they count less than other criteria. This is exactly the structure Bluff Magazine uses -- # of entrants x finish points. The reason for dividing the entrants by 10 is because that duplicates the ratios Bluff Magazine uses for all but the very lowest levels.
I don’t even read Bluff Magazine, but since they evaluate thousands of players, it seems likely that they put a lot of thought into it. I have some confidence that by using their basic structure, I have a reasonable system to start. However, there are a lot of things they don’t measure that I could identify as measurable. Since we started this, we’ve not had fewer than 16, which is above their lowest points.
Here’s our finish point system for 2015. The 2014 points on are parenthesis, and behind the hyphen is the total points in a game with 30 for each position.
1[SUP]st[/SUP] = 34 (17) -- 102
2[SUP]nd[/SUP] = 21 (13) -- 63
3[SUP]rd[/SUP] = 13 (10) -- 39
4[SUP]th[/SUP] = 8 (7) -- 24
5[SUP]th[/SUP] = 5 (5) -- 15
6[SUP]th[/SUP] = 3 (3) -- 9
7[SUP]th[/SUP] = 2 (2) -- 6
8[SUP]th[/SUP] – 30[SUP]th[/SUP] = 1 -- 1
Our 2014 system was based only on payout positions. So if we only paid 5 places, the highest got 10. I realized late in the year (thanks to Zombie) that one player could cause a dramatic upward swing in points that was disproportionate to the value of adding one player. I’ve fixed that for 2015.
After rejecting what I’m going with in 2015 for 2 years, I decided after considerable study to use what is called a Fibonacci sequence (the next number is the sum of the previous 2) for finish points. I did it because it is a naturally occurring number pattern, and after running 2014 through both systems, felt it more accurately distinguished between players. The 2014 system might allow a much lesser player to stay closer to a top player, which created the possibility that one bad performance by the top guy when then lesser player gets lucky one night would allow the lesser player to end up ahead. Part of that is caused by only a 12 game season, which is actually pretty short to evaluate poker players. So while this sequence appears to have a wide disparity between top and bottom
We had one player win 3 tournaments out of the 11 he attended in 2014, and finish in the money 5 times. His performance was dominating. He finished in the top 3 of 42 players in all 10 of our criteria, and was #1 in 7 of those categories. Two other players finished in the top 3 in 6 categories; no one else was close. All three were in the money in our last game, and all 3 went in with a chance to win. His winning that game put him over the top.
Second is knockouts (KO’s). If there are 30 players, and no chop, there will be 29 KO’s in the tournament. At least in terms of numbers, KO’s are the second easiest thing to accomplish.
Some speculate that some players good at KO’s wait until those players lose a big hand and then wipe them out. That does happen. But over time, I found that this is actually a skill and some players are just better at KO’ing other players, and in some cases, a lot better. Some good players are not good at this. When two players are equal at everything else though, this is a good way to distinguish between those two players. That’s the kind of measurable I was looking for to distinguish between players, something that would tip the scales in overall performance.
Third is Final Table (FT) appearances. In most months, we have 10 at the FT and each of those players gets a point in that category. Each player gets 1 point for each FT appearance. If two players happen to get KO’d from different tables in the last hand before the bubble, then we only have 9. Neither of them gets credit for a FT appearance. That happened twice in 12 games in 2014.
Fourth is In the Points (ITP). There are 7 of the ITP positions, so they are harder to get than the previous criteria. Each of those 7 players gets 1 point in that category.
Fifth is Tournament Wins (TW). There is only 1 of those. It’s the single hardest thing to accomplish. Each player gets 1 point in this category for a TW and .5 points for a chop.
Each of those is subdivided into total and per game performance. Then each category is totaled for all players. Each player’s total is divided by the total. Those percentages, when added up, are 1 per category. We show out to 3 decimal places, so every player’s score reads like a baseball batting average.
We add all 10 scores. That might make it appear that each category is equal, but it isn’t. Since there are only a total of 12 TW, the players who got one scored .082 points as 10% of their score, whereas at least 30 players go less than that (either .041 for chops or .000). The top player in that category scored .250. Thus, the hardest things to do naturally count more since the player who does the best at those categories gets significantly more than average in those categories.
Looking at our totals and ignoring per game performance, TP = 1226.2; KO = 232; FT = 118; ITP would = 84 (but only 64 as used in 2014); and TW = 12. A player’s percentage of those totals in each category are the percentages added. That means 1 TW = 102.18 TP = 19.33 KO = 9.83 FT = 7 ITP. By this system, the most difficult things to do count the most.