Tourney Trying a ToC this season (1 Viewer)

[Mr Winberg]

I've been eager to try some kind of league with my crew, but I've been concerned that some of the casuals would be put off by it, that it would seem "too serious" for some. I've also been concerned that someone who has missed a few tourneys will feel that they're too far behind in points to bother showing up.

Also, I'm not really sure how I feel about awarding points for something that "poker-wise" actually isn't worth anything. Is 5th better than 6th if both pay 0? That's a philosophical question for another thread, but one that I'm on the fence about. So I'll do a slow start and evaluate to see if my players (and I) in the future would be up for some sort of league.

I want to achieve the following:

• I want to crown a season champion
• Each tournament shall be a stand-alone tournament.
• Nobody but those qualifying for the ToC skall be affected in any way, e.g. no added strategy on climbing the points ladder while still OTM (which you wouldn't see in a non-league tourney), and nobody other than the winners shall contribute to the ToC price pool.

I've done some thinking and what I landed on is this:

• Only winners of tournaments qualify. I think there will be around 6-7 tournaments this season.
• 10% of each tournament's price pool will go to the ToC, but it will be only deducted from the 1st place money. For example, yesterday was the first tourney of the season with 18 players where 4 won 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% respectively (when having bounties I prefer a flat payout). This meant that yesterday's winner got the same payout as the second place finisher (30%), with the additional 10% credited to his buy-in for the ToC
• Since each winner's ToC buy-in is directly proportionell to the number of players, I will not treat the ToC as a stand-alone tournament. It will be treated more like a final table. Yesterday's winner will get 18000 as the ToC starting stack. If the next tourney has 24 players, that winner will get 24000. If the same player wins again, he'll have accumulated 42000. I know there's some debate about an approach like this, but it doesn't seem fare to grant each winner the same stack, especially when each winner will have paid different buy-ins.
• On the night if the ToC, those not qualified will invited to play cash.

When I informed everyone yesterday the reactions where good, people seemed excited! I'm not really sure what I want out of this thread, but thought I'd share anyway. Please let me know if you foresee any pitfalls!

 

[merkong]

Depending on the size of your group could the ToC be a shorter table if there are players that win more than one qualifier and isn’t it a short table out of the gate with only 6 or 7 qualifiers?

 

[merkong]

Depending on the size of your group could the ToC be a shorter table if there are players that win more than one qualifier and isn’t it a short table out of the gate with only 6 or 7 qualifiers?

I mean I’d at least do as many qualifiers as seats you’d table at the Championship and have a back up plan to fill the empty seats if you have players that win more than one qualifier.

 

[Mr Winberg]

Depending on the size of your group could the ToC be a shorter table if there are players that win more than one qualifier and isn’t it a short table out of the gate with only 6 or 7 qualifiers?

I mean I’d at least do as many qualifiers as seats you’d table at the Championship and have a back up plan to fill the empty seats if you have players that win more than one qualifier.

Correct, it's more of a final table than a tournament. But I didn't feel great about "FoC", so ToC it is

 

[merkong]

Since you’re weighting ToC stacks I’d shoot for as full of a table as possible letting non-qualifying players come in quite short.

Sort of like winning a wild card berth into the playoffs or a play-in game.

 

[Mr Winberg]

Since you’re weighting ToC stacks I’d shoot for as full of a table as possible letting non-qualifying players come in quite short.

Sort of like winning a wild card berth into the playoffs or a play-in game.

One problem I see with that is that wouldn't know beforehand if I should withhold price money for the ToC. If going that route, I feel I'd have to grant all 2nd place finishers a spot, for example withholding 5% from the price pool for their buy-in. That way they'd have half the starting stack compared to that tournament's winner.

But I like the idea of the ToC being for champions.

 

[DeadheadDave]

I had a league about 20 years ago, here is how I ran it:

Each season, to join the league, one would have to pay $10. During the season, we would have 10 tournaments, approx. 3 weeks apart. Each buy in was $20. $2 was "raked" and placed into the pot with the $10 membership fees.

ALL 10 of the tournaments start with same stack, same buy in, same blinds. Each person is given "points" at each tournament. If there was 18 players, last place gets 1 point, winner gets 18 points... the in between people get in between. At the end of the season, he with the most points (once... it was a she!), gets their name on a perpetual trophy that me and my C*** ex wife built.

At the end of the season, after the 10 events were played, we would have a $50 buy in deep stack, with all of the added membership fees ($10 up front, and all those $2's through the season). I also got a small trophy for the winner of that event. We called this last, final, tournament the "Big F'ing Pot Tournament" Having the larger buy in and several hundred "added" dollars made for an exciting night. The deep stack was the only "unfair" part of it... to me, at least, a deep stack tourney will almost always favor the more skilled players.

I don't think I am missing anything.

EDIT: Why did I do this? Because before that everyone thought they were the best... and as a full season progresses the cream rises to the top. Its why hockey doesn't have a 5 game season and go right to the playoffs. The grind... its about the grind. Some of our "best" players never got their names on that trophy. Mine is on there 3 times.

 

[Mr Winberg]

Hmm... I think I might have dated you ex wife. At least your description fits her.

 

[DeadheadDave]

Hmm... I think I might have dated you ex wife. At least your description fits her.

My ex is the reason the alphabet goes past the letter “B”

 

[Mr Winberg]

Just some thoughts on this:

Each person is given "points" at each tournament. If there was 18 players, last place gets 1 point, winner gets 18 points... the in between people get in between.

• So if there are 18 players and someone is eliminated in 10th place twice, that is then worth the same as a single 1st place finish? Or in another example: Winning the first tourney and being eliminated in 18th the second tourney is the same achievement as finishing 10th and then 9th?
• If player A and B are eliminated before the final table, where player A has survived more played hands than player B has, and therefore has shown a better performance, but player B survived for a longer time than A due to a slower table, then B gets more points?

 

[DeadheadDave]

Just some thoughts on this:

• So if there are 18 players and someone is eliminated in 10th place twice, that is then worth the same as a single 1st place finish? Or in another example: Winning the first tourney and being eliminated in 18th the second tourney is the same achievement as finishing 10th and then 9th?
• If player A and B are eliminated before the final table, where player A has survived more played hands than player B has, and therefore has shown a better performance, but player B survived for a longer time than A due to a slower table, then B gets more points?

Your first bullet did nothing but confuse me. Sorry. Its early.

The second one, we don't count hands. It is survival that is counted. If A busts out before B, B gets more points.

 

[Mr Winberg]

Your first bullet did nothing but confuse me. Sorry. Its early.

I meant that if someone is the first to be eliminated in the first tourney but wins the second (a feat which means they have netted a nice income after those two tournaments) seems to be rewarded the same amount of points as someone who is eliminated in the middle of the pack in both tournaments (which means they have netted a loss of two buy-ins). I was just curious if this was intentional?

The second one, we don't count hands. It is survival that is counted. If A busts out before B, B gets more points.

No, I didn't expect that. But I think this shows a caveat with awarding points strictly based on elimination order when there is more than 1 table. But on the other hand, it probably adds to the excitement?

 

[DeadheadDave]

I meant that if someone is the first to be eliminated in the first tourney but wins the second (a feat which means they have netted a nice income after those two tournaments) seems to be rewarded the same amount of points as someone who is eliminated in the middle of the pack in both tournaments (which means they have netted a loss of two buy-ins). I was just curious if this was intentional?


No, I didn't expect that. But I think this shows a caveat with awarding points strictly based on elimination order when there is more than 1 table. But on the other hand, it probably adds to the excitement?

None of our players ever complained about the scoring. The cream (our better players) always rose to the top when the season was looked at in total. Also, several times it was won by someone who never won a tournament, but was a consistently good player. That was actually our goal, to determine consistency.

 

[Mr Winberg]

Yes, I'm not questioning it, I was just curious. The most important part is that the players like it and come back. It sounds like you've succeded at that!

An interesting thing with that system is that every jump matters. Without points, it's really only the ITM jumps that matter. Especially from second to first, which usually is the biggest pay jump. With your system the jump from 18th to 17th is just as big (point-wise) as the jump from 2nd to 1st. So I suspect this adds to the suspense and excitement of knock-outs, even at the early stages. In your experience, was this the case?

Regarding cream rising: What if I bubble each tournament, finishing fifth each time. That's 14 points per tournament, and 140 points after 10. This is far above the expected value (which would be 9.5 per tourney) so I may very well have won the season, even though I "poker-wise" have performed as poorly as I possible could, with a net loss of 10 buy-ins. Someone with a lot of early eliminations but with a single min-cash has actually outperformed me "poker-wise", but will lose to me on points!
So I guess my point is: Since I could do really well on points while still being the biggest money loser, has the cream then really risen?

All systems have their pros and cons, and all system add an artificial value which isn't there in a stand-alone tournament. (Well, except if you have the points equal the price money, but that would deter the fish in the long run).
Your system seems do to a good job of making the early stages exciting. And I also suspect that it keeps the fish in the pond, because they can nit up and easily climb the early steps of the points ladder and therefor be happy, even though they aren't cashing. But personally, I feel that the points should increase more exponentially, so that a 1st place finish is worth far more than finishing in the middle of the pack, and not just twice the worth. But hey, that's just my 2 cents.

 

[DeadheadDave]

Yes, I'm not questioning it, I was just curious. The most important part is that the players like it and come back. It sounds like you've succeded at that!

I ended the league in 2015 as I was about to get a divorce. Stopped all games actually. Too hard to hide that I hated one of the players (the soon to be ex). But, 6 months ago I reset the home games (not the league) and have many people from 2015 stepping back to the table. It was a very popular league with the players.

An interesting thing with that system is that every jump matters. Without points, it's really only the ITM jumps that matter. Especially from second to first, which usually is the biggest pay jump. With your system the jump from 18th to 17th is just as big (point-wise) as the jump from 2nd to 1st. So I suspect this adds to the suspense and excitement of knock-outs, even at the early stages. In your experience, was this the case?

Yeah, people were really eager to knock people out. Almost as if it were a bounty tourny.

Regarding cream rising: What if I bubble each tournament, finishing fifth each time. That's 14 points per tournament, and 140 points after 10. This is far above the expected value (which would be 9.5 per tourney) so I may very well have won the season, even though I "poker-wise" have performed as poorly as I possible could, with a net loss of 10 buy-ins. Someone with a lot of early eliminations but with a single min-cash has actually outperformed me "poker-wise", but will lose to me on points!
So I guess my point is: Since I could do really well on points while still being the biggest money loser, has the cream then really risen?

Oh yeah, the cream rose... one season we had an anomoly with a non-winner winning. Also, remember that I used "18" solely as an example... sometimes we had 12, others times 25. 18 just seemed to be a round number. Well, one of the numbers is round. Point being, you never knew how many points you were after until cards were in the air.

All systems have their pros and cons, and all system add an artificial value which isn't there in a stand-alone tournament. (Well, except if you have the points equal the price money, but that would deter the fish in the long run).
Your system seems do to a good job of making the early stages exciting. And I also suspect that it keeps the fish in the pond, because they can nit up and easily climb the early steps of the points ladder and therefor be happy, even though they aren't cashing. But personally, I feel that the points should increase more exponentially, so that a 1st place finish is worth far more than finishing in the middle of the pack, and not just twice the worth. But hey, that's just my 2 cents.

We did try, the first season, giving (say) 15 points to first, 10 to second and 5 to third... but we had a lot of people who ended the season with zero points... and, anyone who runs a home game knows you want to keep your players happy. At season 1 end, there was a lot of players who were part of the league that didnt feel like it looking at ZERO points after 10 tourneys. Something, at least in my league, had to change to keep people vested. The system we came up with worked... yet, as you said, none of them are perfect.

Now that I have re-engaged my home games, I have no desire to re-engage the league. In hindsight, at least the way we did it (stack and structure wise) it became very monotonous. Any attempts to make changes led to discussions, and then discontent. Hosting the way I am now allows me to alter starting stacks, blind structures and buy ins without disrupting the all powerful league. And once again, the people are happy. And, damn... I really missed hosting and being a TD.

 

[Mr Winberg]

Yep, keeping them happy is key. Right now my players are happy, and if it ain't broken, don't fix it! That's why I'm reluctant of making a big change like introducing a league. Hence the ToC approach that will only affect the winners. For the rest, each tourney is just an isolated tourney. And since most players don't expect to finish 1st, I am hoping that failing to make the ToC won't be a deterrent.

 

[BGinGA]

Our group has played tournaments for a very long time (since 2004). Many were stand-alone events, and many were as part of a 'league' or 'series' of tournaments. I'd estimate it as about a 50%-50% or 45%-55% breakdown of standalone vs league events.

The non-league events have always been a bit 'friendlier', with lower entry costs and flatter payouts spread across more players.

But the league events are more serious and performance-based in nature (although still friendly), with higher buy-ins, top-heavy cash payouts restricted to top 25% of field size, and fixed points to the top 33% based on an average 10-6-3-1 distribution for 12 players (adjusted for field size). Field size typically ranges from 12 to 16 players (13.5 avg).

Nine league events are followed by a free-roll Championship tournament for the top eight point scorers, with starting stacks based on their season point totals (plus bonuses for attendance and bounty wins, and deductions for re-buys).

I've never liked linear point systems, as they do not reflect the difficulty of earning high finishes and they over-compensate for poor performances.

The 'regular season' champion rarely wins the Championship tournament, even with the accompanying big stack advantage. But the best eight performing players for that season are represented, which is far more difficult to do than just getting lucky and winning a single event. And in each season, the "final eight" qualifiers hasn't been decided until the last event of the season.