To all,
I'm looking for some advice in how to better structure a poker league that i am involved with. We will be growing it as we received a lot of interest, but I had some fundamental issues with the league, and I'm looking for advice.
Our league was 40 people over 13 weeks. Each week we paid $100+$10, $50 per night went to the nightly pool and $50 went to the final prizes. The winner with the most points won a $13000 WSOP Main Event package. (nightly points ranged from 50 for 40th to 200 for 1st with bonus points for top 5 finish in the night) The rest of the 39 players received chips (from 20,000-45000) and played for the 2nd $13k package. (We all added an additional $300 and played for 2 WSOP packages on the last day)
The winner of the most points was well deserved, he played consistent solid poker throughout and earned the package. The problem I have is the other 2 packages ended up being won by 2 of the bottom players. The reason that we did the final tournament was to ensure all players return every week, without asking for all the $ up front, which no one would have wanted or agreed to do. This way their was always incentive to keep playing, for the final tournament. (If you missed more than 2 nights you were out and the seat was given to a new entry)
I would like to know if there is a better point system, and a way to keep all players interested in playing thoughout the league, but with rewarding good play throughout, and bad play to be penalized.. Any thoughts?
Dan
Dan,
The tournament you are running is on a much larger scale than the one I used to deal for. I will give you a few ideas that might help keep players interested after they are hopelessly out of contention.
I dealt to twelve players on the second Tuesday of each month. That's right-12 players. The buy-in was very similar to yours ($100+10) from each player. At the end of the year 5 of the 12 would be sent to Las Vegas. The top finisher would receive a $2000 WSOP buy-in along with air-fare , hotel accommodations and a little spending $$$. Four or five of the others would receive air-fare hotel and some cash for gambling.
The tricky part was keeping them interested in the final months when it was impossible to win anything.
Here's what we did.
$500 had to be paid up-front, with $400 automatically applied to the last four months (non-refundable). A substitute player could be used in the event that you could not attend one or two events.
The point system was very simple...first player busted got 1 point, second player 2 points....the winner 12 points! I think the lower numbers might not make the chance for the prize so, well...out of reach.
The incentive to hang around for the final week could be a random seat drawing, or something to that effect that could only be won by one of the out of the money players, like a free trip.
Another interesting feature was...all players shared in a % of any money won by the grand prize winner! Could you imagine your winner winning the WSOP Main Event!
I know that our players really had a great time with the tournament. The structure did not give much to the monthly winners (I think it was 40% with 60% for the final), but the players all looked forward to getting together. It was amazing how competitive the tournament became. There were times that 3 or 4 players were still competing for at least a trip to Las Vegas, right up until the final monthly event.
Good Luck! I hope this gives a few ideas you can use.