How's This Structure?

[boyhowdy]

We have 8 regulars for our 8 Tournament Poker "Tour". Basic structure is $20 buyin.

Blinds
$1/$2
$2/$4
$3/$6
$5/$10
$10/$20
$20/$40
$30/$60
$50/$100
Starting Stack = $200
Blinds Go Up Every 20 Minutes


Payout:
Entrants 1st Pays 2nd Pays

4.00 $80 $-
5.00 $70 $30
6.00 $80 $40
7.00 $90 $50
8.00 $100 $60

In addition we've got a points system to determine the overall "Tour" leaderboard.

1st - 15 points
2nd - 12 points
3rd - 10 points
4th - 8 points
5th - 6 points
6th - 4 points
7th - 2 points
8th - 2 points

For the Points Leaderboard, basically everyone antes $25 to the leaderboard pot at the start of the tour. Points are taken from your best five finishes to create your score. You can drop a low score, but your 6th, 7th and 8th tournaments cost you an extra $5 in the leaderboard pot. So playing all 8 tourneys costs you $40, but you can drop your three low finishes. The leaderboard pays 66%/33% to 1st/2nd respectively.

It's low stakes, granted. But the games only take 2.5/3 hours apiece, and there's incentive beyond a given night's pot. So far we've had a lot of action and it's been pretty entertaining.

[Annorax]

So after an hour, the starting stack is 20BB?

Seems decent. I'd probably raise the starting chips to 250 or 300, but that's about the only change I'd make to the structure itself.

I'd consider eliminating the $25 upfront leaderboard pot contribution and change it to a straight $5 per tourney. At the end of the season, instead of just paying out based on points, you hold a freeroll for the pot, and give players different starting stack sizes based on their final point totals. This should make the leaderboard thing a little more competitive and gives bad and new players a chance to win their pot contributions back.

[NickMPK]

This structure looks fine considering you want to keep the tournament to 3 hours. I might add a 15/30 level.

For the payouts, I would generally give more to 1st and less to 2nd. I feel like the gap b/w 1st and 2nd should be greater than the gap b/w 2nd and 3rd.

[ballin4life]

My game is very similar except we have a 15/30 level, 300 chips to start. Also our payouts favor first place a lot more.
You could maybe base the payouts more on percentage ie
Players / 1st / 2nd
4 / $80 / $0
5 / $80 / $20
6 / $90 / $30 (80/40 is fine here too)
7 / $100 / $40 (or 90/50)
8 / $110 / $50

[boyhowdy]

[ QUOTE ]
So after an hour, the starting stack is 20BB?

Seems decent. I'd probably raise the starting chips to 250 or 300, but that's about the only change I'd make to the structure itself.

I'd consider eliminating the $25 upfront leaderboard pot contribution and change it to a straight $5 per tourney.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the blinds move up pretty quickly after the first hour. But it forces the calling stations to make moves even if their default move is the minraise preflop checkdown postflop play. And the $25 ante was just a committment to play a minimum of 5 tournaments. The points leaderboard has kept everyone committed through 3 tourneys - the points are fairly tight.

[Lottery Larry]

Some comments:

"$1/$2
$2/$4
$3/$6
$5/$10
$10/$20
$20/$40
$30/$60
$50/$100
Starting Stack = $200
Blinds Go Up Every 20 Minutes

It's low stakes, granted. But the games only take 2.5/3 hours apiece, and there's incentive beyond a given night's pot. So far we've had a lot of action and it's been pretty entertaining. "

The stakes have nothing to do with it, unless they are so low that it strongly affects everyone's play
I just HATE that people feel that they need to apologize for the stakes that they play at- if it's high enough that a loss stings, but you don't hit the poorhouse, then you're about right. Anyone who doesn't get that is a poker snob- screw 'em.

I'm surprised that these take 2 1/2 hours to complete- is your group fairly tight-passive? I would have estimated an hour shorter, given your avg. stack to BB ratios.

----
"Payout:
Entrants 1st Pays 2nd Pays
4.00 $80 $-
5.00 $70 $30
6.00 $80 $40
7.00 $90 $50
8.00 $100 $60 "

Interesting that 1st place gets more and more devalued (that's what happens when you split each extra buy-in).

I'd really only want to play these either 4-handed, or 7+.
Even as much as I'm a flat-payout advocate, this might be TOO much... though the year-long tourney point system might cut off the incentive for a deal.

-----
"In addition we've got a points system to determine the overall "Tour" leaderboard.

1st - 15 points
2nd - 12 points
3rd - 10 points
4th - 8 points
5th - 6 points
6th - 4 points
7th - 2 points
8th - 2 points"

ALERT! This is something I wanted to point out, to everyone running ongoing point systems. Note that EVERY place gets points, and the top spots are only multiples of the last-place finisher, NOT 20x and more.
This accomplishes several things:

1) Prevents someone from winning 1 tourney and then just sitting out until the big tourney... and still getting a lot of value while NOT contributing to the weekly games.

2) Provides a big incentive to attend as many tourneys as possible. If you attend 7 tourneys, finishing dead last in every one, you've still made up the ground "lost" to the winner of the first tourney.

EVERYONE should think about how BIG a deal #2 really is.


----
"Points are taken from your best five finishes to create your score.
You can drop a low score, but your 6th, 7th and 8th tournaments cost you an extra $5 in the leaderboard pot. So playing all 8 tourneys costs you $40, but you can drop your three low finishes."

That could make for some interesting EV decisions when you've completed 5 tourneys...

One preferance- the Tour Leaderboard prizes should be 55%/30%/15% or 60/25/15. No reason not to pay 30-40% of the field with a year-long accumulation.

[boyhowdy]

[ QUOTE ]

The stakes have nothing to do with it, unless they are so low that it strongly affects everyone's play
I just HATE that people feel that they need to apologize for the stakes that they play at- if it's high enough that a loss stings, but you don't hit the poorhouse, then you're about right. Anyone who doesn't get that is a poker snob- screw 'em.

I'm surprised that these take 2 1/2 hours to complete- is your group fairly tight-passive? I would have estimated an hour shorter, given your avg. stack to BB ratios.

----
"Payout:
Entrants 1st Pays 2nd Pays
4.00 $80 $-
5.00 $70 $30
6.00 $80 $40
7.00 $90 $50
8.00 $100 $60 "

Interesting that 1st place gets more and more devalued (that's what happens when you split each extra buy-in).

I'd really only want to play these either 4-handed, or 7+.
Even as much as I'm a flat-payout advocate, this might be TOO much... though the year-long tourney point system might cut off the incentive for a deal.

-----
"In addition we've got a points system to determine the overall "Tour" leaderboard.

1st - 15 points
2nd - 12 points
3rd - 10 points
4th - 8 points
5th - 6 points
6th - 4 points
7th - 2 points
8th - 2 points"

ALERT! This is something I wanted to point out, to everyone running ongoing point systems. Note that EVERY place gets points, and the top spots are only multiples of the last-place finisher, NOT 20x and more.
This accomplishes several things:

1) Prevents someone from winning 1 tourney and then just sitting out until the big tourney... and still getting a lot of value while NOT contributing to the weekly games.

2) Provides a big incentive to attend as many tourneys as possible. If you attend 7 tourneys, finishing dead last in every one, you've still made up the ground "lost" to the winner of the first tourney.

EVERYONE should think about how BIG a deal #2 really is.


----
"Points are taken from your best five finishes to create your score.
You can drop a low score, but your 6th, 7th and 8th tournaments cost you an extra $5 in the leaderboard pot. So playing all 8 tourneys costs you $40, but you can drop your three low finishes."

That could make for some interesting EV decisions when you've completed 5 tourneys...

One preferance- the Tour Leaderboard prizes should be 55%/30%/15% or 60/25/15. No reason not to pay 30-40% of the field with a year-long accumulation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, Larry. Good points. The tables are pretty tight passive - and it's a friendly game with lots of table talk - watching Monday Night Football or a baseball game as we play - so it's not all passivity that extends the time. The flat structure is a result of playing a year of winner-take-all tourneys. We might have made it too flat, but there are always 6 or 7 of us at least. We just codified the other possibilities. I agree with the leaderboard ppercentages. I'm going to suggest 60/25/15 to the game next time.

[DavidNB]

Blinds
$1/$2
$2/$4
$3/$6
$5/$10
$10/$20
$20/$40
$30/$60
$50/$100
Starting Stack = $200

I just played in a fund raiser that had the same blinds and starting chips. 92 people I think, they had their levels at 30 minutes, was alot of fun. I got bumped out on 25th spot.
I was thinking of using the same setup for the ons I run with 24 players and using 30 minutes aswell.

[Poolgod32]

Yeah definitely raise the starting stack or this basically plays like a SNG online in terms of stacks to blinds ratios.
Also maybe change the points and give out points based on how many played. 6 players gets you 6 pts for 1st, 5 for 2nd. 8 players gets you 8 pts for 1st, 7 pts for 2nd ,etc. This is somewhat like the pokerstars formas on Fox but their system is weighted a little more heavily to 1st and 2nd. Obviously, all things being equal, finishing 1st in a ten person tourney is tougher than finishing 1st in a 4 person tourney