Trying to Figure out Best Points System for Poker League

jdAA88

My friends and me have decided to make our weekly home game a little more interesting by creating a points system and after a certain amount of games, the top 1 or 2 players win a bunch of monies.

There is only 5 of us though........I'm just trying to figure out which way would be best to spread out the points:

ie.

1st = 5 points
2nd = 4 points
3rd = 3 points
4th = 2 points
5th = 1 point


Would any of you suggest a different point structure?

Muddguts

9 friends and I are currently in the middle of our league. We adopted the same point system except from 10 to 1. I am a reader of homepokertourney.com forums and they all swear by a sytem invented by a Dr. Neau. I've had a look at it and it seems like rocket science to me (points by the decimal!) but you may want to check into it.
At that forum there dozens of topics on poker league structures and systems, I suggest you check it out.

I have read comments about the point system that we use and they generally aren't favourable.

STR82ACE

For a small group like yours, not even sure I would go with any point system at all, and if I did, it would be more along the lines of
1- 10pts
2 - 8pts
3 - 5pts
4 - 2pts
5 - 1pt

And you have to define what the points are going to mean in the long run. Will they be used to calculate the better player over a period of time, or just reward on a weekly basis?

I use the same calculation that this forum used back in the day to determine individual points based on how many players in total played each game, and what position they busted out on. It rewards top heavy, so first and second get a much larger percentage of the total amount of points available, which allows for the luck factor somewhat more honestly. Consistently placing in the top spots really adds up points, while middle pack play demonstrates work to be done to improve.

g2

It's pointless to give 5th any points. Err... ummm... yeah.

/g2

Zithal

My first "season" I used a linear scale like that and didn't entirely like it. I found it didn't properly award winning tournaments.

I've always been a fan of exponential scales because it more rewards people, the higher you place.

For example, for yours, I'd consider...

1st - 10 pt
2nd - 6 pt
3rd - 3 pt
4th - 1 pt
5th - 0 pt

As g2 pointed out, there's no need to give points for last, and the only issue I have STR82ACE is that it awards less relative points at the top.

ie. Working backwards with mine you get.

5th : 0, 4th : +1, 3rd : +2, 2nd: +3, 1st: +4

With his you get...

5th : 1, 4th : +1, 3rd : +3, 2nd: +3, 1st: +2

(and so, the jump in points from 4th to 3rd, is greater than the jump from 2nd to 1st)

Regardless, pick a method you like and try it out to see if you like it. Another idea that worked well for the group around here is to have your prelim points count as chips for a big Final. (ie. You get 1,000 chips per point kinda of thing)

jdAA88

Thanks for the replies everyone, they were all really helpful.....the points will be tallied up every 20 games and then the top two point-getters will receive money that was pooled through each of the games.

I think I'll be doing the exponential points, sounds good!