Thought this would be a pretty good 1st post and very useful to a lot of home game players. And I'm posting it now because if you model it after our league, then you should start it in August:

Last year I bubbled the WSOP Main event seat(s) given away, but this I year shipped it!!! I played day 1C and stayed at the RIO. I had a terrible last level of the day and ended day at 12,100. On my day 2C I had an absurd table draw, but still ended up running the 12k up to 71k. I played a 130k pot in the 2nd to last level of the day that would be my bust hand:

blinds: 500 1000 100
Seat 5 mp, super aggro player, we have been battling with him all day and winning so he is completely oi (150k), me in the bb (61k) we have A10cc

Seat 5 opens to 2100, we flat
Flop: 10h 4h 3c
Seat 5 2900, we flat the 2900
Turn 5c so board: 10h 4h 3c 5c
I lead 4900 (trying to induce) he makes it 12700, we pile 44600
He literally snaps with 66 (no club)
River 7d
10h 4h 3c 5c 7d
nh bro LOL gg us!

Don't regret a thing, had a great time and played like a champ on Day 2. And most importantly had an effing great time!

Here's a quick look at the format, I'm posting this because I feel it's a fantastic way to get a seat post Black Friday without putting up the $300-$500 for casino held Mega Satties. This may be a sort of long read, but I think it's worth it and I will try to be clear and concise.

Starting in August all 45 "members" of the league sign a contract basically stating that you have to show up to the tournaments, however you are allowed a sub for 1 game if you can't make it. Also any ME earnings over 100k after taxes, 10% is distributed to the league paid out evenly amongst the 45 members. We played 11 tournaments as a group for the "season" 1/month (we played the first Wednesday of every month). The buy in for each tournament is $150 generating a prizepool of $6,750/tournament. 60% of this prizepool ($4,050) was set aside for the winner's packages every tournament (11x$4,050=$44,550). 40% of the prizepool ($2,700) was distributed to the top 5 finishers each tournament in a payout structure of:

1st=$1,000
2nd=$650
3rd=$450
4th=$350
5th=$250

This was cool to have 40% paid out so obviously it gives the games a satellite feel but also with freezeout implications. I was fortunate to compile over 4k in earnings over the 11 games, so I had a great ROI (the entire season costs you $1,650) and I shipped the seat making it more of a freeroll situation.

Season structure basic math:

45 players X $150/tourney= $6,750 (60% set aside and 40% paid out nightly)

$4,050 (60% set aside) X 11 tournies/season= $44,550 for packages

*To get the package prizepool to $46,000 we collected an extra $32/player. This allowed for distribution of (4) $11,500 packages giving us not only the ME buy in, but also ample travel expenses.

You recieve points for how you finish each tournament, which are instrumental in the structure of the league. There are 45 players so each spot you finish you get a point, for example: 1pt if you bust in 45th place and 45 pts to the winner, and so on. These points are cummulative throughout the season. The winner in over all pts. for the season ships an automatic package (myself this season weeeeeee). The top 8 in pts at the end of the season gain entry to a 1 table final tournament. Leaving 2 seats left at this final game for the top 2 finishers in a "wild card game" that I believe had 30ish runners. The wild card game is played by league members who didn't qualify for the final game so obviously the league point leader and the top 8 in points were absent from this. Once the final 10 have been set for the final table game chip stacks at this game are based on points. So say you averaged 25pts/tourney: 27pts X 11 tournies=297pts was your season total. You are awarded 100 chips/point so you would start the final game with 29,700 chips. The final game uses the standard league structure, costs $150 and pays the remaining 3 $11,500 packages to the top 3 and $1500 to 4th place. This can be open to league commissioner's interpretation but ours was as follows:

Obviously as an active player I liked it, all the nits complained about it, which let's you know you are already +EV. With that said I would have liked to see antes earlier, but I really can't bitch because with the structure as is, aggro players' edge was immense.

15k to start, 20 min levels:

100 100
100 200
200 400
Break (10 min)
300 600
400 800
500 1000
600 1200
Break (5 min)
800 1600
1000 2000 100
1200 2400 100
1500 3000 200
2000 4000 200
Break (5 min)
2500 5000 300
and so on......

I obviously don't have to stress the importance of having a reliable commissioner(s) with the amounts of money being withheld. I was fortunate to play with awesome peeps running this thing, and for that am very grateful.

So needless to say I love this league setup and felt like I would share it so others can have a template.

If I left anything out oops, and if anyone has any questions about the league I would def be up to answering them.

really cool concept - I did it. I just wish I knew 45 players that would be willing to show up every month.

I think I see a sub forum topic coming up. I have the same problem.

yeah, I'm thinking a pool of 45 players in a 150 buyin game is a bit uncommon for most homegame crowds.
I'm gonna struggle to put together a satellite for a 1500 next year in our group.

But congrats on making it that far!

Thanks man! In my area of NE Ohio poker is huuuuge, and we have a waiting list to get in this league, so I guess in that sense we are lucky. We did just get a casino in CLE (The Horseshoe) so it will be interesting to see if attendance is affected at all. But the structure of the league is sweet, sending 4 people to the Main every year from a home league is a lot I understand. I recommend using sites like meetup.com to get your group together. Me and 2 other guys put together the Akron Poker League like 8 years ago, now there are like 700+ members.

And glgl putting together a satellite league for the $1500, my buddy plays in one of these and I swear he ships the seat every year, but this will obv be way easier to fill seats than a Main Event satty league. I actually may start playing in his league too!

It's honestly hard to do in areas that have casinos in close proximity, but like I said at the time we started the league the closest casino was a few hours away in WV, so we had no problem generating player interest. Now that the Horseshoe Cleveland just opened up I and a few other good players in this league may cry if attendance drops off and the league disbands

QFT. My first thoughts when reading this was the exact same