I'm new to the home game hosting thing, but am going to be starting one up soon. We're going to have a points system to encourage everyone to come out each month, where the top 7 places earn. I wanted to post my current distribution of the points and see if anyone had any suggested changes:

1st - 30%
2nd - 20%
3rd - 15%
4th - 12%
5th - 10%
6th - 7.5%
7th - 5%

Also, I assume this is legal?? There's still no rake taken or anything, but $1 out of every buy-in will go to this 'jackpot pool' and will be paid out after xx amount of games.

I also plan to start with $1000 in chips, with blinds starting at $5/$10 and up every 20 minutes. If anyone has any comments about that, please let me know as well. Thanks in advance for any comments.

We don't know where you are, how could we know? Assuming something like this here is just risky and naive, your game as a whole might be illegal, idk.

I suggest don't use points. If you must, simplify it greatly, i.e. 1st = 5 points, 2nd = 3 points, 3rd = 1 point

I don't know how many players you expect as a newb host, but paying 7 places is pretty unusual for any home game tourney I've ever seen.

The best run weekly tourey I play in uses the above, except when they have 2 tables then they pay top 4.

If you are planning this as a marketing strategy, I suggest instead that you play heavily in other people's games before launching and also have your friends help recruit first couple games.

I've been a principal member of a point/rake/tournament league for a couple years now.

We hold back 20% of the prize, and nightly we run two tournaments that give points to the top-5 (of 15-20 players) and cash to the top-3. Every quarter the top 16 players (of a pool of 40 or so semi-regulars) play a game for about a thousand dollars.

Since the turnout for our events varies, the payouts for ours do as well. It's (10*Players)+100 for 1st, 8*Players for second, 6*Players for third, and down to 2*Players for 5th. [I understand that points could be cut in half with no loss of significance, but I inherited the system, and we'd like to keep comparing apples to apples when looking at records and streaks, etc.]

Cash is 60-30-10 with some rounding to make even prizes and accommodate the hold-back for the finals, and a tiny rake to keep the club in tables and cards.

Our game is legal under Arizona law because nobody makes any money or gains benefit of the club's equipment (no more benefit than any other player...) The game being legal in YOUR locale is another question entirely.

I run a points based tournament. We run for 20 individual tournies and we're now in our 7th season. Each week $10 (out of $50 buy-in) per player is put into the season pool and we average 24 players each week. Our final table consists of 9 players. the points system is:
1st-15pts | 6th- 3pts
2nd- 9pts | 7th- 2pts
3rd- 7pts | 8th- 1pt
4th- 5pts | 9th- 0pts (gets credit for a final table appearance which is used as a tie-breaker)
5th- 4pts

Top 3 players get paid each week. At the end of the season, the pool money is split in half. Half is divided among the top 8 (the higher you finish, the bigger percentage you receive). The other half is played for by the top 8 players. (again, the higher you finish, the more starting chips you get). It usually ends up in a chop when it gets down to 2 or 3.

II'm not saying it's perfect, but it's been running strong for about 5 years now!

Yeah, sorry about that. I'm in Texas.

Well, we're not paying out 7 places. Payouts for each tournament is a completely different subject. This is in addition to the cash payouts and is just awarding point totals for finishes and then the top 2 pt totals after each 'season' when this extra cash. It's just a players ranking, type of thing.
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I kind of like the idea that the other 2 guys mentioned and having the top point getters play for the jackpot pool. I'll have to look into that one. Thanks for the responses.

Our league awards points each week based on how many players you outlast, how many you take out, etc., then we give players chips for the final round freeroll based on those points.

Every dollar from add-ons goes to the final prize pool, plus the champion gets a trophy and some poker swag.

Given that the payouts for tournaments are already weighted, our point system is just the amount of money each player won divided by 10.

This also nicely factors in how many players the winner had to get through to finish in first place, because the more players, the larger the prize pool.

The bubble also gets 1 point as kind of a consolation.

Come on over, redtrain! We pay that many when we get about 30 or so, iirc

How many players are you getting, in the last few weeks, as compared to the main part of the year? Averages don't mean much, when people realize they have no shot at the chopped prize pool portion...

Hey Palimax,

ianal

You might probe around this a bit more. Washington state is pretty home game friendly - home games are legal so long as the host doesn't take a rake, fee, etc... Sounds similar wording to what AZ is. However when I started probing about holding a portion of the prize pool for a much larger tournament at the end of the year I was told that would cross the line.

They basically said all money collected on any one evening needed to be returned back to the players that same evening/session.

Maybe AZ is softer than that - but just wanted to pass on what I found in a state that is relatively home game friendly.

Sarge

We still get the usual 24ish players. I suppose because each week's prize is substantial, players find it worthwhile to show up even if they're out of the points race.

I imagine that if I were to ask the AZDOG that specific question that I'd likely hear the same thing - that betting had to be zero-sum short-term. That's not what the law says, of course -- only that no player have a (house) advantage over the other and that no fee be charged FOR the gambling -- but the AZDOG has a fairly narrow interpretation of the law here.

In short, you're likely right. The AZDOG wouldn't like us having any sort of rolling prize. ...it's just one REAL LONG tournament then.

Blech. I want to win some money. The rebuy tourney I sometimes play in has two tables and pays top 4. When they get close to the bubble, there's a new tradition last couple years to cut in 5th place for 1 buy in. I hate it but grudgingly bow to social pressure.

I think you'll find that spreading the payments out, and giving people a taste, helps you in your long-term goals.

"Metagame, young Skywalker- think do"

Here's the world's BESTEST, most SIMPLEST points system.... because that's what I'm ALLLL about: