Points for Sit n Go Tournament

[trippy1976]

Every week we have a game night, it's a free poker tournament and the venue supports us with gift certificates, etc.

Since we're small and laid back, we run only single table sit n go formats.  I posted a little about this in another post, but if we have 14 people attend, we'll run two games.  Both games are separate, we don't break down tables.  So we sit 7 at Game #1 and 7 at Game #2 with three empty stacks at each table, blinding the stacks until someone joins or at the 4th blind level when they are surrendered.

We have been scoring with reverse points based on the number of people playing.  So if 6 are at a table before it locks up, first place gets 6 points, second gets 5 and so on.

This worked fine when we were a small group and only had 10 max players attend.  Now that we run two games at a time, a possible problem has come up.  Here's what happened:

Game 1 - 10 players
Game 2 - 7 players
Game 3 - 10 players
Game 4 - 7 players
Game 5 - 10 players

We had a situation where someone who placed 3rd at Game 1, 3, and 5 (and so received 8 points for each game, 24 total) beat someone for the nightly points race who placed 2nd on Game 1 (9pts), 1st at Game 2 (7pts) and 1st at Game 4 (7pts) for 23 points total.

Of course the losing player was a little sore, feeling like he'd played better than the winning player and lost because he got "stuck" at games where stacks got surrendered.

So we're starting to question the scoring system and I'm looking for advice on what may work in this situation and especially from anyone running a similar game who has a different, possibly better, points system.

Our next "big idea" is to run it the other way.  So first place is always 10 and it goes down from there.  That way the top finishers are on a par and it gives an incentive to join a game in progress (you take the 8th seat on a table and when you join the worst you can score is 3 points, vs. waiting for the next 10-spot table to start where the best you are guaranteed at the start of that table is 1 point).  Our overall goal, since there's no money on the line, is to keep people playing.  We've been in leagues where you bust out and then spend over an hour waiting for a new game to start.  We did great with keeping people on tables last week (we stagger the game starts) but this point snafu and the fact that even though noone has money on the line there are still gift certificates to be won caused a little contention.

We stick with our scoring system "season to season" and our next season starts in April so I want to consider some options.

[Dr. Neau]

Turns out I'm about to release a "Sit And Go Series" tournament type in the next version of my software (ding! plug).  I mention that because I had to deal with the same thing.

I made the decision to go with the following for scoring within a single match

• Regardless of match size, the 1st place finisher gets 100 points.
• The last place finisher gets 0 points.
• Everyone in between gets points ranging from 0 to 100, depending on the size of the match.

The method by which they are distributed within the match is selectable between (currently) two methods.
Exponential (my preference):
10-player match: 100-79-60-44-30-19-11-4-1-0
7-player match: 100-69-44-25-11-2-0
Linear:
10-player match: 100-88-77-66-55-44-33-22-11-0
7-player match: 100-83-66-50-33-16-0

My reasoning:

• The participants in a low-participant match shouldn't be penalized because of the random draw they got, but at the same time...
• They should have total equal chance at points, because that wouldn't be completely fair to the participants in a high-participant match

So this seemed like a nice balance.

Of course, in my thinking, the matches would always be balanced within 1 player.  Your situation is pretty damn hokey...to the point where maybe you should just pretend every match has 10 players and be done with it.

[trippy1976]

Thanks for the feedback, any additional comments are welcome.

We don't have access to a computer during game nights and we sign in and sign out on a paper form.  One thing players really like is they know when the table is over how many points they earned.

Hokey as it may be, we will likely go with the 10 down to 1 model. 

[Dr. Neau]

Well, the point of my post wasn't "use my software"...although that's a nice tangent.

The point of my post was thoughts behind a good sit-and-go point system.

[skingfool]

Turns out I'm about to release a "Sit And Go Series" tournament type in the next version of my software (ding! plug).  I mention that because I had to deal with the same thing.

I made the decision to go with the following for scoring within a single match

• Regardless of match size, the 1st place finisher gets 100 points.
• The last place finisher gets 0 points.
• Everyone in between gets points ranging from 0 to 100, depending on the size of the match.

The method by which they are distributed within the match is selectable between (currently) two methods.
Exponential (my preference):
10-player match: 100-79-60-44-30-19-11-4-1-0
7-player match: 100-69-44-25-11-2-0
Linear:
10-player match: 100-88-77-66-55-44-33-22-11-0
7-player match: 100-83-66-50-33-16-0

My reasoning:

• The participants in a low-participant match shouldn't be penalized because of the random draw they got, but at the same time...
• They should have total equal chance at points, because that wouldn't be completely fair to the participants in a high-participant match

So this seemed like a nice balance.

Of course, in my thinking, the matches would always be balanced within 1 player.  Your situation is pretty damn hokey...to the point where maybe you should just pretend every match has 10 players and be done with it.

I know this is quite old but, how did you come up with your exponential numbers?  Could you do the same thing were last place got say, 10 points? Thanks, Skingfool

[ftlaudkid]

Every week we have a game night, it's a free poker tournament and the venue supports us with gift certificates, etc.

Since we're small and laid back, we run only single table sit n go formats.  I posted a little about this in another post, but if we have 14 people attend, we'll run two games.  Both games are separate, we don't break down tables.  So we sit 7 at Game #1 and 7 at Game #2 with three empty stacks at each table, blinding the stacks until someone joins or at the 4th blind level when they are surrendered.

Turns out I'm about to release a "Sit And Go Series" tournament type in the next version of my software (ding! plug).  I mention that because I had to deal with the same thing.

I made the decision to go with the following for scoring within a single match

• Regardless of match size, the 1st place finisher gets 100 points.
• The last place finisher gets 0 points.
• Everyone in between gets points ranging from 0 to 100, depending on the size of the match.

The method by which they are distributed within the match is selectable between (currently) two methods.
Exponential (my preference):
10-player match: 100-79-60-44-30-19-11-4-1-0
7-player match: 100-69-44-25-11-2-0
Linear:
10-player match: 100-88-77-66-55-44-33-22-11-0
7-player match: 100-83-66-50-33-16-0

My reasoning:

• The participants in a low-participant match shouldn't be penalized because of the random draw they got, but at the same time...
• They should have total equal chance at points, because that wouldn't be completely fair to the participants in a high-participant match

So this seemed like a nice balance.

Of course, in my thinking, the matches would always be balanced within 1 player.  Your situation is pretty damn hokey...to the point where maybe you should just pretend every match has 10 players and be done with it.

I know this is quite old but, how did you come up with your exponential numbers?  Could you do the same thing were last place got say, 10 points? Thanks, Skingfool

We have been scoring with reverse points based on the number of people playing.  So if 6 are at a table before it locks up, first place gets 6 points, second gets 5 and so on.

This worked fine when we were a small group and only had 10 max players attend.  Now that we run two games at a time, a possible problem has come up.  Here's what happened:

Game 1 - 10 players
Game 2 - 7 players
Game 3 - 10 players
Game 4 - 7 players
Game 5 - 10 players

We had a situation where someone who placed 3rd at Game 1, 3, and 5 (and so received 8 points for each game, 24 total) beat someone for the nightly points race who placed 2nd on Game 1 (9pts), 1st at Game 2 (7pts) and 1st at Game 4 (7pts) for 23 points total.

Of course the losing player was a little sore, feeling like he'd played better than the winning player and lost because he got "stuck" at games where stacks got surrendered.

So we're starting to question the scoring system and I'm looking for advice on what may work in this situation and especially from anyone running a similar game who has a different, possibly better, points system.

Our next "big idea" is to run it the other way.  So first place is always 10 and it goes down from there.  That way the top finishers are on a par and it gives an incentive to join a game in progress (you take the 8th seat on a table and when you join the worst you can score is 3 points, vs. waiting for the next 10-spot table to start where the best you are guaranteed at the start of that table is 1 point).  Our overall goal, since there's no money on the line, is to keep people playing.  We've been in leagues where you bust out and then spend over an hour waiting for a new game to start.  We did great with keeping people on tables last week (we stagger the game starts) but this point snafu and the fact that even though noone has money on the line there are still gift certificates to be won caused a little contention.

We stick with our scoring system "season to season" and our next season starts in April so I want to consider some options.

Turns out I'm about to release a "Sit And Go Series" tournament type in the next version of my software (ding! plug).  I mention that because I had to deal with the same thing.

I made the decision to go with the following for scoring within a single match

• Regardless of match size, the 1st place finisher gets 100 points.
• The last place finisher gets 0 points.
• Everyone in between gets points ranging from 0 to 100, depending on the size of the match.

The method by which they are distributed within the match is selectable between (currently) two methods.
Exponential (my preference):
10-player match: 100-79-60-44-30-19-11-4-1-0
7-player match: 100-69-44-25-11-2-0
Linear:
10-player match: 100-88-77-66-55-44-33-22-11-0
7-player match: 100-83-66-50-33-16-0

My reasoning:

• The participants in a low-participant match shouldn't be penalized because of the random draw they got, but at the same time...
• They should have total equal chance at points, because that wouldn't be completely fair to the participants in a high-participant match

So this seemed like a nice balance.

Of course, in my thinking, the matches would always be balanced within 1 player.  Your situation is pretty damn hokey...to the point where maybe you should just pretend every match has 10 players and be done with it.

I know this is quite old but, how did you come up with your exponential numbers?  Could you do the same thing were last place got say, 10 points? Thanks, Skingfool

We are starting a home poker league to send winner to WSOP 2011.  There will be 22 tourneys starting Jan 4-May 31 with their being a finall table on May 31 for the Top 9 point winners.  The problem I am having is coming up with a point system for each week with different numbers of players.  Week 1 we may have 9, Week 2 we may have 15.  Can someone suggest a schedule for me that wopuld be fair from week to week.  NOTE We want to offer points to ALL players each week.