[SpaceMonkey]

Here's my Tournament of Champions structure I came up with last year, and still plan to use this year. I haven't seen a similar idea posted before, though I'm sure it's been done.

Idea: This idea was based on the orignal Poker Superstars Invitational tournament.

Background: We typically play 2-3 tournaments a night, and get together every other week. We do $20 SnG's; T2000; 15 minute blinds. Top nine players for the year make the ToC. I had close to 30 different players in my events last year. (I'm around 17 different players this year). ToC buy in is $100.

Structure: A two day, three round tournament.

First two rounds: T5000, 20 minute blinds. What place you finish in for both of the first two rounds will determine the amount of chips you start off with for the final round. Each player will start with 5000 in chips for the first two rounds and there will be an average of 10,000 chips per person for the final round.

Percent of chips (total T45000) taken to final round:

1. 1st 24% (T10800)
   2nd 18% (T8100)
   3rd 15% (T6750)
   4th 12% (T5400)
   5th 9% (T4050)
   6th 7% (T3150)
   7th 6% (T2700)
   8th 5% (T2250)
   9th 4% (T1800)

Final Round:Average of T10,000 per person, 30 minute blinds. Add up the chips won from each of the first two rounds to determine starting chip counts.

Prizes: The winners of the first two preliminary rounds each get $100.
Final Round payouts are:
1st - $400
2nd - $200
3rd - $100

Blinds:
(same for all three rounds)

25-50
50-100
75-150
100-200

(Break)

150-300 (25)
200-400 (25)
300-600 (50)
400-800 (75)

(Break and Color up Green chips)

600-1200 (100)
800-1600 (200)
1000-2000 (300)
1500-3000 (400)

(Break and Color up Black chips)

2000-4000 (500)
3000-6000 (500)
4000-8000 (1000)
6000-12000 (1000)

[SpaceMonkey]

First year growing pains:
We played the first two rounds on a Friday night (our usual night) and the final round that following Saturday afternoon/evening. This year we may just have it on two consecutive Friday's, or make it one day long event on a Saturday or Sunday.

From the beginning, we had two players complaining about the slow blinds (vs. starting chips). They also started rumbling early on that they may not bother coming back with two back-to-back bottom tiered finishes. This really pissed me off, as there was ample time (1-2 months) for them to voice their opionions before showing up to our ToC.

Everyone else seemed to like the format. A few people commented that back to back days wasn't the best structure for them, hence my comments above about what we'll do this year.

First Year Preliminary Round Results:

Round One                               Round Two                                                   

1. The Godfather                        1. Mr. Solid
2. Mr. Aggresive                        2. The Godfather
3. Mr. Solid                            3. The Great One
4. The Host                             4. The Host
5. The Storyteller                      5. Mr. Staredown
6. The Great One                        6. The Whiner
7. The Complainer                       7. The Storyteller
8. Mr. Staredown                        8. The Complainer
9. The Whiner                           9. Mr. Aggressive

Final Round starting chip count:
1. The Godfather - 18,900
2. Mr. Solid - 17,550
3. The Host - 10, 800
4. Mr. Aggressive - 9,900
4. The Great One - 9,900
6. The Storyteller - 6,750
7. Mr. Staredown - 6,300
8. The Whiner - 4,950
8. The Complainer - 4,950

Final Round Results (and total ToC winnings):
1. The Host ($400)
2. Mr. Solid ($300)
3. Mr. Aggressive ($100)
4. The Godfather ($100)
5. The Great One
6. The Storyteller
7. Mr. Staredown
8. DNS
9. DNS

So as you can see, the two complainers stayed true to their word and did not show for the final round. With longer rounds and blinds starting back at 25-50, there was plenty of poker to be played, even for the short stacks. By those two not showing up, it put unfair pressure on the (now) other two shorter stacks. I haven't invited either player back since that day.

Overall, a good time was had by everyone else, and I rather enjoyed the structure. I may play around with the blinds and round lengths for this years results.

Looking forward to everyone's comments.

[omar]

I'm glad you posted this Space, as I was just thinking about this today. I sent out a poll to the regular participants in my home game yesterday to gauge what they like/don't like about the game. From doing that, I was considering things that I could do add some excitement to our game (not that it is dull, just want to keep it "fresh"). I had thought of a ToC so your format thread is a great place to kick around some ideas. A couple questions:

1. I am assuming that out of your 30 players last year, you have some that play nearly every time and others that play only occasionally. So, is your ToC leaderboard simply based on a point system where you get X points for where you place in the weekly tounrney's? Thus, if you don't make the weekly tourney, you get zero points? (Like our Chiptalk tourneys)

2. I like your general format, in that you have 2 rounds to determine the final table chip stacks. Thus, a bad beat or 2 doesn't necessarily knock you out of the ToC.

3. Did you use a dedicated dealer dealer for the ToC?

4. What was the breakdown of your starting chip stacks for the T5000 and T10000 rounds?


Thanks for your feedback. As far as the Whiner and Complainer, there sometimes are those that just don't get and appreciate the fact that it takes more than a little effort to be the host. Screw 'em.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by omar

1. I am assuming that out of your 30 players last year, you have some that play nearly every time and others that play only occasionally. So, is your ToC leaderboard simply based on a point system where you get X points for where you place in the weekly tounrney's? Thus, if you don't make the weekly tourney, you get zero points? (Like our Chiptalk tourneys)

Right. We only played from April through November last year. We had 35 tournaments, and about one third of the players played in 6 or less tournaments. We had a core of six that played in 22+ tournaments, and the rest fell in-between (6-20).

Last year I ended up going with total prize money won for rankings, with total points from your best 15 tournaments as a tie-breaker. I don't think it would have made a difference last year if I switched the ranking order around. Plus I'm not using where you place in the season standings to determine chip counts, just who gets in the ToC.

Here's a thread that has some ideas about a points structure/formula.

2. I like your general format, in that you have 2 rounds to determine the final table chip stacks. Thus, a bad beat or 2 doesn't necessarily knock you out of the ToC.

Yeah, I liked the format when I saw it on FSN. Glad TiVo caught it for me. The chip percentages were based on 8 players, so I had to tweak them for 9.

3. Did you use a dedicated dealer dealer for the ToC?

We did not. We've gotten pretty effecient using a two-deck self dealing system. And a $900 total pot isn't enough for me to think about getting a dealer for 3 SnG's. It would be nice, don't get me wrong, but not something I'm really considering at this time.

Still, I'll probably make the rounds last longer this year. Maybe 30 minutes for the first two rounds, and 40 minutes for the final round. We'll see.

4. What was the breakdown of your starting chip stacks for the T5000 and T10000 rounds?

I don't remember, but I probably did 20 green/20 black/5 purple for T5000.

For the T10000, I made up a quick excel spreadsheet to calculate total chips for me, based off of the starting stack amounts. This was before I had my ASM's, so I didn't have anything for T5000 chips. Everyone started with 10 or 12 greens, 16-25 blacks and 6-16 purples. Then I also gave out 10 greys each (T1000) to the two chip leaders.

As a different point of reference, I'm having a 16 man T10000 tournament on July 9th, and each person is starting with 12 green, 7 black, 4 purple, 2 orange and 1 chocolate.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Very cool format. Did you have difficulty finding a time to get all 9 players together? Or did you just set a date and go? If, say, #8 couldn't make it, did you then invite #10?

Either way, I think it's very cool and I think I may incorporate this into my next league. I know we've discussed different formats, points systems, etc., at length in another thread.

Here's the tentative plan:
Season will run Aug. 1 to Feb. 1. We typically play about every other week, but I'm not going to set out a schedule. We'll play as many games as we can in the season time frame. However many events we get in, I'll make 60% of those the cut-off. In other words, if we only play 16 events, I'll take everyone's best 10 finishes to calculate the standings. I'm still going to go with my points system.

For each event, $20 will come out of the pot and go into the ToC pot. I think I'm going to diverge a little from your format. I do like the 3 round setup though and I want to keep it to 9 players. My thoughts, as a reward for winning the season, the points leader will freeroll into the ToC. Then position 2-5 will pay a $25 entry into the ToC. Finally, 6-9 will pay $50 entry. I don't have a problem with the variable entries since everyone will be starting out with equal stacks. I'm just not sure how those bottom 4 players will react.

In theory, if we play 20 events there will be $400 in the pot (20 events x $20) plus $300 in entry fees (4 x $25 entry + 4 x $50 entry) for a final ToC pot of $700.

I like your setup, each semi-final round has a prize. For mine, I'll probably set it to $50. Even the big buy-ins can break even by winning a semi. That would leave $600 in the pot for the final game and payout $300-$200-$100.

I think that would work well. I don't want to diminish the significance of the season long points race, so I think rewarding the higher finishers with cheaper entry into the final game works.

[ZackAllen]

Nice ToC Space.

Mine is tough enough for me to keep up with.
So far the first quarter champ took homw $850. The second Quarter game is 7/1/05 and that winner will get $1100.

At this pace, the championship game on dec 30th will pay about $3500.

2005 Tournament of Champions Series

Qualifying:

Win one (1) of the ten (10) tournaments held prior to ToC Playoff Game.
(Due to Scheduling and conflicting dates, one or more quarters may not have 10 games)

Winners must have been in 5/10 tournaments to have free roll into ToC Playoff
(Due to Scheduling and conflicting dates, one or more quarters may not have full 10 games, must play in at least 50% of games. Numbers will be rounded up.)

Wildcard: Person with best average finish over 5 events can earn a seat, if there are less than 10 players in the playoff game, based on best 5 finishes.
(Persons with less than 5 will have last spot +1 of largest tourney used in average.)

Entrants who do not meet the 5/10 rule may buy into ToC Playoff by paying a $50 entry fee for the number of tournaments missed to get to 5 total, and half that amount will go into playoff pot, the other half into ToC Final pot.
(Won 1 tournament but are 2 short, entry fee is 2 x $50 = $100.00)

There will be 4 ToC Playoffs per year.

Winners of ToC Playoff games earn seat to the ToC Final.
(A person winning all 4 Playoff games, wins ToC Final pot and no ToC Final will be played.)

Prize money:

10% of all buy-ins, add-ons, and rebuys will go into the ToC pot.

ToC Playoffs and Final will be winner take all.

Playoff payout 50% of ToC pot collected in that quarter’s tournaments.
($1000 collected from the quarters 10 games. $500 to winner ToC playoff , $500 to Finals Pot.)

ToC Final game payout balance of ToC Pot.

ToC Game Rules:
Roberts Rules of poker will be used.

ToC Playoff Starting chips T$10,000. Winners of multiple tournaments will receive 10% bonus chips/additional tournament won
(e.g win 3 tournaments prior to playoff: T$10,000*20%=T$12,000 starting chips for Playoff game)

Wildcard entrant to ToC Playoff starting chips T$5,000.

ToC Final starting chips T$10,000. Winners of multiple Playoff games will receive 10% bonus chips/additional Playoff won
(e.g win 2 Playoff games prior to playoff: T$10,000*10%=T$12,000 starting chips for ToC Finals)