There are many ways to run your poker league. Here are just a few we've found to be easy to run and fun for the players.
For all leagues, you'll want to determine a few items before continuing. You first will want to set up a points structure. You can see some examples of these by visiting our Points Structure page. You'll also want to decide what the buy in for the tournament will be, and what the extra fee for the tournament will be. The buy in will be given out to the winners of that single tournament, while the extra fee will go into the league pot for any final tournaments you will have
Single League
The single league is the easiest to run. Once you've decided on the points structure, and scoring system, you need to set up a schedule. You'll just base it around a number of tournaments with a big final tournament at the end of the league. A good way to proceed, is to keep track of all the points throughout the season using Poker League Helper, then at the end of the season, the top six players will get a place in the final tournament. Then you can hold two satellite tournaments for others in your league to get into the final tournament. To play in the satellites, you should be required to have played in at least one tournament during the leagues season.
The buy-in for the satellite tournaments should go directly into the league pot, with no prize awarded to the winners of that tournament. This will get the pot of your final tournament up much larger than it would be otherwise. Then for the final tournament, have another standard buy in for all players, that goes to the final tournament pot, and award the winnings in whichever way you determine, whether it be the top three, or two, or just a winner take all. This structure is a great way to run a shorter term league, such as 3 months.
Tiered League - Halves
The tiered league with halves is the next step up in running your poker league. This ends up being great fun for all involved, and is just as easy to run as the single league above when using Poker League Helper. This structure consists of two single leagues tied into one encompassing league (or season if you would like). You end up having two "final" tournaments at the end of each half, then a championship tournament at the end of the season. Instead of paying out the full pot that has occurred throughout each half, you pay out 50% of the pot. The remaining 50% goes towards the championship game. Using Poker League Helper, you can give the top six in each half a free pass into that halves final tournament, then have two satellites into the final tournament for that half. Then also give the top 6 players throughout the whole league a free pass into the final championship tournament. Also having two satellites into this tournament... or as a variation, only allow the top 10 players throughout the season to play in the championship game. It's all up to you! This is a perfect way to run a 6 month season.
Tiered League - Quarters
This follows the same principle as the tiered league with halves structure, but with 4 smaller leagues prior to the championship game. This is a great format if you run your tournaments week after week for longer periods. But it can be a long season and is suggested only for those running seasons longer than 6 months.
Be creative in your league set ups, Poker League Helper will allow you to do whatever structure you want. And if it doesn't, let us know, and we'll try to do what we can for you!
Copyright Ben Lawshe, 2007