How to run a poker league at your club

Set the season format

A league season is defined by its length, its number of events and how it ends. Settle all three before the first event and leave them alone afterwards.

• Length. The season can follow the calendar year or your club’s own year, September to June for instance. A club with a lot of turnover may prefer two half-seasons, so a player who joins in January still has something to play for.
• Number of events. With 10 to 20 events, the standings have time to take shape. With fewer than eight, one night can decide them.
• Calendar. Publish the dates of every event and of the final at the start of the season: players can plan around them, and nobody finds out in May that they missed a decisive night.
• Event format. Keep the same format from one event to the next — starting stack, level length, rebuys or not — so that points stay comparable. The blind structure calculator gives you a reusable structure for a league night, free and without an account.
• Ending. Either the final standings crown the champion, or they send the top players to a final (see below).

Choose a points system

A points system turns a finishing position into points, and there are three broad families that reward different things. Pick one before the season, apply it to every event and publish the formula: any player should be able to check the maths.

Fixed points per place

Each place is worth a set number of points from a table: 10 for the winner, 7 for second, 5 for third, for example. It is the easiest to explain, but the table ignores field size: winning against 8 players is worth as much as winning against 40. It suits events of a fixed size, such as a single-table Sit & Go. MyPokerCaptain’s Sit & Go system is one: with nine players, the places are worth 19, 15, 11, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1; with six players, 16, 12, 8, 4, 2, 1.

Linear points

Each player scores the number of players minus their place, plus one: in a 20-player event, the winner scores 20 points and the last player 1 point. Everyone scores, and a bigger tournament is worth more than a small one. The trade-off: the gap between two places is always one point, so winning is worth just one point more than finishing second, and a regular who finishes mid-table every week can outscore a player who wins one event in three.

Systems weighted by field size

Only part of the field scores, often the paid places, and points drop faster at the top of the table. They grow with the number of players, but more slowly than the field does. MyPokerCaptain’s club system is one: the top third of the field scores, the weight of the whole tournament is shared between those places, and a square root tempers the effect of field size. The festival system is designed for fields of several hundred players: only the top 15% score.

For the same 20-player tournament, the three approaches produce very different standings:

Place	Linear	Club system	Festival system
1st	20	798	380
2nd	19	533	276
3rd	18	421	216
4th	17	356	0
5th	16	313	0
6th	15	282	0
7th	14	258	0
8th	13	0	0
20th	1	0	0

In the club system, field size matters without swamping smaller nights: four times as many players doesn’t quite double the winner’s points, and from 10 to 1,200 players the last scoring place is always worth between 230 and 310 points. Finishing in the points is worth about the same everywhere; it is the win that gains weight with the field. Here is how many places score in the club system for each field size, with the points for the first and the last of them:

Players	Scoring places	1st place	Last place
10	3	614	293
20	7	798	258
40	13	1,171	294
100	33	1,813	299

For club nights of 10 to 40 players, a weighted system is the fairest: it rewards winning and accounts for the size of the tournament. Fixed points suit single tables, and linear points suit clubs that want to reward attendance first.

Reward consistency or performance

Counting every event rewards attendance; counting only the best rewards play. It is the setting that changes the shape of the standings the most, so decide it before the season.

• Every event counts. The most regular player has a clear edge. It makes sense for a club that wants full tables every night.
• Only the best events count. With the best 10 out of 15 counting, a player can miss five nights and stay in the race. Counting about two thirds of the events is a good middle ground for a club where not everyone plays every week.
• Attendance points. Some leagues add a flat number of points for every event played, even outside the scoring places. They reward showing up without touching the points system.
• A minimum number of events. Requiring a minimum number of events to be ranked, or to qualify for the final, stops someone who played twice from finishing on the podium.

Plan for a cancelled event too: if the league counts the best 10 out of 15 and one event is called off, the rules should say whether it still counts 10, or one fewer.

Break ties

A tie-breaker written down before the season saves you from negotiating one after the last event. Apply the criteria in order and stop at the first one that separates the players:

1. number of wins;
2. best finish;
3. number of events finished in the points;
4. if everything is still level, the players share the rank.

Avoid criteria that depend on the calendar, such as the result of the last event: a player who missed that night would be penalised for something that has nothing to do with how they play.

Re-entries, rebuys and late arrivals

A player counts once per event, with their best finish. A re-entry is one more entry into the tournament: it counts towards the field size, and therefore the weight of the event, but not as a second appearance in the league. A rebuy changes nothing in the standings: only the finishing position counts.

A player who registers late counts in the field from the moment they register. Also decide what happens to guests who aren’t club members: ranked like everyone else, or playing the event without league points.

Prepare the final

The final brings together the top of the standings, usually one or two full tables: 9 or 18 players depending on the size of the club. Three decisions frame it:

• Qualification: the top N in the standings, with a minimum number of events played.
• Starting stack: the same for everyone, or weighted by the season standings — a slightly bigger stack for the league leader than for ninth place, for example. The bonus rewards the season without deciding the final.
• Prizes: a trophy, prizes in kind, a seat in an outside tournament. Announce them at the start of the season.

Write and publish the rules

A one-page rulebook, published before the first event, heads off most disputes. It answers these questions:

• What are the dates of the events and the final?
• What is the event format: stack, levels, rebuys?
• Which points system applies, and what is its formula?
• How many events count, and what happens if one is cancelled?
• How are ties broken?
• How do re-entries, late arrivals and guests count?
• Who qualifies for the final, with what stack, and for what prizes?
• Where and when are the standings published?

Don’t change the rules mid-season. If something unforeseen forces a change, such as a cancelled event, apply the rule you wrote for that case and announce it before the next event.

Publish the standings after every event

Standings published the same night keep a league alive: players know where they stand and how many points separate them from the final. Beyond points, show events played, events finished in the points, best finish and number of wins: those are the columns that explain the standings and settle the ties.

Running the league in MyPokerCaptain

MyPokerCaptain runs a club’s league on the Club plan, at €12.99 per month. Each tournament of the season is attached to it as an event, and the standings are recalculated after every one, using the system you chose — club, festival or Sit & Go — with its formula shown. The league can count only each player’s best events, adjust that number when events are cancelled, and change it mid-season. Ties are broken by wins, then by best finish; a re-entry counts once. The league card holds the dates, the planned events, the number of players who qualify for the final and the prize fund. Everything else a club needs is covered on the Clubs and leagues page.