Many a home game of poker has turned into a "home poker league" where players are given points based on their finsihes, and a leaderboard is kept for a season. This encourages people to make the games, keeping poker night alive and healthy. It also helps answer the question of "Who is number One?" at the tables, giving everyone a chance for some good natured kidding.

Simple Scoring

The simplest way to keep track of points for a season is to award every player a point for the place they finish in the tournament. So, if I were the first person knocked out, I'd receive one point. If I were the third player knocked out, I'd receive three points.

This method would only work well if there were relatively the same number of players every week. If not, winning a couple of small tournaments would only equal one high finish in a large tournament. So, if the number of players in the tournament varies greatly, you'll need a different scoring method.

The PokerStars Method

This could easily be called the Pitbull Poker method, or perhaps the CardPlayer method. This is a formula that top poker rooms use to track their Tournament Leaders. It takes into account the size of the filed i the tournament, and also the buy-in amount, which probably won't vary much in a home league setting.

Points = 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log(b+0.25)] Where: n is the number of entrants k is the place of finish (k=1 for the first-place finisher, and so on) b is the buy-in amount in dollars (excluding tournament fees).

How about that, square roots, log functions?? Really fun stuff, or not. Luckily, there is an online calculator that will do all the number crunching for you. Visit Pitbull, then go into their leagues section and look at the point distribution page.

Pitbull Poker >> Leagues >> Point Distribution

For use offline, I have a:

Downloadable version of the League Points Calculator

Final Table Bonus

The local league has a pretty consistent turnout, so they use a variation of the Simple Scoring Method. In addition to points for placing in the tournament, there are points awarded for placing at the Final Table. So, a player who is knocked out 22nd in the tournament, and was the 4th player to be ousted from the final table would receive 22 tournament points, plus 4 bonus points for a total of 26 points.

Other twists can be added to the simple scoring method as well. Some leagues use bounty chips and award extra points for knocking out certain (or perhaps any) players.

Different scoring methods make sense for different circumstances. Hopefully, with the help of the Poker League Calculator, one of these methods can help when structuring your league.

This page last updated April 4th, 2007.