Where the Battle Begins....
POTY Ranking Calculations
Credit is given to Dr. Neau for this tournament formula. The ultimate goal of this calculation is to mathematically determine the best player in the league.
The Guiding Principles
• The higher you finish, the more points you should get
• Larger tournaments are harder to win than smaller tournaments
• Higher buy-in tournaments are taken more seriously than smaller buy-in tournaments
• Profitability counts
• Point structure should mimic payout structure
• Encourage participation
Factors Considered in the formula
• Finishing position – This is the most obvious, but sometimes it is worth mentioning the obvious. I wanted each person to be awarded more points than if they had exited the tournament one position earlier. In general, if you consistently finish higher than someone, then you probably have more skill.
• Tournament size – Again, obvious. Given the same player skills levels, larger tournaments are harder to win than smaller tournaments.
• Buy-in cost – We noticed that the larger the buy-in the more serious people took the tournament and therefore the harder it was to do well. Likewise, a player who rebuys multiple times, investing much more in this tournament tends to play more serious.
• Profitability – Who is probably the better player: the person who wins 10 tournaments without rebuying even once, or the person who wins 10 tournaments but has to rebuy every single time. And if you can’t decide, then look at who is more profitable.
Player of the Year Calculations
Weighting the Factors
-
Finishing position – If the 2nd person out gets one more point than the 1st person out, is it really fair to only give the winner one more point than the runner-up? NO!!! My experience was this: It was really easy to be the first one eliminated. Just about as easy to be the second one out…or the third one out…or fourth. But each position got a little bit harder. And when you got close to the money, a lot harder. And as the awards for each additional finish went up, it got even harder…and the difficulty didn’t increase linearly…it increased exponentially. The points for finishing position within a tournament should follow a nice accelerating curve. Notice that this is also how good payout structures are done. That is not a coincidence.
-
Tournament size – Does the winner of a 20-player tournament deserve twice as many points as the winner of a 10-player tournament? NO!!! Why? Because even though the field is twice as big, you don’t face twice as many people. The 10-player tournament might have 10 people at the same table, but the 20 player tournament would start with 2 tables. You’d face 10 initially, but you’d be consolidated when it gets down to 5 at each…so you really only face 15 on average. So, the formula should follow a nice decelerating curve when taking tournament size into account.
-
Buy-in cost – Pretty much the same argument as tournament size. It’s harder to win a $100 buy-in tournament than it is a $25 buy-in tournament…but there’s no way it is 4 times harder. Again: Decelerating curve.
-
Profitability – And again, the same argument. Someone who wins without rebuying does not deserve twice as many points as someone who wins via a rebuy. They deserve more, but not twice as much. Again: Decelerating curve.
Based on all of the above, here is the formula used to calculate POTY Points:
score = SQRT (n * b * b / e) / (f + 1.0)
where
n = number of participants in the tournament
b = standard buy-in cost for the tournament
e = the individual player’s total expense (buy-ins + add-ons + rebuys)
f = the individual player’s finish
Having size (“n”), cost (“b”) and profitability (“b / e”) inside the square root function gives us that nice decelerating curve I wanted for these factors.
Dividing by the finishing position (“f”) gives us that nice accelerating curve I wanted. I added the “+ 1.0” to make it a little less drastic.