Here's how it works: The top 15% of finishers in each event will receive points towards the PokerStars Tournament Leader Board standings, based on the number of entrants, the tournament buy-in, and place of finish.

The number of rebuys and add-ons in a tournament also effect the total number of chips in play during a tournament. If no other changes are made, more rebuys and add-ons make for a longer tournament. Blind Level Round Length. Most live tournaments employ blind level lengths of 15, 20, 30, 45, or 60 minutes. In most events, the pay outs will usually be split between the top 20% of finishing places. First place usually receives between 22 and 30% of the total tournament prize pool - one of the many attractions to tournament play. To gain entry to a poker tournament you will need to 'buy in'. The concept of a buy in is exactly as the name suggests.

The formula used to determine the total points awarded to a player (in the top 15% of finishers) for any given tournament is: 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). Nearly all tournament poker books provide an optimium strategy for the World Series of Poker tournament or a similarly structured event. I and 99.9% of the people who buy these book will never play in this event, but if i did i would be sure to re-read these books and apply the appropriate strategy. 500 Poker Chips in Your Set: T1000 Tournament. This is a common 500-chip poker tournament distribution of 200/150/100/50 for 10 players. There are $10,000 chips 'in play' with another $29,750 chips 'remaining' in your set. The remaining chips will allow you to issue numerous rebuys and add-ons, or play with more players than 10.

Note: Sit & Go tournaments with less than 40 players, satellite tournaments, heads-up tournaments, shootout tournaments, restricted-entry tournaments, private tournaments, play money tournaments, Astronomer Freerolls, Weekly Round 2 tournaments and VIP Freerolls do not count towards the rankings.

Only your 10 best results will be counted for the weekly rankings, 20 best results for the monthly rankings, and 100 best results for the yearly rankings.

The formula used to determine the total points awarded to a player (in the top 15% of finishers) for any given tournament is:

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 US Dollars (excluding entry fee). For freerolls the buy-in is $0, and for FPP tournaments 1 FPP is counted as $0.0161. If the tournament is not a US Dollar tournament, the buy-in will be converted to US Dollars using the current exchange rate at the time the tournament begins.

Downloadable Excel sheet to calculate TLB points - leaders.xls.

Example 1: A player takes third place in a $20 tournament with a field of 150 players. Here:

n = 150, k=3, b=20

The total points awarded to this player are:

= 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log(b+0.25)]
= 10 * [sqrt(150)/sqrt(3)] * [1+log(20+0.25)]
= 10 * sqrt(50) * (1+1.31)
= 10 * 7.071 * 2.31
= 163.09 (rounded up)

Example 2: A player takes 25th place in a freeroll with a field of 900 players. Here:

n = 900, k=25, b=0

The total points awarded to this player are:

= 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log(b+0.25)]
= 10 * [sqrt(900)/sqrt(25)] * [1+log(0+0.25)]
= 10 * sqrt(36) * [1+(-0.60206)]
= 10 * 6 * 0.39794
= 23.88 (rounded up)

Example 3: A player takes 10th place in a 200 FPP tournament with a field of 250 players. Here:

n = 250, k=10, b = 200 * 0.0161 = 3.22

Poker Tournament Point System Formula Solver

The total points awarded to this player are:

= 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log(b+0.25)]
= 10 * [sqrt(250)/sqrt(10)] * [1+log(3.22+0.25)]
= 10 * sqrt(25) * [1+(0.540329]
= 10 * 5 * 1.540329
= 77.02 (rounded up)

The PokerStars tournament ranking formulas are designed to reward excellent performance and frequent play. The annual tournament rankings are based upon a calendar year, starting on January 1.

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Poker Tournament Point System Formula Sheet

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