How do you determine how many people to pay out during a poker turnament....for ex 10 players verses 15 or 20?

Question

Ok the buy ins are 25.00-40.00dollars no re buys two tables usually 12-18 people.....Should only first and second get paid out....? How many people are needed for third place? or fourth?

Answer 1

Typically you'd want to pay out about 25-35% of the players for small tournaments.  If you start getting over 30 people then the percentage who actually win something can drop to 20% or even lower.  Most tournaments with 100+ people only pay out the top 10-15 people.  

Up to you if you're running the tournament of course and as long as everyone knows the structure before committing.  If you're playing more for fun with friends and co-workers etc, typically you'd have the lowest winner break even and the overall winner win at least 50% of the total price pool.

My suggestion for 10 players:

First place gets 60%, second place gets 30% and third gets 10% (i.e. their buy-in returned).

For 15 players:

First place gets 8 "buy-ins", second gets 4 "buy-ins", third gets 2 "buy-ins" and fourth gets their buy-in back.

For 20 players:

First gets 50%, second gets 20%, third gets 15%, fourth gets 10% and fifth gets 5%.

Rather than giving some to the host, you're better off rotating who hosts the game - but in some cases it's not possible so you can add a buck or two to each buy-in that goes directly to the house (again - make sure you're up front about this when you send out invitations/announcements).

Answer 2

i usually do 1st and 2nd.  

75% to 1st, 25% to second.

or maybe 70 - 30, with 5% going to whoever's place it is for being a good host.

regardless of how many ppl are there, i usually do 1st and 2nd.  just make sure you let everyone know that before hand so that there are no complaints.  yes thrid gets screwed, but if you had a 3rd place, then 4th place gets screwed, etc.

i like having less payouts because if you win, you actually feel like it was a win, cause you sit there forever playing...and hours of sitting and playing sucks for only half the pot.

just my 2 cents.

Answer 3

Online a single table usually pays the top 3.  I'd suggest one of the following three payouts:

1 - 75%

2 - 25%

or

1 - 50%

2 - 30%

3 - 20%

or

1 - 50%

2 - 25%

3 - 15%

4 - 10%

There's no rule, it's just however you'd like to run it.

Answer 4

With a 10 person field you should payout 3 people. With 12-18 people, I would actually payout 3 or 4 spots. If you pay out only 2 spots with 18, it would suck for the person who finishes 3rd to beat out 15 other people and get nothing! I'd pay out 4 people in that scenario. I'd payout 5 people for tourneys 20-30 people big. 6 spots for 30-50 and then payout 10% of the field after that.

I have run a local tourney in my town for 4 years now and paying out more spots usually is better.