This guide describes how you can run a home poker league using this site, including inviting players and tracking results. It doesn't matter if your league has been running for two years or is just starting out, we make it easy.

Step 1 - Create Your Account

Create your account here if you don't have one yet. Once you're done, you can get started on tracking your home poker league right away. You'll still need to click the confirmation link in your email to complete the process, though.

Step 2 - Create Your League

The first step is to create your league.

You can also create your league from your dashboard (the page you see after you log in or click the "My Dashboard" link in the top nav). Look for the "Create your league" link under "Account Management".

Once it's created, you can access your league easily from the "Your Leagues" section in your dashboard.

Get Familiar

Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the pages your league has available. You should see a secondary navigation bar with links to your league home page, forums, tournaments, players, and rules (if you added some).

On almost all of your league's pages, you'll see a "League Admin Tasks" box. Your normal league players won't see this - it's just for admins and has links that you'll need to manage your league.

Step 3 - Add Some Players

Because not playing by yourself is why you're starting a league, you've got to add some players. Click the "Add a Player" link in the "League Admin Tasks" box.

You should see a form with fields for the player's alias, first and last name, and email address. The only one required is "Alias", but you'll want to add an email address if you can so that you can invite your players to tournaments later.

Each player that you add with an email address will automatically have an account created for them that they can activate whenever they like. That way, they'll be able to participate in forums and track all their upcoming tournaments easily. Don't worry, players don't need to activate their accounts to participate in your league.

Step 4 - Create a Tournament

Now that you've got some players, you're ready to schedule a tournament. Of course, you can do this without creating any players first if you want, but that's no fun, so we'll assume you've got a few added.

From the "League Admin Tasks" box click "Schedule a Tournament". You'll go to a page with a bunch of form fields on it. The only one you need is the date, but it will help your players out if you provide more information. Don't worry, you can always update the details later.

Step 5 - Invite Players

Once you've scheduled your tournament, you'll be taken to the newly created page for that tournament. The first thing to do is invite some players. You should see an "Invite Players" link in the "Manage Tournament" box and in the page body.

Click it, and you'll see a dialog pop up. Type a quick message, and choose whether you want to send to all or some of your players, then hit "send message".

Each player you chose will get an email with a special link in it that they can use to RSVP. They don't have to create an account.

As your players respond, you will all be able to see each other's responses. As an admin, you have the ability to change anyone's response. If any players haven't responded, you (and only you) will be able to see that, and change their response if you want.

Step 6 - Enter Results

Fast-forward a bit. You've scheduled a tournament, a bunch of people came, and hey, you even won.

Now that your tournament is finished, your league members probably can't wait to see the results, so let's get them posted.

Your league home page will show that this tournament under "Pending Results". Click on it, then on the "Enter Results" link under "Manage Tournament" (you won't see this link until the tournament's date is in the past).

Once there, you'll see a form with a list of your players on the right and an empty leaderboard on the left. Click on the names in the order of who won, and they'll be inserted in to the leaderboard. You can add guests using the box on the bottom too in case anyone came who isn't a member of your league.

To reorder the leaderboard, you can grab the arrows in the left side of any row, then drag and drop. Play around with the leaderboard a bit if you want, you can always change it later. Don't forget to click "Save Results" though, or your work will be lost!

As you start tracking results, they'll be totaled up on your poker league's home page for everyone to see. Also, each tournament will show the leaderboard up to that point once you've entered results for it.

Other Notes

Seasons

You may have noticed a "Season" drop down when you scheduled your tournament. A season is really just a way to group games together. You can have as many seasons as you want, although most leagues keep it to one or two at a time.

When you created your home poker league on PokerSoup.com, you got a season for free. Seasons have a start and end date and a name, and your free one started the day you created your league and goes to 90 days from then.

You can change the name and dates of a season by clicking the "(some number) Tournaments" link in the subnavigation bar. You'll see each season listed there, with each of it's tournaments listed as well. Click the "Edit this Season" link under the one you want to edit. You can delete a season here too.

You can even create a new season using the "Create a Season" link in the "League Admin Tasks" box. Once you do that, you'll be able to choose the season you want when scheduling poker tournaments.

Everything Else

There's lots more you can do once you've started tracking your home poker league using PokerSoup.com. Check back for updates on cancelling tournaments, forums, sending messages, and more!