Thanks for everyone's input so far. This is great stuff. So far the idea I like is some combination of the linear ranking already in place, but with some added weight for money. I haven't back tested all the ideas here as it would take quite a bit of time doing a recompiling of standings on my part. What I did do was to take the data that was readily available and came up with what I have below. Please poke holes in this math gurus.
On the KotZ website that Simon manages he has a variety of statistics including Stars rankings and total money won. All I did was combine two of them, the linear ranking used last year and the Stars ranking system that he also compiled. I divided Simon's final result by 10 and just added to it the person's Stars points. So instead of getting 1000 pts for winning an event, you get 100. Combined with Stars formula that pretty much only gives points to those in the money gives making the money a lot more weight. But you can still crawl up the rankings by just participating a lot and making decent finishes. Money is not so much weighted that you could win one event and be in the top 10. Here's the results of a backtest:
First the top 20 using the original ranking formula. Here I show how they were ranked, how many events they played in (there were six total), total points using old system and how much money they actually won.
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
rank name played $ won pts
1 Lorinda 6 $1,348 5,423
2 Glenn 6 3,637
3 Myrtle 5 $456 3,575
4 Havanabanana 6 $633 3,564
5 Simon Diamond 6 $427 3,221
6 David 6 3,219
7 William 4 $182 3,150
8 eMarkM 5 $134 2,920
9 Inthacup 5 $468 2,637
10 jasonHoldEm 3 $367 2,572
11 C M Burns 4 $156 2,299
12 Fmonti 4 2,294
13 ZeeJustin 4 $70 2,174
14 ohkanada 6 2,113
15 KurnsonofMogh 5 2,090
16 PlayerA 3 $256 2,036
17 MS Sunshine 3 2,019
18 Acesover8s 4 $189 1,946
19 duxDelux 2 $408 1,870
20 mrbaseball 5 1,854
</pre><hr />
Here I think you can see my problem with the approach used last year. Sure, the best player in terms of money won, but the other rankings do not correlate with money as much as I'd like. Glenn played all six events and never moneyed, but was very consistent. I want to reward this, but not with 2nd, which in my mind should clearly be Havana. So I figured if I just add the Stars points to this while giving the linear ranking less weight, it would correlate more with the money actually won. Here's what it looks like:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
new rank name played total $ won
1 Lorinda 6 1047.82 $1,348
2 Havanabanana 6 678.89 $634
3 Myrtle 5 631.52 $456
4 Simon Diamond 6 521.76 $427
5 Inthacup 5 442.59 $468
6 jasonHoldEm 3 437.84 $367
7 William 4 403.29 $182
8 C M Burns 4 379.26 $156
9 David 6 375.49
10 duxDelux 2 370.85 $408
11 eMarkM 5 367.79 $134
12 Glenn 6 363.7
13 PlayerA 3 358.67 $256
14 yct 2 351.3 $338
15 sdplayerb 2 316.1 $192
16 Acesover8s 4 287.42 $189
17 curtains 2 286.5 $79
18 ZeeJustin 4 280.65 $70
19 ohkanada 6 273.73
20 KurnsonofMogh 5 269.77
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Here, Lorinda's dominance is even more clearly shown. She played every event and was a staple of the final tables, winning twice. She has twice as much money as the next best, and almost twice as many points. The other top five also correlate very nicely with total money won. We have one player, duxDeluxe, who only played two events, but won once. So he's in the top ten and has won more money than some of those ranked higher, but can't get higher because he hasn't played enough. And we still see those players who are playing every event, but can't crack the money, rewarded in the rankings for their perseverance. There are several others who moneyed that are ranked lower, but in every case they only played 2 events or less. This new system points correlating to money won = 0.92, which is good enough for me. I think this approach is a good combination of rewarding participation and making money. All input appreciated.