It depends on the Format.
If it is a weekly tournament i would try to pay Quarter Field.
If it is a monthly type tournament i would pay top 8
And if you having it every 3 or 4 months maybe only the top 4 spots.
My Explanations:
Weekly tournaments you wanna maxamize the amount of people coming, paying 12-16 keeps the c players coming back. Everyone wants a chance at money and paying quarter field means you only have to win 2 rounds to get your entry back. More often than not there will be other places having similiar tournaments on a weekly basis, good players will more than likely spread out than all show up for the same one.
Monthly tournaments are a different breed, you don't have to struggle to keep players coming. All the local hot shots will show up, whereas in a weekly tournament, the good players generally support 1 weekly tournament over another, monthly tournaments should offer a little more cash to the higher end players.
Quarterly tournament.
If its only happening once in a while, you want to try and draw as many top level players as possible, for lower level players to watch, and play against. Keeping the first place money as high as possible will draw more high end players, from farther away.
