So, this past weekend I was given the duty of running a qualifier for the World Straight Pool Championships at Amsterdam Billiards in New York City. Although I've been around pool a very long time and have run events before, I haven't had a world of experience running tournaments so I spent a little bit of time researching an ideal tool to use.
We ended-up using Brackelope (www.brackelope.com) and I have to say, it was the greatest decision we could have made. If you're in the business of running tournaments of any size, you really should give this software a good look.
This past weekend's results are here: http://live.brackelope.com/t/ixuc2/
Some of its features include:
Online Brackets - Automatically posts the brackets and match-ups on an easy-to-view website with a unique URL. No membership required to view the brackets.
Arena assignment - If you're hosting in a poolroom, this feature is ideal. It tells you which tables are available, auto-assigns matches and you can take tables out of the rotation as your field gets smaller and smaller.
Different Formats - Of course, there is the traditional single and double elimination but there's also a "knock-out" format which redraws players after each round. Players are "knocked-out" once they've reached X number of losses, all tracked by the software.
Match Stats - You can review match length, update scores for matches in progress, show win/loss record for each player and even review which tables have been used most.
The Draw - You can seed players or you can have a random draw done for you. A huge time-saver for the start of an event.
Although there are some drawbacks like, only one admin and it's only available for iOS (iPhone/iPad) products and the tournament chart doesn't transfer well to a big screen, the benefits are astounding. Using an iPad to gracefully walk around the room, retrieving scores, assigning matches and keeping players up-to-date is the way to go. Like I said, if you run tournaments and you're looking for a better solution, you have to give this a try. I do advise doing a few test-runs beforehand (paper & digital) just to make sure everything works for you.
We ended-up using Brackelope (www.brackelope.com) and I have to say, it was the greatest decision we could have made. If you're in the business of running tournaments of any size, you really should give this software a good look.
This past weekend's results are here: http://live.brackelope.com/t/ixuc2/
Some of its features include:
Online Brackets - Automatically posts the brackets and match-ups on an easy-to-view website with a unique URL. No membership required to view the brackets.
Arena assignment - If you're hosting in a poolroom, this feature is ideal. It tells you which tables are available, auto-assigns matches and you can take tables out of the rotation as your field gets smaller and smaller.
Different Formats - Of course, there is the traditional single and double elimination but there's also a "knock-out" format which redraws players after each round. Players are "knocked-out" once they've reached X number of losses, all tracked by the software.
Match Stats - You can review match length, update scores for matches in progress, show win/loss record for each player and even review which tables have been used most.
The Draw - You can seed players or you can have a random draw done for you. A huge time-saver for the start of an event.
Although there are some drawbacks like, only one admin and it's only available for iOS (iPhone/iPad) products and the tournament chart doesn't transfer well to a big screen, the benefits are astounding. Using an iPad to gracefully walk around the room, retrieving scores, assigning matches and keeping players up-to-date is the way to go. Like I said, if you run tournaments and you're looking for a better solution, you have to give this a try. I do advise doing a few test-runs beforehand (paper & digital) just to make sure everything works for you.
