Bye Woes

RSB-Refugee · Feb 26, 2006

My local Eagles club had a tournament yesterday. I made up a 16 player double elimination chart for them (thank you, Playpool.com). It was printed on big paper and laminated, at a local printshop. I am attaching the pdf so you can see the exact chart (these are free to use, if you leave the playpool.com logo intact).

Here is what happened, there were originally 9 players signed up. The guy who does the organizing, threw chips numbered 1-9 into a jug and had everyone draw one. When they filled the chart, player #9 had byes all the way through to the fourth round. This did not sit well with anyone, myself included.

I suggested to put all sixteen chips into the jug and everyone draw one, any chip not drawn could be a bye. We tried this and the byes were not spread out among the brackets very evenly.

A tenth guy agreed to play, so we would have an even number. As we found out, if the even number, divided by two is not an even number, then in the second round, there is uneven numbers again. Eventually what we did do was, redraw after every round throwing the five winners names plus one bye into the jug. This is supposed to be a fun day for people, but the tension caused by the bye controversy, really makes it more of a drag.

How are the byes, figured properly. Is there an excel sheet with macros that will do it automatically? If there is such a thing, I would take my laptop next time.

Thanks,
Tracy

P.S. This experience has given me, an even greater appreciation of the excellent job, that professional tournament directors do.

JMD in VA · Feb 26, 2006

bye help

If you just start at the top of the bracket and put a bye and then go to the bottom and put a bye. So, on a 16 player board, if you have 5 byes, you would have byes in the 1,3,5,14 & 16 positions.

Hope this helps.

JMD in VA
VA State 9 Ball Championships
Tournament Director/ Promoter

Chesscat · Feb 26, 2006

Distribution of byes

This is a question that always comes up. The first bit of knowledge in organizing a tournament is to use a chart based on a power of 2, that is, 8 man chart, 16 man chart, 32 manchart, etc. The second, and last, is distribution of byes. It's been so long since I've done this I might make a mistake, but someone out there will correct me surely.
First, all byes are in the first round. The only way there is a bye in the second round is if its somehow a product of byes in the first round. Byes are evenly distributed on the chart to the extent you can. For example, if you have three byes on a sixteen man chart, one bye will go in each quarter of the chart, except the last quarter, cause you are out by then. If you have 7 byes on a sixteen man chart (9 players), then only two guys play eachother in the first round, the other 7 players get byes. With the distribution part, say you have six byes on a 32 man chart, 3 go in the top half, 3 in the bottom half, and those 3 in each half are again evenly distributed, 1 in each quartile of the top half, 1 in each quartile (group of 4) in the bottom half. That's the deal, all byes in first round, evenly distributed (based on what size chart you are using).

ScottW · Feb 26, 2006

So you guys filled in spots numbered 1-9 on that sheet? i.e. from the top down, leaving the bottom seven spots empty? No wonder #9 got so many byes.

The way to do it with nine folks would be to fill in every *other* spot - #1, #3, #5, #7, etc - down to eight folks - and then with the ninth player, stick in an even-numbered spot randomly picked. That way, seven folks get ONE bye, and the last two play a match to get down to eight folks on the winner side.

RSB-Refugee · Feb 26, 2006

ScottW said:
So you guys filled in spots numbered 1-9 on that sheet? i.e. from the top down, leaving the bottom seven spots empty? No wonder #9 got so many byes.

That is the way they wrote them in, at first. I pointed out, right away that one player should not get byes all the way to round 4.

I got PM'ed about this also. Distributing the byes evenly and then drawing makes perfect sense.

When I suggested throwing all sixteen numbers in the jug, I naively thought the byes would evenly distribute themselves. We live and learn.

Thanks for all the replies. I feel confident, that the next one will go off, without a hitch.

Tracy

Snapshot9 · Feb 26, 2006

And ...

Byes are to be done on the chart BEFORE players are drawn for bracket positions. That keeps everything above board.

RSB-Refugee · Feb 26, 2006

About the excel spreadsheet, does anyone have any info?

Thanks,
Tracy

RSB-Refugee · Feb 26, 2006

RSB-Refugee said:
About the excel spreadsheet, does anyone have any info?

Thanks,
Tracy

I found this website. Have any of you tried these? I know excel sheets with macros, can contain viruses. I am wondering, if anyone can vouch for them.

Tracy

ScottW · Feb 26, 2006

There are some bracket-management programs out there - you just plug in all the names of the players, and it will set up the charts for you, complete with byes etc. I'd look into getting one of these, if you've got a computer on-site or can bring a laptop to the site.

One place I play at even had a projector and a screen set up, hooked to the video-out on the laptop, so you could just walk over nearby and see what was what. Unfortunately (as far as this goes), they run bracket tournaments (APA 2/3, 4/5, 6/7, three different groups all at once) so you could only see one chart at a time on the projector screen.

RSB-Refugee · Feb 26, 2006

ScottW said:
There are some bracket-management programs out there - you just plug in all the names of the players, and it will set up the charts for you, complete with byes etc. I'd look into getting one of these, if you've got a computer on-site or can bring a laptop to the site.

One place I play at even had a projector and a screen set up, hooked to the video-out on the laptop, so you could just walk over nearby and see what was what. Unfortunately (as far as this goes), they run bracket tournaments (APA 2/3, 4/5, 6/7, three different groups all at once) so you could only see one chart at a time on the projector screen.

I like the projector idea, it would definitely give the person running the charts, a little breathing room.

Tracy

Tbeaux · Feb 26, 2006

Here ya go......bye sheets- http://www.cuetimes.com/ByeChartHelp.htm

Terry

TX Poolnut · Feb 26, 2006

From Jack Kohler's The Science of Pocket Billiards:

The proper suggested bye order for an 8 position tourney is:
8-1-5.

The proper suggested bye order for a 16 position tourney is:
16-1-9-8-13-5-12.

The proper suggested bye order for a 32 position tourney is:
32-16-17-1-25-9-24-8-29-13-21-5-20-4-28.

Do not ever randomly assign byes.

Ballou · Feb 26, 2006

RSB-Refugee said:
I found this website. Have any of you tried these? I know excel sheets with macros, can contain viruses. I am wondering, if anyone can vouch for them.

Tracy

i tried to download and i was not able to, the PDF version does download just fine though. if you can get the excel to download, just scan it for virus first and if all is OK they should be just fine

RSB-Refugee · Feb 26, 2006

TX Poolnut said:
From Jack Kohler's The Science of Pocket Billiards:

The proper suggested bye order for a 16 position tourney is:
16-1-9-8-13-5-12.

Do not ever randomly assign byes.

I have made an Excel chart, that is semi-automatic. The byes are placed according to Jack Kohler's suggestion, mentioned above. Check it out, if you like it, feel free to use it. If you think you can make it better, PM me and I'll send you the protection password. If you do make improvements to it, please reciprocate by freely sharing them.

Thanks,
Tracy

P.S. OK, I just tried to attach the Excel sheet. This site does not allow .xls uploading. If someone could host this file, I'd appreciate it.

RSB-Refugee · Feb 26, 2006

RSB-Refugee said:
P.S. OK, I just tried to attach the Excel sheet. This site does not allow .xls uploading. If someone could host this file, I'd appreciate it.

I can email it, if anyone is interested. PM your email address to me, if you would like to try it out.

Tracy

Cornerman · Feb 27, 2006

RSB-Refugee said:
I suggested to put all sixteen chips into the jug and everyone draw one, any chip not drawn could be a bye. We tried this and the byes were not spread out among the brackets very evenly.

How are the byes, figured properly. Is there an excel sheet with macros that will do it automatically? If there is such a thing, I would take my laptop next time.

Thanks,
Tracy

P.S. This experience has given me, an even greater appreciation of the excellent job, that professional tournament directors do.

Tracy, Tracy, Tracy. LOL!!!

Okay, I put together a bye chart. Actually, it's not mine, as I took it from other people. LOL!!!! But, this is going to help. Get the appropriate chart. You can still download them at

Playpool.Com Scoresheet Download Page

Open my PDF attachment. Find the column for the number of players. 9 Players is in the 16-player chart. Fill in a bye for every 'B' in the column. Draw chips for the rest of the chart.

Fred

BlackDragon · Feb 28, 2006

" player #9 had byes all the way through to the fourth round. This did not sit well with anyone, myself included"

Did player #9 think he had just made the nine ball?
Surely he was happy with the draw.
Thems the breaks.

Cory in DC · Feb 28, 2006

For 8-16 players, take a 16 player bracket and number the 16 lines from top to bottom as follows (you'll see the pattern after you're done):

1,9,2,13,3,11,4,15,5,10,6,14,7,12,8,16

Say you have 13 players. Take markers labeled 1-13, put them in a hat, have the players draw numbers, and put them in the spots they draw. The byes will be evenly spaced.

One advantage of this system is that if a 14th player arrives late (assuming you let late players in, which causes its own problems) then you can put him into spot 14 and the byes will remain balanced out. If a 15th player arrives, put him in spot 15,...

Cory

steev · Feb 28, 2006

what cory said ^

when the #'s run in order on the bracket, you have to use _logic_ to place the byes. use cory's pattern to re-number the slots. picture the seeds in the NCAA basketball bracket, it's the same concept.

/hates unbalanced brackets

-s

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