How to run a tournament?

TheNewSharkster

TheNewSharkster

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I was given permission to put on a tournament at a local bar. This will be my first one. Nothing big but I want to make sure everything goes smoothly. I know the rules of the game up and down. What I don't know is how to do the brackets (can this be downloaded?). How to determine a bye. How to determine the match ups for the first round.

I was thinking of double elimination so I will have a losers bracket. Can someone point me in the right direction on how to learn this?
 
The most important thing about running tournaments is to know how to insert the byes correctly. If your brackets are screwed, the whole tourney is screwed.
 
Sharkster, where is the tourney? I can help out if it fits in my schedule. I have 2 years experience with bar tourneys, and all the brackets and info you need. I will PM you my cell # if you are interested.

-AJ
 
download and print out charts here http://www.playpool.com/downloads/ .

If you have bye's spread them out evenly on the chart before the draw.

For the first round draw , I simply use playing cards, take each players name and assign a card to each player and write them down on paper, take out the extra cards, shuffle the cards and fill in the flow chart as you draw cards.
 
selftaut said:
download and print out charts here http://www.playpool.com/downloads/ .

If you have bye's spread them out evenly on the chart before the draw.

For the first round draw , I simply use playing cards, take each players name and assign a card to each player and write them down on paper, take out the extra cards, shuffle the cards and fill in the flow chart as you draw cards.
Click to expand...


I do have a question. The site you linked has brackets for 8, 16, 32, 64 etc. If I had 10 people signed up to play that is too many for the 8 person bracket. Would I do a 16 player bracket and have 6 bye's?
 
TheNewSharkster said:
Would I do a 16 player bracket and have 6 bye's?
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Yes, and have 3 byes up top and 3 on the bottom....

Even spacing on bye's is without a doubt the most important thing.
 
TheNewSharkster said:
I do have a question. The site you linked has brackets for 8, 16, 32, 64 etc. If I had 10 people signed up to play that is too many for the 8 person bracket. Would I do a 16 player bracket and have 6 bye's?
Click to expand...

Yes, you would have to go to a 16 chart and set 6 bye's in before the draw, set the bye's evenly as best you can down the chart.

Same thing if you had 18 players, you would have to go to a 32 chart and set in 14 bye's.

The bye's would go to the loosers side automatically and some of the first round loosers will run into a bye right away in the loosers side. After that first round on the loosers side all the bye's will be gone most the time, but sometimes there are so many bye's that they run into each other on the loosers side and the bye's aren't all eliminated until the second round on the loosers side, such as if you had 33 players and have to use a 64 chart, then there are 31 bye's and they will meet each other on the loosers side for a couple rounds.
 
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TheNewSharkster said:
I was given permission to put on a tournament at a local bar. This will be my first one. Nothing big but I want to make sure everything goes smoothly. I know the rules of the game up and down. What I don't know is how to do the brackets (can this be downloaded?). How to determine a bye. How to determine the match ups for the first round.

I was thinking of double elimination so I will have a losers bracket. Can someone point me in the right direction on how to learn this?
Click to expand...
I don't know if you still can, but at one time you could go to playpool.com and download {Free for limited time} Pool Tournament manager. This did the byes, assigned tables, called matches, and the advances for you. I think it went to 64 players. It makes things pretty much a no brainer.
 
Random drawing is the only way to go, unless you are selling tickets for some hot final matches, then you may want to do some seeding.

If you ever run a calcutta, don't do what a director did last weekend. He spread out the top players and gave them the byes (they deserve it more?) and the entire bracket was drawn out the night before. He did not reveil it until after the auction. Several of the seeded players did not show, so were just erased, which left a messed up bracket.

Stay away from handicaps too.
 
Tourny Mgr

I have been using www.ingenlab.com software for several years. It's the nuts.

I am currently testing a Beta version that will run a 128 bracket.

Check it out for 5 free tournaments at the address above.

The full version is only $40.

Ray
 
I run tournaments every Saturday with ingen pool software. Like Bigtruck says you get the first 5 for free and its EASY. have fun
 
Attached is the bracket I used to run tournaments with 8-24 players. Take whatever number of players who sign up and draw slots from 1 to that number. Assign players to the numbers slots in the brackets and the byes will space out correctly.

Ex. If you have 12 players, then have them draw numbers 1-12. Even better, draw them yourself because it's impossible to get everyone to come draw their numbers. Let people watch or someone will cry. In any case, looking at the attached bracket, players that draw 1-8 get byes and players that draw 9-12 are spaced appropriately.

Once you understand the numbering, you can adapt the system to any size tournament.

Cory
 

Attachments

Tournament

If this will be ongoing and you have a laptop computer available to you, then I agree Ingen 2.3 software is the way to go, and it handles up to 64 players.
$40 to buy this software is a steal for anyone going to run tournaments on an ongoing basis. Don't forget 5 free tournaments before you have to buy it or not.

Tournament manager 1.0 is no longer available, and it only handled up to 32 players.
 
Snapshot9 said:
If this will be ongoing and you have a laptop computer available to you, then I agree Ingen 2.3 software is the way to go, and it handles up to 64 players.
$40 to buy this software is a steal for anyone going to run tournaments on an ongoing basis. Don't forget 5 free tournaments before you have to buy it or not.

Tournament manager 1.0 is no longer available, and it only handled up to 32 players.
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I have used Ingen, as well as NOHO Tournament Manager. Both are good programs, however Ingen doesn't support anything over a 64 player field (at least i couldn't find it). They are both reasonably priced and easy to use.

Dennis
 
Bigtruck said:
I have been using www.ingenlab.com software for several years. It's the nuts.

I am currently testing a Beta version that will run a 128 bracket.

Check it out for 5 free tournaments at the address above.

The full version is only $40.

Ray
Click to expand...
Bigtruck,

How is that newer version you are using? Personally, I like ingenlab better than the NOHO tournament manager. It seems to have a lot of additional perks added. I had the 2.3 version; however, it wouldn's support 128 players, so i had to switch to the NOHO.

Dennis
 
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