Mark Anthony A. de Guzman BsEd Mapeh 3-D

There are quite a few different ways to run tournaments, but there are about 6 formats that are far

more popular than the rest. If you read on, there is a brief description of each tournament type.

By clicking on the link to that particular format you will get a complete explanation along with

printable brackets for each format.

Single Elimination Tournament

The single elimination format is by far the easiest to organize. The name says it all, if a team

loses one time they are out of the tournament. This type of tournament works best if you have a

large number of teams and a short time frame. Single elimination tournaments don't work well

for "matches" that are very short in time. For example an Arm Wrestling Tournament, where a

match takes just a few seconds. If participants are traveling to enter the tournament, they would

like to be around for more than 3 seconds. So you would be better of using one of the other

formats listed below.

Double Elimination Tournament

The double elimination tournament is my favorite format, and along with single elimination is

the most popular. To be eliminated from this type of tourney, a team or player must lose two

times. There is a winner's bracket and a loser's bracket, everyone starts in the winner's bracket.

Upon defeat they will move to the loser's bracket where they will battle their way to play in the

championship match, which they must defeat the winner's bracket champion twice.

Triple Elimination Tournament

Not quite as popular as the Single and the Double, the triple elimination format is good to add to

you arsenal if you are looking to add a few extra matches for the participants. Just as with the

other two, Triple Elimination simply means that a team or player needs to lose 3 times in order to

be eliminated from the tournament. When a team loses in the winner's bracket they will drop to

loser's Bracket 1, when they lose there they will drop to loser's bracket 2. If beaten in loser's

bracket 2 they are eliminated from the tournament.

Round Robin

The Round Robin Tournament is fairly popular and simply means that every team will play

every other team in the tournament one time. This allows for a wide variety of opponents, and as

opposed to an elimination tournament the teams can see how they match up with all teams.

Based on the number of participants, the round robin format can be broken up into "pools". A

pool is a group of teams that will play round robin and the winner of each pool will usually face

off in a championship tournament. Example: A normal 24 team Round Robin Tournament would

have 276 games, so the ideal way to run this would be to break it up into 6 Pools of 4 teams

which would have 36 total games. You could then take the 6 winners from each pool and have a

single elimination tournament to decide the overall championship.

3 Game Guarantee Tournament

The 3 Game Guarantee format is popular in the Softball world as it allows teams traveling from

far distances to be assured they are getting in enough games to make it worth their time and

money. Each team will play a minimum of 3 games, the format is similar to double elimination.

There is a winner's bracket and a loser's bracket, the main difference being teams that lose their

first two games will get to play an extra game in the loser's bracket in order to assure everyone

gets to play at least 3 games.

Consolation Tournaments

Last, but not least, is the consolation tournament, which is popular in the wrestling world. There

are quite a few variations to the consolation brackets, but the basic idea behind them is the same.

When a team wins in the first round they move/stay in the winner's bracket for the duration of

the tournament and will be playing for the overall championship. When a team loses in the first

round they will be moved to the Consolation Bracket where they will have no chance of winning

the tournament, but instead be competing for the consolation championship. Some Consolation

Brackets will also have the losers of later rounds of the winner's bracket drop down to the

consolation bracket to compete for the consolation championship. Check out our printable

Extended Tournaments

This is the most popular form of an extended tournament. It is best with pairs or individual

entries, such as racket sports. Ladders can be created by ability grouping (Beginning,

Intermediate or Advanced). Players challenge the person or team above them on the ladder. If the

challenger wins they exchange places with the loser of the game. If the challenged player wins

they stay where they are on the ladder. Set a time limit for challenging, usually one week is fine.

If a player does not challenge within that time period they move down the ladder. Also, do not

allow players to play the same person or team twice in a row.