Hosting tournament with odd number of players

[SphericalCrusher]

I am starting up the Smash scene in Rome GA by hosting a big tournament at one of our local skate shops. We have over 20 registered players right now, so it's probably going to be somewhere between 24-30 total. I've got everything plugged into Challonge.com atm. What I am confused about, is how does the whole odd numbers system work? At the moment, I don't know how many people will be there. I've put 24 people into Challonge.com/skatelifesmashtourney and it looks like some people will get to sit out a round or something? How do most smash tournies usually handle odd numbers of people? Eliminations to get into the tournament? Or?

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[shairn]

Ideally, a bracket is made up of a number of people equal to a power of 2.
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. Unfortunately, It's kinda hard to have that exact number of people, and limiting the amount of entrants is a terrible way to go about building a bracket. Thankfully, organisers have solved that issue a long time ago with a system of byes. Essentially, when the amount of entrants isn't a power of two, the amount of people who skip the first round is equal to the next power of two minus the number of entrants. For example, if I have 24 entrants, the next power of two is 32. So the amount of people who have byes is 32 - 24 = 8. These 8 people will skip straight to round 2.

Note that byes often make for weird situations, especially when you have only one or two people more than a power of two. For example, if a 65 man bracket, there's 63 byes. The people who get byes are decided on the seed you gave them, with higher seeds(lower number) having the priority. Make sure you seed your entrants to the best of your ability.

 

[Shikenshu]

If you have time, you should do pools. For players, it's better cause they play more sets and you have "power" over the number of players that advance in the bracket, so you're sure to have a number of players that fits a bracket.

 

[SphericalCrusher]

I did byes for the tournament. It was yesterday. It went really well. I'm going to explore different options next time I host one. It was nice though, had over 30 people show up.