What is the best bracket system to use for tournament hosting?

[MasterChef]

I have always followed a double elimination b-of-3 bracket system, and am wondering if this is the best type of bracket system to use?

Some things to consider for my hosted tournaments are that:
a. generally 30-40 people are showing up to play
b. we usually have 4-6 stations at each tournament
c. we have ample space

My concerns are keeping players around after they fall out of the brackets.
Some suggestions I have been musing are:
- increasing the amount of stations
- having door prizes half-way through the tournament
- side events

I'm not sure that these are the greatest ideas. How do other hosts keep players around to add to the atmosphere? My last tournament we had maybe 6 people stay for the finals, which never really added to what I think finals should be... a room full of players cheering on the finalists! Well, maybe I'm being optimistic. Thoughts?

MasterChef

 

[pockyD]

you shouldn't gimmick people into staying

 

[MasterChef]

Q.Q

Any helpful or non-derogatory comments?

 

[Deleted member]

have an opening pools round of 4-6 players per pool, of which only 2 advance. make your brackets from there. this lets everyone play more and makes for a more balanced bracket.

 

[pockyD]

Q.Q

Any helpful or non-derogatory comments?

it wasn't derogatory. raffles are a bad idea

 

[MasterChef]

have an opening pools round of 4-6 players per pool, of which only 2 advance. make your brackets from there. this lets everyone play more and makes for a more balanced bracket.

I like this idea. Is there anywhere that I can read up on the specifics of "pool" brackets? I'm thinking you mean something like with a 40 player tournament to have 8 groups of 5 play in a pool, but I'm not sure how it is organized bracket-wise or how many games they all play. If only two people make it per pool wouldn't that reduce the amount of play-time other people have? I only ask these questions because I'm interested and am unsure of most of the basics. Google hasn't helped me out much in deciphering "pool brackets" either.

 

[pockyD]

small groups of players. usually a power of 2 number of groups (2, 4, 8, 16, etc.)

each group is played out as a round robin... rankings and ties can be resolved however you want (games won, games lost, sets won, etc.). Top X players advance from pools into a bracket as seeds

i believe TIO will seed the bracket from pools for you, but essentially, a pool's top seed should play another pool's bottom seed 1st round, 2nd seed plays 2nd from bottom seed, etc. If you want to give top seeds byes, that happens too

the amount of play-time other players get is not reduced at all, because they are guaranteed their pool matches. For example, say you do 4man pools (which is ridiculously small btw; standard is around 6-8). each player is already guaranteed 3 sets, whereas if you did a straight double elim bracket, whoever loses their first two matches never even gets a 3rd set

pools are great, but i'm not sure how they'd solve your problem of people not wanting to stay to the end

 

[Foxy]

pools are fantastic. the only issue is time concerns, it can take a while if you're low on setups.

but if you want to try something, do pools, it gives everyone a bunch of tournament matches they get to play guaranteed and it helps seed better. just use TIO to organize them.

i would suggest against trying to make everyone stay, and with pools they should be there for a majority of the time anyways. if people have other things they want to do, they should be able to go. HOWEVER, easily the best and most fun way to keep people there is to have plenty of open televisions for friendlies. after pools, people who got knocked out with probably still be pumped and warmed up and will want to take advantage of the opportunity to practice against a slew of great players.

finally, take a look at the tournament mechanics thread: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=124132

it briefly mentions pools, and everything else in it should be very helpful and make more sense regarding everything that interacts with pools.

obviously go get TIO if you don't use it already.

 

[MasterChef]

Ah, I appreciate your help. That thread was worth the read. I, of course, agree that keeping players is wrong, and really only wish to improve the entertainment of the tournament so players can have as much fun playing as possible, which does mean keeping a fair and efficient tournament.

In looking at the "pooling" system, it seems that the entire process can be fairly lengthy. If I have 40 players and divide them into eight pools of five, each player will play in b-of-3; therefore, playing at least 10 times before being placed into the double elimination bracket. That seems like a lot of time to devote to natural selection seeding... I may be missing something here, though. In fact, I know I am. Can someone enlighten me to this concept a bit more?

 

[DtJ Jungle]

arent there programs you can use for bracketing? so if you have a comp you can just enter **** there?

 

[shaSLAM]

to get people to stay longer simply have more stations or have smash64 set up or melee. :]
melee will make most people never leave. :]

but nothing thats not oriented with smash or video games... like raffles and stuff. that makes it seem like a not so tourney enviroment.
but just let people bring other 64 games if they want too.
but more stations is a necessary.

 

[Supernova757]

I would definetly go with double elimination because sometime players have bad games. So, if they do, they can still make a come back and win!