Tournaments¶

A tournament is a one-off event with a bracket, groups or Swiss rounds. It can stand alone or contribute points to a ranking series.

Create a tournament¶

Club admin → Ranking → Create tournament.

Formats¶

Single elimination¶

Lose once, you're out. Simple and fast.

• Best for: short events, large fields, time-boxed tournaments.
• Rounds: ceil(log₂(N)).
• Byes are added automatically when the field is not a power of 2.

Double elimination¶

Lose once, you drop to the losers' bracket. Lose twice, you're out.

• Best for: weekend events where players travelled.
• Fairer — a bad draw in round 1 doesn't end your day.
• Grand final: winners' bracket finalist has a one-loss advantage (bracket reset optional).

Kratzer¶

A chess-ladder style format popular in German pub-dart leagues. Players can challenge higher-ranked opponents within rules you define.

• Best for: in-season club ladders that evolve over weeks.
• Challenge window and position change rules are configurable.

Swiss system¶

Every player plays a fixed number of rounds against opponents on the same score. No elimination — everyone plays every round.

• Best for: medium-size fields, ranking series, fair points distribution.
• Rounds: typically ceil(log₂(N)) or user-specified.
• Tiebreakers: Buchholz, Sonneborn-Berger, or match-play points — configurable.

Groups + knockout¶

Round-robin groups, top N advance to a knockout bracket.

• Best for: larger fields with a guaranteed-games phase followed by elimination drama.
• Group size and advancing count per group are configurable.
• Knockout phase uses the single-elim rules above.

Seeding¶

Walkovers & forfeits¶

If a player doesn't show, the admin can mark a walkover from the match card. The bye propagates to the next round automatically. Walkovers do not count as wins in ELO but do count for progression.

After the tournament¶

• Final standings are locked in.
• Points flow into the linked ranking series (if any).
• Ranked tournaments contribute to the Global leaderboard.

Worked example: Friday Night 32 — 32-player Swiss¶

Scenario: a monthly 32-player open event in the Berlin Darts Club that contributes points to the Club Championship 2026 series.

Create the tournament¶

1. Club admin → Ranking → Create tournament.
2. Fill in:
   • Name: Friday Night 32 — May 2026
   • Start date: 2026-05-01 19:00
   • Format: Swiss
   • Rounds: 5 (ceil(log₂(32)) = 5)
   • Series: link to Club Championship 2026
   • Max participants: 32
   • Game settings: 501 / Double out, best of 5 legs per match
   • Seeding: By ELO (uses global leaderboard ELO on bracket generation)
   • Require verified players: on
   • Is ranked: on
3. Save. Tournament is now in registration_open.

Registration phase¶

• Players register from the tournament page.
• If the cap fills before the event, the rest go to a waitlist.
• 24 h before start, the admin hits Close registration → the round-1 pairings are generated by seeded Swiss.

Auto-close registration¶

When creating or editing a tournament you can set a Registration closes at date/time. Together with the Auto-publish bracket when registration closes switch (on by default), this lets you fully automate the cut-off:

• Once the deadline passes, the background scheduler (runs once a minute) flips RegistrationOpen = 0.
• If the auto-publish switch is on, the bracket is generated immediately using the standard seeding rules — no admin click required.
• If you turn the switch off, the system only closes registration; an admin still has to press Generate bracket when ready.

Set the deadline a few hours (or a day) before Starts at to give yourself a buffer to nudge stragglers.

Running the rounds¶

• Each round shows all pairings. Players play on AutoDarts; matches are auto-matched back to the pairing slot.
• Admins see a big Advance to next round button once all round-N matches are completed. Swiss pairings for round N+1 are generated automatically (no repeat pairings unless forced).
• Walkovers: use the match-card Mark walkover action — the opponent gets a win and the bye propagates correctly.

Finalising¶

1. After round 5, click Finalise tournament.
2. Final standings are sorted by match-points, then Buchholz, then Sonneborn-Berger (the defaults you picked under Tiebreakers).
3. Points are posted to Club Championship 2026 according to that series' points scale.
4. Every ranked match feeds the global leaderboard ELO.

Shortcut for smaller events: pick Single elimination with 16 or fewer players and skip the Swiss pairing logic entirely.