Group elimination

Group elimination brackets are a popular way to organize tournament playoffs. Players are placed into four-player groups using a seeding method (typically manual seeding). The first and second finishers advance in the bracket, while third and fourth place are eliminated.

Typically, players will play three or four matches each round. This mimics the popular playoff formats known from PAPA, Pinburgh and other large pinball tournaments. In those cases, players accumulate points in each match. After all matches have been completed, the first and second finishers advance. Tournament organizers have access to several different scoring options (see below).

At the beginning of each round, players are re-seeded using the original seed in the tournament. This gives a significant advantage to players with a good initial seeding.

When players are eliminated from the bracket, their final standing in the tournament is determined by the amount of points earned in the round they were eliminated.

Multi-match play

Group elimination brackets can also be used for multi-match play tournaments in which four players play four machines simultaneously. The only thing to note is that Match Play will keep the same player order for all four matches, so extra care must be taken when recording results.

Configuration options

See also: Common configuration options.

Bracket size

Determines the size of the bracket that will be built. Regular brackets for 4/8/16/32/64/128 players are available as well as special brackets for 12 players (top four players received a bye), 24 players (top eight players receive a bye) and 28 players (top four players receive a bye). There is also a special setting for 40 players to mimics the format used in the Stern Pro Circuit finals (this is limited to two rounds). You must have the exact number of players in your tournament to match the bracket size. Create "dummy" players to fill out the field if you don't have enough actual players.

Double byes

Single byes and double byes are always created for some bracket sizes (12 players, 20 players, 24 players and 40 players). Specifically for 8-player and 32-player brackets this setting determines how to assign byes.

The default is to play a straight bracket without any byes. If you wish to assign byes to the top seeds set Double byes to Yes. This will assign the following byes:

8-player bracket: Double byes for seeds 1-2; single bye for seeds 3-4. 32-player bracket: Double byes for seeds 1-8; single bye for seeds 9-16.