The PAO 2017 Tournament survey results were published recently. The number one reason participants were dissatisfied was the Consolation format of play. So what are the alternatives? The answer is Round Robin or Double Elimination.

Round Robin is the most popular and is used in all major sport events in the world. The world championships of badminton, basketball, volleyball, soccer, hockey and many others use the Round Robin tournament format.

The Double Elimination format is popular lately with the USAPA.

So which one should we use for our Ontario tournaments?

I participated in all major Ontario tournaments in 2017. Most tournaments used the Round Robin format. Double Elimination was used for the open divisions in Kingston, Hamilton and London. I want to share my observations with you. They may sound one-sided, but they are based on facts not personal opinion.

Negative aspects of the Double Elimination format:

• You can be out after playing 2 games only. The Round Robin format guarantees a minimum 4 or 5 games in the group stage.
• Often a team gets a 'bye' in the first round. In a Round Robin no one gets a "free ride" and all teams in the group play an equal number of games.
• The better teams play less games than the weaker teams. In a Round Robin, it is the opposite since the better teams advance to the semis and then to the medal round games and play more games which is more logical.
• If you lose in the earlier rounds you play back-to-back games. But at the same time, the teams from the winners bracket are waiting too long to play.
• The losers bracket fills up with new losers after each round and tournament does not move proportionally forward as in the Round Robin format.
• The tournament often gets "stuck". In some portion of the losers bracket, certain pairings are usually undecided which leads to 1, 2, or even 3 teams waiting to play. I saw several times in all three tournaments many empty courts, which leads to a waste of tournament time.
• Teams that met in the winners bracket often have to play again in the losers bracket. This can happen also in the Round Robin format, but this rarely occurs and only during the medal games.
• The tournament organizers can prepare the game-sheets for the first round only and then have to wait for each game to finish in order to enter the names and print the new game-sheet for each next game. In a Round Robin it’s possible to print all group games and put them in order of play. Even the playoffs can be prepared as A1- B2 ; A2- B1.
• If the winner of the losers bracket beats the winner of the winners bracket in the last game (gold medal game) he has to play and beat him a second time in order to win the gold medal. This "Double Final" is really ridiculous. Yes, the tournament is called "Double Elimination", but the loser of the last game is not "eliminated" as he gets a silver medal.

I personally got a better experience with the Round Robin format as it's more simple and straight-forward. A good example was the South Central OSGA tournament. They had a complete schedule posted with all the info that makes a tournament successful (Who, When, Where):

1. Who do you play
2. What time do you play
3. On which court do you play

In my opinion, Double Elimination is complicated and takes more time to complete.

I am going to leave the final verdict to the players who took part in these tournaments and to the organizers who put in endless hours of work, giving us the opportunity to compete in the sport we love.

Petio Zahariev
PAO #1211