On the second day, the top four teams in each pool play an eight-team single elimination. (Note, the brackets and the initial pairings for the single elimination is the same as the upper half of the 8-team double elimination format, see Table 8.1.1).
Note, it is not acceptable to take only the top two teams from each pool and have semi's and finals, because of the possibility of a three-way tie for first in one of the pools.
On the second day, the top team in each pool play each other. The winner takes first place. The loser still has another game to play. The second and third teams in each pool play a four-team loser's bracket; i.e., a semis and a final. This takes two rounds. The winner of this bracket, then, plays the loser of the game for first place. The winner of this game takes second place. The brackets for this second day are shown in Table 6.5).
Start with two pools of five (see Section 10.7).
On the second day, the top four teams in each pool play an eight-team double elimination. (See Table 8.1.1).
This involves an awful lot of games for some of the teams. It is possible that one or two teams will play five games the second day. Note, too, that one of the pools will have played four games on the first day. (In women's play, the first round of the double elimination could be an abbreviated game to 11, (since no one gets eliminated after only one game). Otherwise, all of the games should be to 13 (except for the winner's bracket final, which is to 15).
On the second day, the top three teams in each pools play a six-team modified double elimination (see Table 6.4).
On the second day, the top four teams in each pool play an eight-team double elimination. (See Table 8.1.1).
This involves an awful lot of games for some of the teams. It is possible that one or two teams will play five games the second day. Note, too, that everyone will have played four games on the first day. In women's play, the first round of the double elimination could be an abbreviated game to 11, (since no one gets eliminated after only one game). Otherwise, all of the games should be to 13 (except for the winner's bracket final, which is to 15).
To ease things, you should consider eliminating the very last round of the double elimination. The last round is for second and third place, which may not be very relevant if four or more teams are qualifying anyway. If this game is not played, use the tie-breakers for double elimination (Section 2.6). In the Mid-Atlantic, a format similar to this was used, and this game was optional. (i.e., The team that wanted to play was given third place; if both wanted to, they played; if neither wanted too, or it was too late, we used the tie-breakers.)
Start with two pools of five (see Section 10.7).
When the round-robin is finished, the top three teams in each pool each play the three teams from the other pool. When this is done, each of the six teams will have played each of the other teams, and it is as if a round-robin has just been played. In other words, count the records of the teams from the first round-robin.
Some people are resistant to this idea because there is no "finals." But that problem can be avoided by scheduling the two top teams for the last round. As a matter of fact, the last round is pretty exciting for all of those concerned; furthermore, it is quite likely that the third and fourth best teams get to play each other for third place, and the fifth and sixth best teams play each other for fifth place, all in the last round.
Here is a complete example. Suppose that when the round-robin is over, the teams' records are as follows:
Pool X Pool Y
A 4-0 P 4-0
B 3-1 Q 3-1
C 2-2 R 2-2
D 1-3 S 1-3
E 0-4 T 0-4
Further, suppose that each team beat all the teams below it. Then, the
second day's schedule would be:
Round 1: A vs R P vs B Q vs C
Round 2: A vs Q B vs R P vs C
Round 3: A vs P B vs Q C vs R
The key is that A and P start off this round-robin with a 2-0 record
(i.e., A's previous round-robin games against B and C "carry over" into
this round-robin). Teams B and Q are 1-1, etc.
To make the schedule more generalized, you would write it up as:
Round 1: X1-Y3 X2-Y1 X3-Y2
Round 2: X1-Y2 X2-Y3 X3-Y1
Round 3: X1-Y1 X2-Y2 X3-Y3
When the round-robin is finished, the top four teams in each pool play an eight-team modified elimination, (see Table 8.1.2).
When the round-robin is finished, the top four teams in each pool play an eight-team double elimination, (see Table 8.1.1). that you might consider that the last round of the elimination not be played. This option is described more fully in Section 10.4.1.
When the round-robin is finished, all ten teams enter the ten-team modified elimination format (see Table 10.2).
The ten-team modified elimination is a good example of a format designed to minimize the effects of seeding. For example, a team that finishes second in their pool can still finish in seventh place. Similarly, a team that finishes fifth in their pool, can still finish as high as sixth place. In other words, if, mistakenly, most of the good teams were in one pool, this elimination bracket ought to take care of it.
Pool A: Pool B:
Seed #1 Seed #2
Seed #4 Seed #3
Seed #5 Seed #6
Seed #8 Seed #7
Seed #9 Seed #10
The round-robin for each pool will take five rounds (four games and a bye).
A schedule for a five-team round-robin may be found in Table 5.1.1).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
- - - - - - - - -
1 - 9 2 5 8 10 4 7 3 6
2 - 8 1 4 7 3 6 9 10 5
3 - 7 10 6 9 2 5 8 1 4
4 - 6 9 2 5 8 1 10 7 3
5 - 10 8 1 4 7 3 6 9 2
6 - 4 7 3 10 9 2 5 8 1
7 - 3 6 9 2 5 8 1 4 10
8 - 2 5 10 1 4 7 3 6 9
9 - 1 4 7 3 6 10 2 5 8
10 - 5 3 8 6 1 9 4 2 7
1 v 2 3 v 10 4 v 9 5 v 8 6 v 7
1 v 5 2 v 4 3 v 6 7 v 9 8 v 10
1 v 8 2 v 7 3 v 9 4 v 5 6 v 10
1 v 10 2 v 3 4 v 8 5 v 7 6 v 9
1 v 4 2 v 6 3 v 5 7 v 8 9 v 10
1 v 7 2 v 9 3 v 8 4 v 10 5 v 6
1 v 3 2 v 10 4 v 7 5 v 9 6 v 8
1 v 6 2 v 5 3 v 4 7 v 10 8 v 9
1 v 9 2 v 8 3 v 7 4 v 6 5 v 10
A1 -----
E ----- 1st place
B1 -----
LE -----_
A2 ----- _
A ----- J _______ winner J: 2d place
B3 ----- _ _ loser J: 3d place
F -----
A3 ----- _
B -----
B2 -----
LF -----_
K _ ______ winner K: 4th place
LA ----- _ loser K: 5th place
G -----_
LB -----
LG -----_
A4 ----- _
C ----- M _ _______ winner M: 6th place
B5 ----- - _ loser M: 7th place
H -----
A5 ----- _
D -----
B4 -----
LH -----_
N ________ winner N: 8th place
LC ----- _ loser N: 9th place
I -----
LD -----