Three pools of four can be difficult because whenever there is a round-robin pool, you must allow for the possibility of a three-way tie for first. The only way to allow for that is to take the top three from each pool, and then to have them play-off. But here, taking the top three would leave you with nine teams. Generally speaking, three pools of four is not the way to go, except for certain situations, detailed below.
The preferred method, therefore, for all variations of a twelve team tournament is to start off with two pools of six.
A round-robin of six teams must be spread out over two days. Play four rounds the first day, and the fifth game as the first round on the second day. Because no team has a bye during the round-robin, no team has an unfair advantage for the games that follow the round-robin. For some of the formats, where there are lots of games, you might consider making the round-robin games to 13.
Commonly, tournament schedulers like to pit the top two seeds against each other during the last round of a round-robin. This is not a good idea, however, when the round-robin is spread over two days because then the top two seeds might be playing each other twice on the second day. Make sure that these two teams play each other on the first day.
When the round-robin is finished, 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.
Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).
When the round-robin is finished, 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.
When the round-robin is finished, the top three teams in each pools play a six-team modified double elimination (see Table 6.4).
Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).
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; as a matter of fact, 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 gplay each other for fifth place, all in the last round.
A complete example exists at Section 12.8.
When the round-robin is finished, the top three teams in each pools play a six-team modified double elimination (see Table 6.4).
A complete example exists at Section 12.8.
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), except that the last round of the elimination should not be played. This option is described more fully in Section 10.4.1.
When the round-robin is finished, the top five teams in each pool 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
Seed #12 Seed #11
The round-robin for each pool will take five rounds. A schedule for a
six-team round-robin may be found in Table 6.1.
Start Cap
10:00 11:40 A1-A5 A2-A4 A3-A6 (pool B is the same)
12:00 1:40 A1-A4 A2-A3 A5-A6
2:00 3:40 A1-A6 A2-A5 A3-A4
4:00 5:40 A1-A2 A3-A5 A4-A6
(Sunday)
9:00 10:40 A1-A3 A2-A6 A4-A5
The order of the games in this format was given a lot of thought. Here are
some of the factors:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
- - - - - - - - - -- --
1 - 11 4 9 2 7 5 10 3 8 12 6
2 - 10 3 8 1 6 11 4 9 12 7 5
3 - 9 2 7 5 10 12 8 1 6 11 4
4 - 8 1 6 11 12 9 2 7 5 10 3
5 - 7 12 10 3 8 1 6 11 4 9 2
6 - 12 11 4 9 2 7 5 10 3 8 1
7 - 5 10 3 8 1 6 11 4 9 2 12
8 - 4 9 2 7 5 10 3 12 1 6 11
9 - 3 8 1 6 11 4 12 2 7 5 10
10 - 2 7 5 12 3 8 1 6 11 4 9
11 - 1 6 12 4 9 2 7 5 10 3 8
12 - 6 5 11 10 4 3 9 8 2 1 7
1 v 4 2 v 3 5 v 12 6 v 11 7 v 10 8 v 9
1 v 9 2 v 8 3 v 7 4 v 6 5 v 10 11 v 12
1 v 2 3 v 5 4 v 11 6 v 9 7 v 8 10 v 12
1 v 7 2 v 6 3 v 10 4 v 12 5 v 8 9 v 11
1 v 5 2 v 11 3 v 12 4 v 9 6 v 7 8 v 10
1 v 10 2 v 4 3 v 8 5 v 6 7 v 11 9 v 12
1 v 3 2 v 9 4 v 7 5 v 11 6 v 10 8 v 12
1 v 8 2 v 12 3 v 6 4 v 5 7 v 9 10 v 11
1 v 12 2 v 7 3 v 11 4 v 10 5 v 9 6 v 8
1 v 6 2 v 5 3 v 4 7 v 12 8 v 11 9 v 10
1 v 11 2 v 10 3 v 9 4 v 8 5 v 7 6 v 12