HOW TOURNAMENTS ARE RUN
Tournaments progress in two stages:
- POOL PLAY, usually played over two days. These games are effectively 'mini-tournaments' played prior to the bracket play stage.
- BRACKET PLAY, usually played in one day, the final day of the tournament. This stage can be extended over 1-1/2 to 2 days in 'double elimination' tournaments.
POOL PLAY
Before the tournament starts teams are divided into 'Pools'. Each team in a pool plays all the other teams in their assigned pool in a rotation. The purpose is to establish a 'seeding' or rank within the pool based on the win/loss records. In the case of tied win/loss records the ties are broken through 1) head-to-head pool play, 2) runs allowed, 3) runs scored, and finally 4) a coin toss.
What is most important to understand is that 'seeding'/'pool rank' has no bearing on how a team will finish in the final stage, bracket play. It is a prelimiary 'mini-tournament' only to establish where a team will be placed in the bracket for the first round(s). Strategically there is an edge in 'winning' the highest seed in a team's pool since they are most likely to be placed against a team that finished at the bottom of their respective pool. Conversely, a team finishing at the bottom of their pool will face better-records teams early in bracket play and as such face a 'tougher' route earlier in bracket play.
BRACKET PLAY
Pool seeds are then placed into a pre-determined 'Bracket' schedule. Most tournament brackets are single elimination, if a team loses then they are eliminated from the tournament. Single elimination brackets are usually completed in one day, the last day of the tournament.
Tournaments can be 'double elimination' where a team must lose TWO games to be eliminated from the tourament. It is common for the bracket play to begin late on the second day and proceed throughout the third day.
The bracket structure and flow in 'double elimination' can be quite complex involving a 'winners' bracket and a 'losers' bracket after the first round of games. In this structure a team may lose its first game and be placed in the 'losers' bracket but if they win all the following games they would then move on to play the winner in the 'winners' bracket in the Championship game. Additional complexity is added as teams in the 'winners' bracket lose games and can be shifted into the 'losers' bracket as bracket play proceeds.
