Multipartner Tournament Structure
Both players and organizers win
The goal of any organizer is to provide the most fun, well organized, and profitable event possible. When it comes to larger monthly events this means requiring a larger entry fee, and typically providing players extra games and opportunities to win.
As an example, organizations like the California Cornhole Association run a “World Cup” style tournament. This structure consists of teams playing X matches with the top Y teams advancing to the winners bracket and the rest to a consolation bracket. From that point the tournament is a straight double elimination bracket.
While this is a great way to provide players of varying skill levels extra games and something to play for, it requires substantially more time to complete.
A structure I’ve only encountered at beer pong tournaments around the nation is called “Multipartner Tournaments’. Multipartner brackets allow players to play on two teams with two different partners. The teams are then separated into two even brackets making sure the same player does not end up in the same side. Both brackets play out as a normal double elimination bracket would, with the winners of each bracket playing each other for 1st and 2nd place. As a player your ideal scenario is to win both brackets and have your partner’s face off in the finals, while you guarantee 1st and 2nd place prizes!
As a player myself, I really appreciate multipartner tournaments because it usually allows me to play with someone I wouldn’t normally play with. So I can play with my typical partner in one bracket and maybe someone I’ve always wanted to play with, or someone better than my obligated partner, in the B bracket. Games also come fast because both brackets are playing at the same time, there is no chance to be “iced” in a multipartner structure because there are twice as many games to play in varying points in each bracket. I also get to play in twice as many games as a normal event.
And as an organizer at SD Pong Circuit, I appreciate the structure’s ability to allow my players to play more matches without significantly increasing the time it takes to finish an event. I can also guarantee much higher prizes because I’m able to take in typically 50% more entries! At my monthly events I would charge 20/person for your first team and 10/person for your second. So for a player to play on two teams it would cost 30, instead of the normal 20, but they are getting a lot of value from that extra 10 dollars. This allows beer pong organizers the ability to host larger and larger events without increasing actual participants!
Tournament-Wizard.com is one of few services offering multipartner bracket capabilities. And with its data-basing capabilities the only one that can automatically sort all the possible player combinations into different brackets, ensuring a player does not have to play any 1v1 matches in the same bracket. The website also allows you to run both brackets at the same time, and won’t allow you to put the same player up twice. This makes tournaments take roughly the same time as a normal double elimination tournament!
All this allows you to give players what they want, more games and more chances to win. Will allow organizers to bring in more in entries, and thus raise prizes. And will actually run much faster than running prelims followed by bracket play. Overall multipartner tournaments are widely underused outside of the beer pong community, and I see that changing with Tournament Wizard!