Plan the tournament format

Use Format to compare possible event structures before you create actual draws and matches. A format plan estimates the number of matches and compares that workload with the tournament’s available court time.

Before you start

Create the tournament events, dates, and courts on Overview. See Create and configure a tournament.
Add the expected event entries on Entries if you want the displayed entry counts to help you choose draw sizes. See Manage entries, doubles pairs, and seeding.
Check Day Settings and the app-wide Default match duration. Format can model different end times and a different duration without changing those settings.

Understand a format plan

A format plan is a saved what-if scenario. It contains an ordered set of planned phases for each event, the planned draws inside those phases, court-time assumptions, and any work later saved for the same plan on Draft.

Planned phases and draws are descriptions only. They do not yet hold entries and are not actual phases, draws, virtual matches, or matches. Planning does not add, remove, or change registrations, pairs, or entries.

Use this step after the likely entry counts are known and before you build actual draws. It is especially useful when comparing, for example, a larger group stage with a shorter knockout structure.

Manage format plans

Open Tournament → Format. If the tournament has no format plans, the screen creates and selects an empty Plan 1 when it first opens. This automatically created plan is not marked primary.

The selected plan has a highlighted tab. The primary plan has a star. These are different states:

The selected plan is the scenario currently shown and edited on this screen.
The primary plan is the scenario used for the Draft sidebar counter and is the only plan from which Create Draws… is offered.
If no plan is primary, screens and the Draft counter fall back to the oldest plan, but no tab shows a star and Create Draws… is unavailable.

To switch scenarios, select another plan tab. Format and Draft use the same saved plans and plan data, including Draft assignments, but they do not share a persistent selected tab. Each screen initially selects the primary plan, or the oldest plan when there is no primary.

Use the plan actions as follows:

Select New plan to create and select an empty plan. A new plan is not automatically primary.
Select Rename, or double-click a plan tab, then enter the new name. Press Enter or leave the field to save; press Escape to cancel. An empty name is not saved.
Select Duplicate to create and select a non-primary plan named with (copy). The copy includes the planned phases, draw rows, match-duration override, daily end times, and Draft assignments that are stored in the source plan.
Select Set as primary to move the star to the selected plan. Only one plan can be primary at a time.
Select Delete to remove the selected plan immediately. There is no confirmation.

Deleting a primary plan does not automatically mark another remaining plan as primary. The screen selects the oldest remaining plan unless another plan was already marked primary. Use Set as primary if the star is no longer shown.

Deleting the only plan replaces it with a new empty Plan 1. The replacement is selected but is not primary.

Phase, draw-row, duration, and end-time edits save automatically after about half a second. Switching plans or duplicating flushes a pending save first. Pause briefly after the last edit before leaving Format or using Create Draws…. Plan names save separately when renaming is committed.

Plan phases for each event

Under Tournament project by event, each event has its own ordered structure. The event heading shows its current entry count and the number of matches estimated from that event’s plan. If Max entries was set when the event was created, the heading shows the current count against that value.

The entry count and Max entries are information only. They do not fill the plan, resize draws, or prevent a planned capacity above or below either number. Compare them with the total sizes you enter.

Expand an event.
Select Groups phase or Knockout phase.
Enter a clear phase name, such as Group stage, Qualification, Playoff, or Final.
Configure one or more planned draw rows inside the phase.
Use Move up or Move down to put the event’s phases in competition order.

A new Groups phase starts with one planned group of size 4. A new Knockout phase starts with one planned bracket for 8 entries. You can change a phase between Groups and Knockout; its existing rows remain and are reinterpreted using the new kind.

Every draw in one phase has the same kind. Use separate phases when the event changes from round robin to knockout. Select Remove beside a phase to delete that planned phase immediately. Removing it does not change registrations or entries, but it changes the estimate and can invalidate Draft assignments belonging to that plan.

Typical structures include:

one Groups phase for a single round-robin stage;
one Knockout phase for a direct-elimination event;
a Groups phase followed by a Knockout phase named Playoff;
a phase named Qualification followed by a separate final phase of the required kind.

The plan records phase order but does not define how entries qualify from one phase to the next. That is configured later with actual draws.

Configure planned draws inside a phase

One row describes one band of equal-sized planned draws. Select Add draw to add another band, or use Remove beside a row to delete it.

For a Groups phase:

Count is the number of groups.
Size is the number of entries in each group.

For a Knockout phase:

Count is the number of separate brackets.
Entries is the planned number of entries in each bracket.

The match total is an estimate from these values. A group of 4 entries has 6 round-robin matches, so two groups of 4 show 12 matches. A group of 5 has 10 matches; an odd group size is allowed and still represents every entry playing every other entry once.

A knockout bracket for 8 entries has 7 matches. A bracket for 10 entries has 9 matches. The size does not have to be a power of two: the later bracket uses the next suitable bracket shape and treats unused first-round positions as byes. A complete knockout among the planned entries still requires one fewer played match than entries.

The totals from all rows, phases, and events are added into Matches required.

Use whole, non-negative values. The controls show a minimum of 0, but the current screen does not reliably reject negative, fractional, or unusually large values. Current calculation behavior is:

Count 0 contributes no matches and creates no draw from that row.
A Groups Size of 0 or 1 contributes no matches and creates no draw from that row.
Knockout Entries of 0 or 1 contributes no matches and creates no draw from that row.
Negative values are treated as zero by the match estimate.

The plan does not reconcile its draw capacities with the current entry count or Max entries. For example, an event with 18 current entries can still be planned as four groups of 4, four groups of 5, or any other values. The estimate describes the chosen structure; it does not assign particular entries or verify that every entry has a place.

Calculate available court time

Court-time available uses the tournament’s inclusive date range and all courts configured on Overview. Each date becomes one row.

The calculation uses these values in this order:

Start comes from that date’s saved Day Settings; without a saved row it is 09:00.
End belongs to the selected format plan; without a saved plan value it is 21:00.
Match duration uses the selected plan’s override when present. Without an override, Format uses the duration from the first saved Day Settings row returned by the app, then the app-wide Default match duration, then 30 minutes.
The effective Match duration applies to every tournament day in this calculation, even when later Day Settings rows contain a different duration.

Change Match duration to model a different duration for the whole plan. The control uses five-minute steps and displays a reset action when the value differs from the settings-derived duration. Change End separately for each date.

These Format values are scenario assumptions. Changing them does not update Day Settings on Overview. Conversely, later changes to tournament dates, courts, start times, or the settings-derived duration change the calculation when Format is opened again.

For each date, Slots per court is the number of complete match-duration blocks between Start and End. A partial final block is discarded. Total slots multiplies that number by the number of configured courts, and the footer adds all dates.

For example, 09:00 to 13:00 at 30 minutes gives 8 slots per court. With two courts, that day contributes 16 total slots.

An End time equal to or earlier than Start is accepted and contributes 0 slots. With no courts or no tournament days, Slots available is 0; the court-time section instead shows the corresponding setup message.

The summary compares:

Matches required: the estimated matches from every planned phase;
Slots available: the complete slots across all dates and courts;
Headroom: available slots minus required matches.

Fits includes an exact fit and any positive headroom. Does not fit means the plan needs more matches than the modeled slots. Negative Headroom is the number of additional slots the plan would need. This is a capacity check only; it does not account for entry availability, rest, phase dependencies, or the practical sequence of matches.

Create actual draws from the primary plan

Create Draws… appears in the summary only while the selected plan is also primary. The action therefore uses that selected primary plan; a selected non-primary plan cannot be materialized from the current Format screen.

Finish the phase order, names, row counts, and sizes, then wait briefly for automatic saving.
Select Create Draws….
Review every event in Create Draws from Plan.
Keep one or more ready events selected. Ready events are selected automatically; use Select all or Deselect all if needed.
Select Create Draws.

Each event has one of these states:

A ready event shows how many groups, brackets, or both will be created.
No phases planned — add phases above first cannot be selected. A phase containing only rows with zero count or size 0 or 1 also produces no selectable draws.
Draws already created — skip means the event already has at least one actual draw. The whole event is unavailable, even if only part of its planned structure exists.

The operation creates persisted phases in plan order and empty actual draws of the planned kind and size. If a phase contains several draws, their names receive Group or Bracket numbers. The planned size is copied to each created draw.

It does not assign entries to those draws, generate matches, create a schedule, or turn Draft virtual matches into actual matches. Complete those later steps on Draws.

The app checks every selected event again when you confirm. If any selected event gained a draw or no longer has any planned phases, the whole multi-event operation fails without creating draws for the other selected events.

You cannot materialize an edited plan again while any actual draw remains in that event. After all actual draws for the event have been removed, the event can become ready again and the current saved plan can be materialized, potentially creating another set of persisted phases. Review the event carefully before repeating the action.

Before you continue: Check that the primary star is on the intended plan, every selected event has the intended phase order, all counts and sizes are whole non-negative values, planned capacity matches the entries you expect to place, and Create Draws from Plan shows the expected number of groups and brackets.

Fix common problems

Create Draws is not shown

The selected plan is not primary, or no plan currently has the primary star. Select the intended plan and choose Set as primary.

An event says No phases planned

Add at least one phase with a draw row whose count is greater than 0 and whose size is at least 2. Then pause briefly for automatic saving and reopen the dialog.

An event says Draws already created

The event already contains at least one actual draw. Continue with that structure on Draws, or use the later draw-management workflow to remove every actual draw before materializing the plan again.

The plan unexpectedly does not fit

Check all event rows for an unintended count or size. Then check the court count, each day’s Start and plan-level End, and the effective Match duration. An end time at or before the start time contributes no slots.

Next step

Use Draft if you want to place this plan’s virtual matches into provisional court-time slots. Use Draws when you are ready to assign entries and generate actual matches from the empty draws created here.