Tournaments, rounds and sessions
The tournament is a complete competitive event and the round is an internal stage of its execution. Independent sessions are documented separately because they are another type of event, at the same conceptual level as the tournament.
Tournament
Is the main container of the event. It has its own identity, administrator, chronology, statuses, round configurations, participants, competitors, rounds and matches.
- Can be started from a step-by-step wizard.
- Starts in state created, then can be published and later opened for its pre-game phase.
- Today the wizard includes general identity, times, automation, initial number of tables and round blocks.
- Supports invitations, requests, RSVPs, reordering, and navigation through internal sections.
Round Configurations
They are not a minor detail. They are the piece that allows defining the game format, the order of the activity and the reuse of known structures.
- Templates can be saved.
- Can be loaded within the build flow.
- They help repeat already tested formats with less manual work.
Round and match
The round organizes a tournament block; The match is where the real outcome occurs. The system offers navigation between both and views with public and operational reading.
- The round orders pairings, times and status.
- The match concentrates scoreboard, validation and sports reading.
- In certain contexts it can be edited from the list itself.
Separation of events
A standalone session does not belong to the tournament and does not function as a round. Tournament and session are parallel events; The match is the sports unit that can appear in both contexts.
- The rounds belong exclusively to the tournament.
- The sessions organize their matches directly, without rounds.
- The matches retain their life cycle in both types of events.
Tournament
The tournament is the main competitive structure. It brings together the identity of the event, chronology, administrator, participants, competitors, rounds, matches and operating rules. It is not just an agenda: it is the framework that gives sporting and operational meaning to everything that happens within the event.
In this part the idea is to offer a general and brief outline. The step-by-step operational detail of setup and execution is elaborated further in Create and operate tournaments and rounds.
What concentrates
- States such as created, published, opened, competitive activity, reviewed and closed.
- Round configurations, templates and reusable formats.
- Internal sections to read participants, tables, rounds, matches, automations and related activity.
Why it matters
- It is the common reference for organization, public reading and competitive monitoring.
- Allows the event to not be just a set of isolated tables, but a sports story with order and context.
- Helps management combine preconfigure, run, and read later in one place.
General setup and tournament execution
In a theoretical sense, the general configuration of the tournament defines the identity of the event and the type of competitive experience that you want to build. It is not limited to completing data: it sets the framework on which the rounds, times, participation and sporting reading of the route are then based.
What does it represent
- The public identity of the event.
- The general chronology on which the competition is organized.
- The basis from which rounds and tournament behavior are defined.
Why it matters
- Because it turns a meeting of matches into an event with its own meaning.
- Because it helps participants, observers and organizers understand that everything belongs to the same competitive story.
- Because it prepares a coherent ground for automations, formats and configurations per round.
Execution as tour
From a theoretical point of view, the tournament is not a still object. It is a journey that goes through recognizable stages and that gains clarity when these stages are understood as part of a sequence.
Design decisions
In this layer the organizer defines what type of tournament he wants to build: a simple one, a highly accompanied one or one with more richness in its sports structure.
Relationship with the rest
The general settings make sense of round settings, times, and participation. That is why it is convenient to read it as the upper framework of the competitive block.
Post, requests and invitations of participants
When the tournament moves to Public, a different phase than the configuration begins: it is no longer about designing the event, but rather about building the human base that will actually play it. At this stage, the platform allows two complementary movements: that competitors request to participate on their own initiative and that the organization invites specific profiles when it wants to form or complete the tournament table.
Request from competitor
- The player, pair or team themselves can see a published tournament and ask to join.
- The request does not yet make you a confirmed competitor: it opens a review tour.
- This step expresses interest and makes it visible to the organization that there is a real intention to participate.
Invitation from the organization
- The organization can directly invite specific profiles without waiting for a prior request.
- This is useful when the tournament needs balance, completing formats or calling reference participants.
- The invitation is not equivalent to a guaranteed presence either: it must be accepted or resolved according to the flow of the tournament.
Pending Status
It is the natural way to read an entry that already exists, but has not yet been approved or discarded. It serves to clearly distinguish between received interest and validated participation.
Acceptance and rejection
The organization can accept when participation makes sense for the tournament or reject when it does not correspond, does not fit or does not meet the expected criteria.
Bridge to the real opening
This stage prepares the step from Public to Open. Only later will the confirmation of attendance and the transition to the actual start of the tournament come.
Time and automation configuration
Within the tournament there is a layer of times and automations that converts the sporting idea of the event into a more predictable sequence. In theoretical terms, this layer does not eliminate human judgment, but it does organize the pace of the competition and makes the transition between one phase and another more understandable.
What solves
- Reduces dependence on manual interventions to initiate, review and chain rounds.
- Makes the tournament respond to predictable time windows rather than permanent improvisation.
- Allows the administrator to configure flow logic and then monitor exceptions instead of executing each microaction.
What is it composed of
- Times: define when a round should start, how long an absence is expected, how long the review lasts and when the next step is enabled.
- Boolean variables: enable or block specific automatic actions on that calendar.
- Automation run: checks if the conditions have already been met to execute the next move of the tournament.
The tenses are not decorative
In Smartdomino, the configured minutes not only inform: they are used as real references to schedule the start of the round, closure due to absence, review window and availability of the next round.
Booleans do not describe, they authorize
An automatic action does not occur just because there is an associated time. It must also be enabled with its corresponding boolean switch.
Automate is not neglecting
The actual value of this block is to free the manager from replay. Supervision continues to be important for issues, doubtful absences, sports corrections or changes in criteria.
Round Configurations
The round settings are the piece that explains how the tournament is played in each leg. Not all rounds have to be the same. An event can support a single round logic or can use several, depending on the type of tournament the organizer wants to put together.
A flexible structure
- A sequence of rounds can repeat the same configuration to reinforce stability.
- You can also toggle settings to create stages with different sport readings.
- This allows us to think about tournaments with mixed formats or with changes in focus between phases.
Direction of mixing
- The mix is not a whim: it depends on the criteria of the organizer and the sporting value he finds in doing it.
- It can be used to open with a broader phase and close with a more selective one.
- It can also be used to balance individual, pair or team weight at different times of the tournament.
What can change between rounds
- The format.
- The grouping.
- The order criterion.
What this brings
- Allows you to design tournaments with more sporting variety.
- Gives freedom to adapt the event to the competitive culture of each community.
- Makes the round setup a real sports design tool and not just a spec sheet.
Space for variants
It is advisable to reserve a help space to show recommended variants of round sequences, so that the organizer can discover meaningful combinations without always starting from scratch.
Mind map to understand a round
The best way to read a round setup is to think of it as a chain of decisions. The round does not begin by creating tables; It begins by preparing the universe of competitors that will arrive at those tables. Each option tells the system how to transform that universe before the final match.
- First determine who is actually available to play that round.
- Then it is decided whether that universe should be separated into previous groups using a grouping.
- Then an ordering criterion is applied to set the priority sequence within each group or within the entire set.
- If the round works with teams, you can recalculate the internal position of the players within the team and also the way the pairs are composed.
- With all that ready, the format takes the already filtered and ordered set to build the pairs, the tables and finally the matches.
In other words: the format is the main orchestrator, but it does not work alone. The grouping, the ordering criterion, the wait rules, and the reordering options within the team prepare the ground upon which the format executes its own logic.
Active universe
The round starts from the available competitors. If someone is waiting, outside or does not meet the conditions of participation, they do not enter the main matching process.
Sports preparation
The settings decide how those competitors are grouped and ordered before playing. There it is defined if the tournament wants mix, continuity, balance, hierarchy or comparison between equivalents.
Format execution
The format takes this already prepared universe and applies its own algorithm to form pairs, assign tables and create the matches that will actually be played.
What role does each piece play
- Grouping: defines how the universe is trimmed or separated before the final order.
- Order criterion: sets the priority with which the competitors will be read by the format.
- Put on hold: temporarily removes competitors from the round's active stream.
- Update position in the team: reorders the members within each collective structure.
- Update pairs in the team: recomposes which players are associated as a pair within the team.
- Format: interprets all of the above and puts together the final game structure.
Key idea for the organizer
Setting up a round is not about filling out a card; is to design a small sports algorithm. The right question is not only “what format do I want”, but also “how do I want competitors to get to that format”. When this difference is understood, configurations stop being seen as loose fields and start to be seen as tools that are combined with intention.
Grouping
Grouping decides how pre-matching groups are formed. It doesn't directly build the final table, but it does decide which groups are combined or split before reaching it.
What is it for
- Helps the round have an easy-to-understand logic.
- Prevents junctions from looking completely random.
- Allows you to reinforce the sporting identity that the tournament wants to express.
What can it express
- Comparable force levels.
- Identity, origin or composition references.
- Internal positions within collective structures such as teams.
Group Types
Ungrouped
Places the entire active universe in the same set. It is the most open reading: the previous separation does not intervene and the order criterion works on all competitors.
Manual
Preserves the groups assigned by the operation. Competitors who do not yet have a group receive an additional one, which allows them to express sporting decisions that cannot be deduced from an automatic field.
Single value
Create a group for each different value of an allowed field, such as ELO, gender, country, or team position. It is used to compare equivalents without mixing different categories.
Multiple values
Allows a group definition to gather multiple values of the selected field. The values are expressly associated with the configured group number.
Range
Separates by inclusive intervals of a comparable value, for example ELO sections. Competitors who do not match an interval remain in the base group.
Order criterion
The order criterion is the logic that defines with what priority the competitors are arranged before the pairing. This decision is one of the most influential because it changes the reading of the tournament even when the participating people are the same.
What determines
- Sets the starting point of the round.
- Enter a hierarchy or priority before the final traversal.
- Reinforces the idea of balance, continuity or progression according to the objective of the tournament.
Why is it not a minor detail
- Because it modifies the perception of justice and sporting sense.
- Because it can accompany a ranking, mixture or progression reading.
- Because, when the stages of the tournament change, the best criteria for ordering them can also change.
Types of order criteria
Manual
Respects the current position of each competitor and processes it in ascending order. Does not recalculate a list of fields: priority comes from the placement performed by the operation.
Random
Assign a random permutation of positions among the visible competitors and use that new sequence to prepare the matchup.
Random without repeat crossing
Try to avoid recent relationships: between players, avoid repeating partners; between pairs and teams avoid repeating confrontations. If it doesn't find a valid combination, it uses a simple random order.
Rotate Table
It is mainly oriented towards player formats. In the first round it starts from the competitor's number; In the following ones, rotate the positions of the previous table to produce new crossings.
Composite criteria
Evaluate an ordered list of fields. Smartdomino includes combinations such as JG/DT/ELO RA, JG/BON/ELO and JG/DT/TF, and allows each field to be ascending or descending.
Format
The format defines what the main competitive unit of the round is and how the crossings are constructed. It is not just a label: it changes the way of reading the tournament, the positions that matter, the stability of the pairs and the weight that player, pair or team acquire within sports history.
Individual
Puts the player as a competitive unit. The system orders the active players, takes them four at a time and forms temporary pairs such as 1 with 3 and 2 with 4. The match continues to be played in pairs, but the sporting story rests on personal performance.
By pair
Take the stable pair as a competitive unit. The system orders and matches previously created pairs; it does not rebuild its members in each round. The relevant result is the combined performance of the duo.
By team
Places the focus on the collective result. The system matches teams and can generate several parallel tables between its equivalent pairs, update internal positions and control repetitions between rivals.
Four-player team 1
Compare players within a team structure and mix different teams at each table. Sort first by TeamPosition and then by TeamPosition; Take players four by four and form pairs 1 with 3 and 2 with 4. If necessary, rearrange the order to complete valid tables.
Four-player team 2
Prioritizes the team's competitive position first and then the player's position within it. Work with four-team blocks or windows and select one player per team to build each table.
Individual by team
Combines individual protagonism with a team structure. Sort by group, position within the team, and team position; then build blocks of four players with configurable pairings.
Functional matrix of formats
| Format | Main competitor | Reading and construction of the junction | Structural configuration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual | Player | Apply the round criterion and take active players four by four to form temporary pairs. | Does not use the team structure as the axis of the round. |
| By pair | Stable pair | Order and compare existing pairs; It does not change its members in each round. | Does not use the team structure as the axis of the round. |
| By team | Team | Cross teams and face their equivalent pairs on one or more tables. | Gives relevance to the number of pairs, internal positions, rotation and repetition control. |
| Four-player team 1 | Player compared between teams | Read team position and then team position; mix teams within each table. | Fixes two pairs, grouping by position in the team and updating the internal position. |
| Four-player team 2 | Player with team priority | Read the team's position first and then the player's position; Work in blocks of four teams. | Set two pairs and grouping by position on the team. |
| Individual by team | Player within a team structure | Read group, team position and team position; assemble blocks of four with configurable pairings. | Gives relevance to Teams by group, Pairing 1 and Pairing 2. |
What changes when choosing format
- Change the way of reading the sporting value of the tournament.
- Change what is considered central: player, pair, team or a combination of those layers.
- Change how competitors are ordered, grouped, and matched before playing.
What variables usually accompany it
- Grouping and ordering criteria.
- Number of pairs per team when the round works through collective structures.
- Options for pairing, rotation and repetition control in more technical formats.
Main idea
Format is a sports design tool. Its value is not that there are several options, but that the organizer can choose the one that best expresses the type of tournament he or she wants to build.