Tournament

This article is about tournaments in general. For the tournaments of the Middle Ages, see tournament (medieval). For other uses, see Tournament (disambiguation).

"Tourney" redirects here. For the town in Saint Lucia, see La Tourney.

A tournament is a competition involving several competitors, all participating in a sport or game.

Knockout tournaments

A knockout tournament or elimination tournament is divided into successive rounds of fixtures. The top-ranked competitors in each fixture progress to the next round. The final round, usually known as the final or cup final, consists of just one fixture, the winner of which is the overall champion.

Group tournaments

A group tournament involves all competitors playing a number of fixtures. Points are awarded for each fixture, with competitors ranked based either on total number of points or average points per fixture. Usually each competitor plays an equal number of fixtures.

Example of a round-robin tournament with ten participating teams: each team plays each other team, over nine days

In a round-robin tournament, each competitor plays all the others an equal number of times. A Swiss-system tournament attempts to determine a winner with a reduced number of rounds. Fixtures are scheduled one round at a time and depend on the results of the previous one, with competitors playing against those with a similar record in previous rounds of the tournament.

Multi-stage tournaments

Many tournaments are held in multiple stages, with the top teams in one stage progressing to the next. A group stage (also known as pool play or the pool stage) is a round-robin stage in a multi-stage tournament. The competitors are divided into multiple groups, which play separate round-robins in parallel. Measured by a points-based ranking system, the top competitors in each group qualify for the next stage. In most editions of the FIFA World Cup finals, the first round has been a group stage with groups of four teams, the top two qualifying for the knockout stage, played as a single-elimination tournament. This format is common in many international team events, such as World Cups or Olympic tournaments. Some tournaments have more than one group stage.

See also

• Playoff format
• Apertura and Clausura
• Tennis tour