UPA Manual of Tournament Formats

Twelve Teams

Copyright (c) The Ultimate Players Association, 1994

Please direct comments on this document to Eric Simon (70540.1522@compuserve.com).

12. Twelve Teams

A twelve team tournament is not all that much easier to run than an eleven team tournament. Pools of three, as discussed in the section on nine-team tournament, are never acceptable for UPA play. There are not enough games, and far too much depends on seeding. Additionally, the possibility of a three-way tie exists. There are no tie-breakers that work for a three-way tie in a three-team pool (but see Section 3.1).

Three pools of four can be difficult because whenever there is a round-robin pool, you must allow for the possibility of a three-way tie for first. The only way to allow for that is to take the top three from each pool, and then to have them play-off. But here, taking the top three would leave you with nine teams. Generally speaking, three pools of four is not the way to go, except for certain situations, detailed below.

The preferred method, therefore, for all variations of a twelve team tournament is to start off with two pools of six.

A round-robin of six teams must be spread out over two days. Play four rounds the first day, and the fifth game as the first round on the second day. Because no team has a bye during the round-robin, no team has an unfair advantage for the games that follow the round-robin. For some of the formats, where there are lots of games, you might consider making the round-robin games to 13.

Commonly, tournament schedulers like to pit the top two seeds against each other during the last round of a round-robin. This is not a good idea, however, when the round-robin is spread over two days because then the top two seeds might be playing each other twice on the second day. Make sure that these two teams play each other on the first day.

12.1. One Team Advances

Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).

When the round-robin is finished, the top four teams in each pool play an eight-team single elimination. (Note, the brackets and the initial pairings for the single elimination is the same as the upper half of the 8-team double elimination format, see Table 8.1.1).

Note, it is not acceptable to take only the top two teams from each pool and have semi's and finals, because of the possibility of a three-way tie for first in one of the pools.

12.2. Two Teams Advance

In this format, six teams advance to the modified elimination.

Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).

When the round-robin is finished, the top team in each pool play each other. The winner takes first place. The loser still has another game to play. The second and third teams in each pool play a four-team loser's bracket; i.e., a semis and a final. This takes two rounds. The winner of this bracket, then, plays the loser of the game for first place. The winner of this game takes second place. The brackets for this second day are shown in Table 6.5.

12.3. Three Teams Advance

12.3.1. Option One - Six Teams Advance to Modified Elimination:
Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).

When the round-robin is finished, the top three teams in each pools play a six-team modified double elimination (see Table 6.4).

12.3.2. Option Two - Six Teams Advance to Modified Round-Robin:
This is a good option, because the six teams that advance all get to play three games when the round-robin is finished. Furthermore, the six teams that do not advance, can play a similar schedule among themselves.

Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).

When the round-robin is finished, the top three teams in each pool each play the three teams from the other pool. When this is done, each of the six teams will have played each of the other teams, and it is as if a round-robin has just been played. In other words, count the records of the teams from the first round-robin.

Some people are resistant to this idea because there is no "finals." But that problem can be avoided by scheduling the two top teams for the last round. As a matter of fact, the last round is pretty exciting for all of those concerned; as a matter of fact, it is quite likely that the third and fourth best teams get to play each other for third place, and the fifth and sixth best teams gplay each other for fifth place, all in the last round.

A complete example exists at Section 12.8.

12.4. Four Teams Advance

12.4.1. Option One - Six Teams Advance to Modified Elimination:
Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).

When the round-robin is finished, the top three teams in each pools play a six-team modified double elimination (see Table 6.4).

12.4.2. Option Two - Six Teams Advance to Modified Round-Robin
This is a good option, because the six teams that advance all get to play three games when the round-robin is finished. Furthermore, the six teams that do not advance can play a similar schedule among themselves.

A complete example exists at Section 12.8.

12.5. Five Or Six Teams Advance

12.5.1. Option One - Modified Elimination on the Second Day:
Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).

When the round-robin is finished, the top four teams in each pool play an eight-team modified elimination, (see Table 8.1.2).

12.5.2. Option Two - Double Elimination on the Second Day:
Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).

When the round-robin is finished, the top four teams in each pool play an eight-team double elimination, (see Table 8.1.1), except that the last round of the elimination should not be played. This option is described more fully in Section 10.4.1.

12.6. Six Through Eight Teams Advance

Start with two pools of six (see Section 12.7).

When the round-robin is finished, the top five teams in each pool enter the ten-team modified elimination format (see Table 10.2).

The ten-team modified elimination is a good example of a format designed to minimize the effects of seeding. For example, a team that finishes second in their pool can still finish in seventh place. Similarly, a team that finishes fifth in their pool, can still finish as high as sixth place. In other words, if, mistakenly, most of the good teams were in one pool, this elimination bracket ought to take care of it.

12.7. Seeding For Two Pools Of Six

The pools should be seeded as follows:
                    Pool A:                 Pool B:
                    Seed #1                 Seed #2
                    Seed #4                 Seed #3
                    Seed #5                 Seed #6
                    Seed #8                 Seed #7
                    Seed #9                 Seed #10
                    Seed #12                Seed #11
    
The round-robin for each pool will take five rounds. A schedule for a six-team round-robin may be found in Table 6.1.

12.8. Sample Schedule

The following sample schedule is one you might you where the round-robin goes into the first round of the second day. Then, if you use, for example, a modified six-team modified double elimination (see Table 6.4), which takes three rounds, the entire tournament fits neatly into a four-rounds-per-day schedule.
            Start   Cap
            10:00 11:40     A1-A5   A2-A4   A3-A6  (pool B is the same)
            12:00  1:40     A1-A4   A2-A3   A5-A6
             2:00  3:40     A1-A6   A2-A5   A3-A4
             4:00  5:40     A1-A2   A3-A5   A4-A6
              (Sunday)
             9:00 10:40     A1-A3   A2-A6   A4-A5
    
The order of the games in this format was given a lot of thought. Here are some of the factors:

Table 12.1. Twelve Team Round-Robin Grid:

           1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11
           -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - -- --
      1 - 11  4  9  2  7  5 10  3  8 12  6
      2 - 10  3  8  1  6 11  4  9 12  7  5
      3 -  9  2  7  5 10 12  8  1  6 11  4
      4 -  8  1  6 11 12  9  2  7  5 10  3
      5 -  7 12 10  3  8  1  6 11  4  9  2
      6 - 12 11  4  9  2  7  5 10  3  8  1
      7 -  5 10  3  8  1  6 11  4  9  2 12
      8 -  4  9  2  7  5 10  3 12  1  6 11
      9 -  3  8  1  6 11  4 12  2  7  5 10
     10 -  2  7  5 12  3  8  1  6 11  4  9
     11 -  1  6 12  4  9  2  7  5 10  3  8
     12 -  6  5 11 10  4  3  9  8  2  1  7
    
     1 v  4   2 v  3   5 v 12   6 v 11   7 v 10   8 v  9
     1 v  9   2 v  8   3 v  7   4 v  6   5 v 10  11 v 12
     1 v  2   3 v  5   4 v 11   6 v  9   7 v  8  10 v 12
     1 v  7   2 v  6   3 v 10   4 v 12   5 v  8   9 v 11
     1 v  5   2 v 11   3 v 12   4 v  9   6 v  7   8 v 10
     1 v 10   2 v  4   3 v  8   5 v  6   7 v 11   9 v 12
     1 v  3   2 v  9   4 v  7   5 v 11   6 v 10   8 v 12
     1 v  8   2 v 12   3 v  6   4 v  5   7 v  9  10 v 11
     1 v 12   2 v  7   3 v 11   4 v 10   5 v  9   6 v  8
     1 v  6   2 v  5   3 v  4   7 v 12   8 v 11   9 v 10
     1 v 11   2 v 10   3 v  9   4 v  8   5 v  7   6 v 12