Planning to run a tournament

Running a tournament is both fun, and also quite a bit of work. However, as with most things, the better the plan, the better the outcome, and that includes lower stress levels.

Planning includes answering a number of questions:

  1. When should this tournament happen?
  2. What players am I targeting?
  3. Does it finish on a Saturday or a Sunday?
  4. How many players can I accommodate?
  5. Is there a theme I want to use?

The answers to these questions will preempt many decisions later in the process, so it's important to get them right.

When should this tournament happen?

Tournaments usually take place on Friday and Saturday of any given weekend. Some tournaments run until Sunday (see below). Local players are often required to play on Thursday already, sometimes even on Wednesday.

The squash season roughly runs from February to October, and the weekend for a tournament largely depends on the region's calendar, which is negotiated between the clubs for the next season just after each season finishes. Therefore, the decision when a tournament should take place happens long before the season starts, and involves coordination with the other clubs.

Aspects to consider when selecting/applying for dates are:

  • School holidays (will there be enough interest and volunteers?)
  • Public holidays, such as Easter and Queens Birthday Weekend
  • Regional and national events, such as
    • Senior nationals (usually early July)
    • Teams nationals (usually late August)
    • Master nationals (usually late October)
    • Superchamps regional eliminations (usually late July)
    • Superchamps nationals (usually late September)
  • Season fringe times may not be as popular with higher players
  • Club champs

For clubs that also have tennis competitions, it may be a good idea to avoid conflicting with their events.

What players am I targeting?

The most generic tournament format is the "Open", which is open to players of all grades. These sometimes favour higher- over lower-graded players by selecting the top X players, rather than to choose the first X players to register.

Such tournaments have an Open division for the top players (men & women), and then spread out lower-graded players across numbered divisions, e.g. "Div 1" and "Div 3".

In an effort to not let the A graders steal the show like they might at an Open, the so-called "& below" tournaments have become popular, too, and one often sees "B & Below", "A2 & Below", and sometimes even "C & Below" events. These events do not have an "Open" division, but just start with "Div 1".

The answer to the question what type of tournament to run very much depends on the region, and what else is on. In general, tournaments should be "Open", especially if they aren't commonly overrun by A-graders. However, if you have reason to believe that it would be of motivational value to your players to cap the grades at the top, feel free to run a "& Below", as appropriate.

Saturday or Sunday finish?

At Thorndon, we generally finish on Saturday night, which translates to better bar sales, and a better vibe throughout the day. The reasons for this are:

  • most players will have two games on Saturday, and many will stick around;
  • not having to stay sober that night in preparation of another game on Sunday means there's a better party to be expected;
  • lastly, a tournament takes a toll on organisers and volunteers, but also players. Having Sunday off after a big Saturday allows people to rejoin with their families, and relax.

Finishing on Saturday generally means that everyone gets to play 3 games, i.e. the tournament is confined to 4, 6, and 8 draws.

If 5, 12, and 16 draws are desired or needed, then each player has to take to the courts 4 times, and that is unlikely possibe with a Saturday finish.

Sunday-finish tournaments make most sense if Monday is a public holiday, or if a lot of players travel, and you want to give them 4 matches, instead of just 3, to make it worth their while.

How many players can I accommodate?

The number of players one can host at a tournament depends on four factors:

  • Saturday or Sunday finish?
  • The number of courts (possibly across several venues)
  • The number of people able to play their first and possibly second round games before Friday night
  • The anticipated average length of a game

As argued above, Thorndon customarily runs 3-round tournaments that finish on a Saturday, and so the following text uses this assumption.

The number of games to be played in each round is equal to half the total count of players (each player gets 3 games, but each game always has two players, so the total number of games is 1.5 times the number of players, and then this number is divided by the number of rounds: n × 1.5 / 3 = n / 2).

With round 1 often starting on Wednesday or Thursday evening, and round 3 starting already on Saturday afternoon, the bottleneck of any 3-round tournament is round 2, which is mostly confined to Saturday morning. This means that the number of people you can host at a tournament loosely depends on the number of games you can play on Saturday morning.

An 8am start is the earliest possible, and this means there's a window of 4–5 hours during which all round 2 games need to be played, minus any round 2 games that you were able to squeeze in on Friday night.

If we assume the average game time to be 30 minutes (more on that in a sec), then 4 hours means there are 8 slots, and across 4 courts, this means that 32 games can be played. By the above logic, this therefore means that a 64 players can be hosted.

Nevertheless, there are a couple of reasons why this number is a very conservative, and hosting tournaments with around 100 people at Thorndon is possible, even with people travelling from outside the region:

First, if we can get a maximum of round 1 games played on Wednesday and/or Thursday (where both players are local, and have not ruled out their availability), then some of the round 2 games can already be played on Thursday and/or Friday (these always come i pairs, and require 4 players to be local and available). This substantially helps to free up Saturday morning.

Second, 30 minutes is a pretty generous average game time. Sure, some of the higher-graded players have been known to play twice as long as that, but contrariwise, players in lower divisions often finish in less time. Rather than overcompensating though (with e.g. 40 minutes), it's better to keep the slots short(er) and risk running a bit late. It might be counter-intuitive, but a tournament that runs late is better than a tournament that runs early (due to longer slot lengths), because more people will be present on site (waiting), and the courts never turn silent.

Finally, if sticking to plan is really a concern, then the match rules can be modified and all games made PAR11, not just for B-grade and up). D-grade players and below don't really like PAR11, so maybe a compromise is to make it PAR11 for C-grade and up to shorten some of the games.

An example: The 2021 August Thorndon Open

At the time of writing, the next Thorndon Open is just 2 weeks away, and we are looking to accommodate 108 players, meaning 54 games in each round. Despite being called the "Thorndon Welcomes the South Island Open", only 26% of the players came from outside the local Wellington region (not including Ōtaki, Kāpiti, Masterton, and Martinborough). Chance also had it that a lot of the divisions would be made up entirely of local people. As a result, 31 round 1 games can be played on Wednesday & Thursday, and 18 round 2 games on Thursday & Friday, leaving only 23 round 1 games for Friday night, and 36 round 2 games for Saturday morning — to be fitted into a 4.5 hour time slot!

Don't despair, the ?Draw Maker can help juggle all this, but only once the registrations roll in and we have some real data to play with.

On the subject of themes

Feel free to give your tournament a theme, such as the "Welcomes the South Island Open", or the "Sin City Open". The important thing to keep in mind is to maintain an inclusive atmosphere, e.g. by highlighting that everyone can enter the "South Island" tournament.

Themes often lead to costume nights, and squash players across New Zealand love to dress up. Just make sure to announce it well ahead of time, so that people can come prepared.

Other than that, you are free to do pretty much anything. Get creative.

And now it's time to create a tournament and accept registrations.