Whether it’s a big fundraiser or just a small friendly competition in the backyard, we all agree that a cornhole tournament is always pretty awesome! Sure, the game may seem like a charming, sophisticated game, that is, until you either score or lose. That’s when the fun begins my friend.
When hosting a cornhole tournament, these are four most common tournament formats to determine a winner – Single Elimination, Double Elimination, Round Robin, or Playoffs.
Single Elimination
Teams are matched-up in a bracket format and any team to lose a game is eliminated. The winning teams continue playing until a winner is crowned.
This format is the fastest type of tournament and a good choice for a quick and dirty cornhole tournament. However, it may be difficult to attract players for this type of tournament, because many teams won’t want to risk the chance of driving to a tournament, losing one game and being knocked out. As a solution, games can be played as a 2 out of 3 format where teams are guaranteed to play at least two games.
Double Elimination
Teams are matched-up in a bracket format and any team that loses two games is eliminated. The winning teams continue to play until a winner is crowned. There are many creative ways to organize double elimination games. Here are two typical formats:
This tournament format attracts more players and provides teams with an opportunity to redeem themselves from a bad game or a bad round.
Round Robin
All teams play each other and the team with the most wins ultimately wins the tournament. You can choose whether the teams play each other once or twice. So, if you have 12 teams and they play each other once, each team will play 11 games. If they play each other twice, each team will play 22 games.
This is the easiest tournament to manage since you will only need to track wins and losses. You will not need to worry about tournament brackets, team seeding, or eliminating teams. Easy pezy and all the teams will play a lot of games.
Playoffs
A playoffs tournament is when the games are combined with a round robin and a single elimination tournament at the end. Teams play a round robin at first to obtain a “seeding” based on winning percentage. When the round robin format is over, an even number of teams are chosen to enter the playoffs round – the top 6 teams, 8 teams, 12 teams, etc. If the number of winning teams from the first round would not result in an even number of teams playing in the second round, then some teams will have to be given a bye in the first round. The playoffs are a single elimination round and the games are played until a winner is crowned.
We feel this is the best type of tournament and the best way to determine a true championship team. This can be one of the longest tournament formats. However, you’ll attract more players for this type of tourney because serious players will find these tournaments more rewarding.
Championship Game
Every tournament should have one final, magnificent championship game to crown the winner! If the tournament has a championship game, make it a big deal. Remove all the other playing fields and have one glorified championship field remain. Play the “Rocky” movie soundtrack as you announce the final teams. Yell out the Michael Buffer “Let’s get ready to rumble!” slogan and play the championship game!