Bracket Racing Overview
Flyball Manager supports single elimination brackets with loser races as well as a special 1 bracket race for single day tournaments. It is very important that you read this section if your tournament intends to use bracket racing.
When adding a bracket, Flyball manager takes care of all the required handling of the bracket races. This includes scheduling the races, scoring, automatically managing teams for the brackets based on the teams win/loss of heats, and automatically synchronizes this information to ondeckmanager.com for communication with participants.
Bracket format
Brackets are typically run after at least 1 round of round robin racing. Bracket races are added to a division when setting up the tournament division format.
On the Tournament screen Division tab, select the division in the left list that will have a bracket added. On the right is a section labeled Brackets. Click the checkbox for the type of bracket desired. In the format menu, select the format for the heats of the bracket races.
Bracket races can not end in a situation where both teams have the same number of wins. Therefore bracket races must be of the format 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 5.
Bracket scheduling
Flyball Manager handles the scheduling of brackets. By adding a bracket to the division, the scheduling engine adds the appropriate races to the schedule based on the bracket selected.
Races in the schedule display placeholder information for the bracket races. This information allows participants to see who the teams will be for a bracket race before the details of the race is known.
In the image above races 155-158 are bracket races. The schedule displays placeholder information indicating that the race will eventually be teams that are seeded in the bracket. Once the teams are seeded, the information on the schedule is automatically updated with the team information.
Further down in the same schedule we see this...
Races 185 and 189 are bracket races. Here we can see the placeholder text indicates that the teams for these races wil be the winner/loser of bracket races earlier in the schedule. Once the winner/loser of the previous races are determined, the information on the schedule is automatically updated based on the results of the previous races.
Dynamic updating of bracket race information is synchronized with ondeckmanger.com as well. This allows participants of the tournament to have realtime updates to the bracket race information.
When building the schedule, if a bracket race is moved from the original position in the schedule, Flyball Manager automatically updates the placeholder information with the new bracket race information. Bracket races can be moved in the schedule as needed.
Bracket races can be moved in ways that make the schedule invalid. Flyball Manager will not detect this issue. For example, if a bracket race that depends on the winner or loser of a previous race is moved to occur before that race, it creates a conflict.
Please keep this in mind when adjusting the schedule to avoid such errors.
Bracket seeding
Bracket seeding is determined based on the results of the round-robin races that take place before the bracket races. Before the first bracket race, you must manually calculate and enter the seeding on the team screen.
If bracket seeding is not entered on the team screen, a warning will appear on the scoring screen, and scoring will remain disabled until the seeding is properly entered.
Entering bracket seeds
Navigate to the Teams screen. At the top of the screen select the Division being seeded in the By Division menu. The teams for the division selected are displayed. Select one of the teams in the division. On the right side of the screen, there is a menu option to set the bracket seed for the selected team. Select the bracket seed for the team.
Repeat this until you enter the bracket seeds for all teams in the division.
The team list updates to display the bracket seeds. Verify the seed information is correct.
Once the seeding is set, all races in the schedule dependent on the bracket seeding information will be updated with the appropriate team information.
Bracket seeds are not the same seed as the initial tournament seed. The tournament seed is based on the team entry seed time and is used to seed the round robin racing of a tournament. Bracket seeds are determined by the results of the round robin races. The tournament seed time does not play a role in seeding brackets.
Tournament placement
Bracket races determine the tournament placement. The round robin rounds are used to seed the bracket only. Any tournament points accumulated in the round robin races are only used to seed the bracket. Round robin points are not used to determine tournament placement.
Critical to scoring bracket races is that after all heats are complete, 1 team must have won the required number of heats to be determined as the winner. This means that on the scoring screen, if the format of bracket heats is 3 of 5, a team MUST have 3 W's entered on the scoring screen. A winner can not be determined if the number of wins for a team does not match the first number of the bracket heat format.
To determine the winner of a bracket race, the number of wins entered on the scoring screen must match the first number in the race format. In 3 out 5 format, a team MUST win 3 heats to be determined as the winner.
Single elimination bracket
Click the + Single Elimination button to enable a single elimination bracket for the division. Select the format for the heats of the bracket. Single elimination bracket formats are limited to 2 of 3 or 3 of 5 formats.
The bracket schedule follows the schedule outlined in the NAFA Rules appendix for single elimination brackets. A copy of the bracket racing including tournament placement can be found in the appendix of this website.
1 race bracket
This is a special bracket that should only be used for single day tournaments and divisions with 4 teams. Teams in these divisions will race 3 times with 1 round of round robin racing. This results in sub-optimal number of total heats for the division.
In order to increase the number of heats for the division in a fair and just manner, a 1 race bracket is added to the division. In this case after the 3 races of the round robin are complete, teams in the division are re-seeded based on the results of the round robin races. Each team in the division will each race 1 time in a bracket.
The 1 race bracket format is as follows:
- bracket race 1: bracket seed 3 vs bracket seed 4
- bracket race 2: bracket seed 1 vs bracket seed 2
Tournament placement is determined by winners and losers of each race as follows:
- tournament 1st place: winner race 2
- tournament 2nd place: loser race 2
- tournament 3rd place: winner race 1
- tournament 4th place: loser race 1
Bracket heat wins cannot end in a tie. If both teams win the same number of heats, any heats where both teams have a non-winning result must be re-run until one team achieves the required number of heat wins.
Special handling of bracket races
Bracket races can not end with teams having won the same number of heats. One team MUST win the number of heats equal to the first number of the bracket heat format (aka. 2 heats for formats of 2/3 or 3 heats for formats of 3/5).
Let's look as an example. Below is a portion of the scoring screen detailing the heats for a bracket race.
From this we can see that the race format is a team must win 3 of 5 races. Looking at the race times entered, each team has won 2 heats yet all 5 heats are complete. Notice that the 2nd heat results show that both teams had a no finish -- a case where no winner can be determined.
For the race, heat 2 must be re-run to determine the winner of the bracket race. When 1 of the teams records a heat win for the 2nd heat, a winner and loser of the bracket race can be determined.
Failing to correctly indicate a winner of a bracket race will result in the next races of the bracket not having teams entered.
Bracket racing form C.2
Bracket races add an extra layer of manual administration with C.2 forms. By their very nature, the details of bracket races are not known when C.2 forms are printed before a tournament begins. As a result, when using bracket racing, the tournament score keeper must manually update team C.2 forms with the correct race details prior to a bracket racing being run.
Blank C.2 form
It is possible that a team C.2 form may be completely filled out. In this case it is required that a new blank C.2 form be printed for the team. To do this navigate to the Forms screen, select the team (or teams) needing a blank C.2 form and click PRINT BLANK C.2 FORM button.
Bracket tournament placement
Tournament placement must be manually entered after bracket racing is completed. Navigate to the Teams screen. At the top, select the division where tournament placement data is needed. Select each team in the division and enter the tournament placement on the right side of the screen.
Repeat this for other divisions where brackets are run.