Knowledge BaseTournament formats and brackets
Americano, Mexicano, round robin and knockout brackets in Thril, with team sizes, score rules and placement matches for each bracket.
The format decides who plays whom, how many matches each player gets and what a win is worth. You pick it per bracket. One tournament can run an Americano for one level and a knockout for another.
Choosing a format
| Format | Teams | Who plays whom | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Americano | Solo, partners rotate | A new partner every round | Social nights where everyone meets everyone |
| Team americano | Fixed pairs | Every pair plays every other pair once | Pairs who want lots of matches |
| Mexicano | Solo, partners rotate | First round random, then paired from the leaderboard | Close matches all evening, mixed levels |
| Team mexicano | Fixed pairs | First round random, then paired from the leaderboard | Pairs of mixed levels |
| Round robin | Any size | Every team plays every other team once | Small groups, league-style weekends |
| Single elimination | Any size | Knockout, a loss puts the team out | Cups and finals days |
| Double elimination | Any size | Knockout, a team is out after its second loss | Cups where one bad match should not end the day |
Players sign up alone for Americano and Mexicano, and as pairs for their team variants. Round robin and the knockouts take any team size you set. For groups that feed a knockout, run the groups as round-robin brackets and add the qualifiers to a knockout bracket.
Golf simulator competitions have formats of their own.
The bracket's gender, Open, Men, Women or Mixed, is a label customers see. Check the pairs in a Mixed bracket before you generate the chart.
Americano and Mexicano scoring
In Americano and Mexicano, each match has a pool of Points per match, often 32. The two scores of a match add up to at most that, and players are ranked by the total points they win. Players level on points share a placement, and the podium shows all of them.
Americano partners. Every player partners every other player once when the bracket has a multiple of four players, or one more than that. With one more, a different player sits out each round.
Mexicano pairing. The first round is a random draw, or follows the starting order you set. After it, Thril pairs players or pairs that sit close on the leaderboard. The matches stay even. A Mexicano bracket runs as many rounds as you have time for. Read more in Running a Mexicano bracket.
Sets and score rules
Round robin and the knockouts are played in sets. You set how many sets a match is played over, how many games win a set, and whether a set can go to a tiebreak. Enable super tiebreak plays the deciding set as one tiebreak. A set ends at most one game past its target, such as 7-5 or 7-6 in a set to six.
A round-robin match can end level on sets. A knockout match needs a winner.
Placement matches
In a knockout, Generate placement matches up to X place lets the losing teams keep playing for their final ranking, down to the place you choose. In double elimination the losers' final already decides third place.
Deciding the format later
Turn on Decide bracket formats after registration when you create the tournament, or leave a bracket's format at Not decided yet. Sign-ups work as usual, and you pick the format once you know how many players you have.
If players signed up alone and you pick a pairs format, Thril deals them into random pairs. You can swap players or reshuffle the teams afterwards.
You can change a bracket's format or team size later too. Sign-ups, payments and the queue stay. Generate the chart again when the teams look right.
Limits, caps and queues
- Participant limits work per bracket, overall or per resource, as on events. Limits per resource fit brackets of one player per team.
- Maximum players in the tournament caps the confirmed players across every bracket. When it is reached, the brackets stop taking players. A bracket's queue still takes entries and promotes players when the tournament has room.
- Queuing fits brackets of one player per team. A player in the queue can take a spot even after registration has closed.
Tournaments
Padel Americanos, Mexicano nights, club championships and golf simulator competitions in Thril, with brackets, sign-ups, payments, live scores and results.
Running a tournament
What happens when tournament registration closes, how staff move and swap teams, who enters scores, how Mexicano rounds run, how an Americano or Mexicano bracket ends when time runs out, and how a bracket or a tournament is cancelled.