Contents - Index

Brackets in the League Assistant -- Overview


The integrated bracket functionality within the League Assistant program meets all the requirements for bowling but introduces many other options which you may want to implement for your sports league. You will find Brackets listed as a new selection on the Setup Menu. When you make this selection you will be able to easily create and manage brackets for your league. Features and options are:

Brackets: Up to 500 brackets can be created within a season for a league which is much more than you will ever need.

Type: Brackets can be setup for Teams or for Players. Subs may be included with the regular players. Absentee Score can be used for regular players.

Seeds: These are the teams or players positioned in the first round of each bracket. The minimum number is three but the maximum number is either all the teams or all the players. A function is provided to quickly and easily populate the first round with teams or players. The assignment of the seeds to each match of the first round can be done automatically, randomly, or manually. If automatic is chosen then the seeds are sorted using the average statistic as the basis for the sorting and the top seed placed at first position of the first round.

Start Week: The week that the program will start processing the competition results through the bracket. You can setup brackets to start in any week from the current week to the end of the season. Depending on the type and size of the bracket, it may not fit within the weeks remaining if it is started near the end of the season.

Bracket Stat: This is the statistic that will be used for automatic seeding and for determining the winner of each match. One of four statistics can be chosen:
  • Scratch Game
  • Handicap Game
  • Scratch Series
  • Handicap Series

    Fee: The amount that each team or person who participate in the bracket will pay as an entry fee. With this version of the program, it is assumed that all funds payed will be won by the overall winner of the bracket. One of the upgrades being planned for the future is to create a system to easily manage payments to winners of earlier rounds in each bracket.

    Odd Game Handling: If a bracket is setup with the number of seeds being a power of 2, e.g., 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc., then each round of the bracket will have an even number of seeds. However, if the number of seeds is not a power of 2, then one or more rounds will have an odd number of participants, for example, if your bracket starts with 10 seeds in the first round, the second round will have five seeds. The program handles this by giving you two options for the odd participant. The first option is for the top seed for the round to take a "Bye" for that round. They will still compete but the win will be automatic. The second option is for the top seed to be required to compete against themselves in that they must be their own average statistic for that round with an optional offset. For example, if the sport is bowling and the statistic is Scratch Game, then the person would be required to beat their average Scratch Game to win. With the optional offset the requirement could be adjusted to something like Average Scratch Game - 10 or Average Scratch Game + 10.

    Tie Breaker: If the result of the competition is that both participants in a match have exactly the same result, then we have a tie. The program gives you three options for handling a tie.
  • You select the winner using whatever criteria you like, such as the winner of an extra game, or a flip of a coin, or "rock, paper, scissors", etc. 
  • The participant with the highest average statistic wins (favors the stronger player) 
  • The participant with the lowest average statistic wins (favors the underdog)