What is the best format with 16 player in 1 tournament

If you don't want the standard 1v1 single elimination with a consolation bracket, then The only route I see is a round robin style, 4 groups of 4 done by random lots. Each person plays all the other people in their group of 4, the person with the highest amount of wins in each group advances to the semi-finals, ties in each group is determined by a single 3-game match playoff. Then it reverts to standard tournament bracket. IF you want, I can illustrate what i mean through an excel file or something.

 

I have attached the normal format for fixing matches with 16 players.

 

Eeeh I'm sorry I fell asleep around 2:30. Do you still want it?

 

So here is what I was talking about. This format, everyone gets to play at least 3 matches, with the champion playing a maximum of 5 (6 if he has to win a tie in his group). This means there will be 24 matches in the preliminaries (4 groups having 6 matches each), a possible extra 4 matches depending on whether or not there is a tie, which then leaves 4 players, who will play another match to get to the finals, and then one last match which would determine the champion, for a total of between 26-30 matches overall. A match lasts on average 15 minutes, so this format would lead to a 6.5-7.5 hour long tournament, not counting breaks and lunch/dinner, so overall a pretty full day, maybe 10-12 hours.

Match time avg is assuming 21pt system, each match winner determined by first to win 2 games, standard IBF rules apply.

With each player getting 3 games minimum, a consolation bracket may not be necessary, though if wanted it can be achieved by putting the 12 players who do not advance into 4 groups of 3, playing round robin style again, following the format as shown in the excel file with a slight tweak. Have fun, and enjoy!

Though to be honest, the standard single elimination format keith.roche gave is a much simpler, though less satisfying format.

 

The only other way I see which might or might not work is a point allocation system. Where everyone plays everyone, which would satisfy your "no elimination" criteria. So four points for a win, and the person with the most points and the end wins overall. It would take longer but it seems to be what you're getting at..

EDIT : No scrap that everyone vs everyone rubbish. It would realistically take weeks. But someone "along those lines". Maybe some kind of group system with points, so less people playing each other.

 

Ah well glad to see the format I suggested worked out in the end. Everyone was happy with the amount of matches they got to play?

 

The best is probably a single-elimination knock-out tournament, with the winner of each match passing to the next.

 

Depends on the tournament. If you want to ensure a minimum number of games for everyone I prefer to break 16 people into groups of 4, round robin within each group of 4 and then make up 2 sided draw single elimination where team 1 (best record from round robin) from group 1 plays team 4 (worst record in round robin) from group 2, then team 2 plays team 3. Do this for the other side of the draw as well. You get a minimum of 4 matches in (3 from round robin and 1 from single elimination).