Basic advice on formats for club Petanque competitions.

There is no format which suits everyone's requirements.
However the following options are reasonably easy to organise and are probably the most common formats for
club competitions. Whichever format is used it can often be useful to have a registration form with team names
and players names. This should be available to the players to help them check who they are playing. (Example sheet 1)

1) League and Knockout
a) League stage
The aim is to have leagues of 4 so that each team plays the other teams in the league giving 3 games in the morning.
The placings in the leagues are than used to determine who goes into the main competition in the afternoon
and who goes into the plate competition (or plate and consolage competitions depending on numbers).

If the number of teams does not divide exactly by 4 then a league of 3, a league of 6 or 1 each of 3 and 6 are needed
to balance the numbers. e.g.12 teams = 3 x 4 , 13 = 1 x 4 + 1 x 6 + 1 x 3 , 14 = 2 x 4 + 1 x 6 , 15 = 3 x 4 + 1 x 3

Scorecards are not essential but they help the teams know who they are playing.
They also reduce pressure on the organiser who otherwise will be asked unnecessary questions . (Example sheets 2 & 3)

In a league of 4 	1st round 		A v B	C v D
		2nd round		A v C	B v D
		3rd round		A v D	C v B

In a league of 6 	1st round 		A v B	C v D	E v F
		2nd round		A v E	B v D	C v F
		3rd round		A v C	B v F	D v E

In a league of 3 	1st round 		A v B	C - bye
		2nd round		A v C	B - bye
		3rd round		B v C	A - bye

There are various options if a team has a bye.
If the same number of teams are going through from each league i.e. top 1 or top 2 the bye is irrelevant.
However if for example there are 5 leagues with 8 teams going through then the top in each league is straightforward
but only 3 of the 5 second place teams would go through. In these cases the teams with a bye who have only played
2 games have to be compared to teams without a bye who have played 3 games.
One option is to class a bye as a 13-7 win. The other common option which is possibly slightly fairer is to class a bye
as a win but to class the score of the bye as an average of the other 2 games.
e.g. 2 games 13-6 and 9-13 give a bye of 13-11 ( +7 and -4 = +3 which divided by 2 = +1.5 which rounds to +2).

b) Knockout stage
Depending on the number of teams entered and therefore the number of teams in the second stages it is possible to
have leagues as the second stage followed by the top in each league playing a knockout as a third stage. However
this can make the day too long and almost certainly few of the teams not in the knockout stage will stay to watch the final.

The most common format for the second stage is a straight knockout. (Example sheet 4)
The disadvantage is that half the teams are out of the competition after the first afternoon game.
One alternative is to have all the first round losers go into a consolage competition.
It is essential if this is done to ensure that the consolage is not longer than the main competition otherwise prizes
cannot be handed out until the minor competition finishes and it removes the focus from the main competition.

An example of where a consolage could work is with 24 teams initially and with 16 through to the main and 8 to the plate.
The 8 first round losers in the main could then play a consolage knockout which should finish at the same time as the main
knockout. In this case the consolage should be classed as a higher competition than the plate (from the point of view of prizes)
because these teams qualified higher in the morning leagues.

An alternative with 24 teams would be to have a main knockout, a plate knockout and a consolage knockout with 8 teams in each.

If the aim is to give teams as many games as possible (e.g. if teams have travelled a long way to play)
then a rolling knockout can be used (Example sheet 5).
The advantage is that everyone continues playing for the same length of time which appeals to many teams.
However some teams do not like this format because they cannot get a placing higher than 5th if they lose their first round game
and they would prefer to stop at that point.
This has been changed slightly with the modified rolling knockout (Example sheet 6)
which allows teams who lose their 1st game to still finish as high as 3rd.
Rolling knockouts are not recommended for more than 8 teams due to the time that would be needed.

2) Snake format
In a snake format each teams plays a fixed number of games against random opponents.
This format can be used for any number of teams and the playing order can be worked out as follows
a) All teams draw a number (from 1 to the number of teams entered)
b) Write down the odd numbers in a row and the even numbers below them, this is then the playing order for round 1.
	e.g.	1	3	5	7	9	11
		2	4	6	8	10	12
c) Move the bottom row one space left with the first number moving to the end (the top row stays in the same position)
	e.g.	1	3	5	7	9	11
		4	6	8	10	12	2
d) Repeat for as many rounds as are required.
(Note - this method does not work for less than 12 teams with 6 rounds or 10 teams with 5 rounds).

The playing order then has to be written on to score cards (Example sheet 3) if cards are being used.

To save the effort of working out the playing order each time example sheet 7 contains playing orders for anything from
8 to 30 teams. If there is an odd number of teams then a bye is included e.g. if there are 21 teams then use the 22 team
playing order with team 22 being a bye. Byes can be handled the same as is described under leagues.

It is easier for the organiser if a scoresheet is used (Example sheet 8).
This allows the teams to see how they and others are doing. It can be filled in during the day to remove the need for
the organiser to do all the checking of scores at the end of the competition.
Each round should add up to zero if the scores are correct so a round by round check for mistakes can be done.
(This is more complicated if average scores are used for byes
but can still be done if the bye score is only added in at the end of the competition).
The placings are decided primarily on games won followed by points difference.
If there is still a tie then points scored is used to decide.

One disadvantage to a competition run purely on a snake format is that the top teams may not play each other at all.
One alternative is to run a 5 round snake and then the top 4 teams play a semi final and final or just the top 2 teams
play a final. This has the advantages that everyone plays at least 5 games and the top teams have to play each other in a final.
One disadvantage is that often teams do not stay after being knocked out so the final and presentation are not supported.

There is no way to suit everybody.