This article describes how to manage pools within a tournament type of competition.
What are pools?
Pools allow teams within a grade of a tournament type of competition to be divided into groups, called 'pools'. Teams within each pool only play other teams within their own pool during the round-robin stage of the tournament, with the top-rated teams from each pool progressing to an overall finals series for the grade.
When should I use pools?
You should consider using pools if you are running a tournament with a grade that has a large number of teams, and there is insufficient time for each team in the grade to play each other team in a round-robin format.
Enabling and Disabling Pools
Enabling pools for a new grade
To enable pools for a new grade, create a tournament-style competition and season, then create a new grade in the season and enable the Pools option:
After the grade is created, two pools will be created in the grade by default:
Enabling pools for an existing grade
Pools can be enabled for an existing grade in a tournament type of competition by selecting the grade name in the grade list, navigating to the grade's Settings tab, then selecting the General sub-tab, and enabling the Pools option, finishing with selecting Update & Save:
Disabling pools for a grade
If you no longer want to use pools for a grade, you can disable pools by navigating to the grade's Settings tab, then selecting the General sub-tab, and disabling the Pools option, finishing with selecting Update & Save:
Note: Pools can only be disabled for a grade once all teams have been unassigned from pools within the grade. Unassigning teams from a pool is covered later in this article.
Adding and removing pools
Once pools have been enabled for a grade, pools can be added to, and removed from the grade as described in the following sections.
Adding a pool to a grade
To add a pool to a grade, select the Pools option in the grade list to view the pools page.
On the pools page, select Add a Pool:
Then select Update Changes to save the additional pool/s:
Removing a pool from a grade
To remove a pool from a grade, navigate to the grade's pools page, then select Delete against the pool you wish to remove:
Then select Update Changes:
Note: A pool can only be removed if all teams have been unassigned from the pool, the grade has not been fixtured, and the grade has more than two pools.
If you want to completely remove all pools from a grade, unassign teams from all pools then disable pools for the grade as described earlier in this article.
Assigning and unassigning teams from pools
Assigning a team to a pool
To assign a team to a pool, first allocate the team to the grade as described in Allocating teams to grades. Once a team has been allocated, navigate to the grade's pools page then select the relevant Pool Assign a Team button:
Select the team(s) to assign to the pool:
Then select Update Changes to save:
Note: Teams can only be assigned to pools that have not been fixtured. To assign a team to the pool after a fixture has been generated, first remove the grade's fixture, then assign the team to the pool, and re-generate the grade's fixture.
Unassigning a team from a pool
To unassign a team from a pool, navigate to the grade's pools page and select Un-assign:
Then select Update Changes to save:
Re-seeding a team in a pool
To re-seed a team within a pool, drag and drop the team to the appropriate seed position within the pool page using the dragging handle on the right side of the page:
Note: Teams can only be re-seeded if the pool's grade has not been fixtured.