Use the Tournaments screen shown below to create and manage tournaments. The important fields are described below. It links to the Add/Edit Tournament screen

1. Tournament Title. The Tournament Title is for backend use only; it does not appear in the shortcodes (on the front end). It simply identifies, and helps organize, the tournaments.
2. Teams (League). If the MSTW League Manager plugin is installed, you can select a league from the dropdown list. This choice is entirely optional, and simply for convenience. It simply reduces the list of teams that appear in other admin fields, which is useful for a site with a large database of teams.
3. # of teams. Select the number of teams in the tournament – 4, 8, or 16. This essentially defines the number of rounds in the tournament – 2, 3, or 4 for a single elimination tournament. (BYEs are discussed under Teams/Seeds below.)
4. Elimination. Tournaments can be single or double elimination.
5. Scheduling Method. Choices are Manual or By Seed. In manual scheduling the teams will be paired in the first round in order – 1 v 2, 3 v 4, 5 v 6, and so forth. When scheduling by seed, teams will be paired strongest versus weakest. In an eight team tournament for example, the first round games would be – 1 v 8, 5 v 6, 4 v 3, and 2 v 7. So the first seed has the ‘easiest’ path to the championship (based on seeded strength), and if the games go “by form”, the championship game will be seed 1 versus seed 2.
6. Add Consolation Game. This checkbox has different meanings depending on the type of tournament. For single elimination tournaments, it indicates whether there is a consolation game between the losers of the semi-final games. For double elimination tournaments, it indicates whether every team must lose twice, creating the possibility of a “repechage” game should the team that emerges from the losers bracket (with one lost) beat the team that emerges from the winners bracket (with no loses) in the “final”. If this box is unchecked, then the team from the losers bracket wins the championship with a win in the “final”, even though the two teams would have one loss in that case.
7. Teams/Seeds. Enter the teams, by number or seed, to set up the first round games based on the Scheduling Method discussed above. If there are not exactly 4, 8, or 16 teams, then assign BYE to some of the teams. If the tournament is Schedule by Seed, then the BYEs should be the lowest seeds.