I am going to invite a few lads around for a small tournament. I might get lucky to have 7 or 8 players. As I have little experience in attending opens, I was looking for a different way to host a tournament. Some thing like 501, every player plays each other. 3 legs. Points tally. Then a KO round. Player with the most points players the player with the least amount of points , and so on,. Best of 3. Till the final. -- I could use some tips on other ways to have a small tournament.

I think Larry may be able to help you or Hatrick

I've never organised anything like this before but if you get 8 players then split them into 2 leagues where they all play each other say best of 5 legs. Top two in each group go through to the semi finals with top of one division playing the second of the other and vice versa to get through to the final.

If you get more than 8 just increase the number of players in each group or even make up extra groups.

Thats the way most tournies are run here now. Groups on boards that play round robin. Then you get top 2-4 from each board and go into the knock out phase.

I've played in a couple that way now - it's a lot more enjoyable because if you lose your first game in a knockout that's it for you, whereas in groups at least you get to play a few games

Thats why they are using that system here. Trying to get more of the lower level players into tournies.

I used to hate the old knock out style. I was always getting done in my first match. Didnt stop me going to the next event though, just wanted to get through. lol

We usually try to use a round robbin format in any tournaments we run, mainly for the fact people get more than one game before they are out so brings more interest from lower level players. We usually play two legs and you get a point for every leg won so its either 2-0 or 1-1. It can get a bit time consuming when you go above about 6 per group.

The last one we had four groups of 6 playing on four boards so it was 15 matches per group with the top two going through to the latter stages.

With 8 people i would just split it into two groups because one group could become abit lenghthy (28 group matches). All down to personal prefrence though. Good luck with it anyway and let us know how it goes

If you are only planning on 7 or 8 teams then it sounds like you are doing the right thing. I run comps all the time big and small and in my experience most people dont care to much about the pay outs they just care about playing the most amount of games possible in these smaller comps. I mean really if you're only charging $5-$10 each to play the winners are not going to get rich they play cause they love darts. If I were you I would do it exactly like you said do a 7-8 team round robin everybody plays each other 2 out 3 games all make it to the knock out, keep track of wins for seeding purposes then just payout say the top 2 or maybe 4 depending on what you are charging to play. Everyone will have fun and it wont take all day. Here is a good site for downloading nice round robin brackets. Just type in round robin score sheets then pic the one you like best my favorite is on page 4.
http://www.docstoc.com/

Hatrick