How to Organize and Run a Washer Toss Tournament

Washer toss is a great game that can be played anywhere with just a few people. Taking the game to the next level with a tournament is a great way to make it even better. Organizing a smooth running tournament provides an afternoon of entertainment that everyone can appreciate.  The following post outlines the basic steps to organizing and running your own washer toss tournament.  Some basic rules are located here.

Pick the Teams for the Tournament

Balanced teams make for a good tournament and a random selection of teams is likely the fairest way to set the tournament up, unless you know the skill levels of all players.  If your group has known skill level players, a draft may be appropriate; however, I have found a random draw to be effective. Using playing cards is the easiest way to do the draw; however, you can also use the Random Numbers Tab in the linked google sheet.

Identify the Players

Find out who wants to play and write all names down on the Roster of Players linked here or Download it here.  The tournament requires an equal number of players. If you don’t have an even number, select a strong player to play on two teams. Place this player on teams in different pods to avoid scheduling issues until elimination play.   

Select the Teams

Teams are comprised of two players. In order to set up the draw, you will need two playing cards of the same color and with the same number on them. For example, if you have 16 players you will need 16 cards, so pull out Ace through Eight in both Hearts and Diamonds.

Have each potential player draw one card and write down the number drawn by the player next to their name on the Roster of Players sheet (downloadable here). 

When the draw is complete, there will be 8 teams of 2 players each.

The final step in team selection is to transfer the team names onto the Team Sheet linked here or you can Download it here.  The Team Sheet will make things much easier later as you are trying to get the teams to play in the group stage.  Once you have transferred the names to the Team Sheet, you will no longer need the numbers, playing cards or Roster of players.  Once you have the teams selected, move on to the setup of group play.

Set up Group Play

The setup of Group play is relatively simple and depends on how many teams will play in the tournament.  In our current example we are using 8 teams, so you will print out the “Group Play” by 4s sheet and post that somewhere that all players can access.  If you have a different number of teams, then you will need to use the correct Group Play sheet.  The number of available players will determine the size of your groups. Groups will be based on multiples of 3, 4, or 5 as that will cover 95% of the possible scenarios.

Using pods in group play provides an opportunity for all teams to play an equal number of games. Each team in the group will play all of the other teams in the group and then report their results (including the score) on the Group Play sheet.  Once all games are complete, you are ready to rank the teams and move on to the elimination bracket.

Score Group Play and Rank Teams for the Elimination Bracket

At the conclusion of group play, rank each team from first to last.  These rankings will determine seeding in the elimination round.  Assign one point for each victory and then rank the teams from first to last based on the total number of points that they have accumulated during group play.  

Tiebreakers 

It is highly likely that there will be multiple teams with the same point value.  If a tie exists, use a tiebreaker to determine final rankings.   The first tie breaker is head to head competition.  If two teams each have 2 points, look to the result of the match in which they played each other.  The winner of that match would be the higher seed.

When 3 or more teams are tied and the head to head tiebreaker is not determinative, use the next tiebreaker.  The second tie breaker, is just points scored against. Add up all of the points scored against each team and determine which team has the fewest points against it. The team with the fewest points scored against it will be the higher seed. The team with the most points scored against it will be the lowest seed.

Once you have the rankings completed after group play, move on to setting up the elimination bracket.

Set up the Elimination Bracket of the Washer Toss Tournament

The elimination bracket seeds the tops teams against the bottom teams, while minimizing rematches from group play. The following rubric should be used to seed the teams.

If there is a clear number one seed, start with the number one seed as the base of the bracket. Determining a number one seed is done by finding the team that did the best during Group play (i.e. only one of the first place teams won all of their group play matches or a point differential is evident, then this is an easy selection).  The highest rated team becomes the number one seed and would play the last place team from the other pod.  

The seeding looks like this for an 8 team tournament:

• 1 v 8 Pod A #1 (#1 Seed) vs Pod B #4 (#8 Seed)
• 2 v 7 Pod B #1 (#2 Seed) vs Pod A #4 (#7 Seed) 
• 3 v 6 Pod A #2 (#3 Seed) vs Pod B #3 (#6 Seed)
• 4 v 5 Pod B #2 (#4 Seed) vs Pod A #3 (#5 Seed)

Write the Pod and team number in the correct seed location on the bracket.  For instance, if team 3 was the #1 seed out of the Group play, they would just be inserted into the bracket as the #1 seed.  Once the bracket is filled out, then it is time to play the elimination portion of the tournament.

Play the Elimination Portion of the Washer Toss Tournament 

Generally by this point in the tournament, most teams are fine with a single elimination bracket, but if you have some very competitive individuals or a lot of time, a double elimination bracket could be played, and both are linked here.

If you choose the double elimination bracket, remember a team coming through the loser’s bracket would need to win twice against the team it first met in the championship game. That team would not have lost yet and would be entitled to the benefits of the double elimination tournament.

Everything you need to run the tournament in one spot is below

Forms in one file are located here: PDF Excel google Sheet.

Crown a Champion

Once you have a champion, think about memorializing the event with a trophy or plaque and get ready for your next tournament. Don’t forget some good championship shirts!

Game Play Equipment

I like to play with my own equipment (I have made my own boxes and paint my own washers) but that is time consuming and may actually be more expensive than just purchasing the equipment online.  Items needed for the washer toss tournament can be found on Amazon and here are some links to Washer Toss Games.

There are a lot of  DIY Washer Toss creation links out there as well.

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