Articles on: ggLeap

Running a tournament in ggLeap

You can run tournaments directly in ggLeap with ggLeap Tournament Hub! This documentation is intended for admins and organizers running a tournament within ggLeap.

Finding the tournaments section

After signing into ggLeap, scroll down on the left sidebar and click on “Tournaments”, directly underneath Events with a medal icon above.

The Tournaments section in the sidebar

When you first open the Tournaments section, you’ll see a screen to start a new tournament.

A section of the start tournament form

After starting one tournament through ggLeap, you’ll see a list of all the tournaments your center has started.

List of previously started tournaments in ggLeap

Starting a new tournament

To create a new tournament, provide the format of your tournament and how you want to add players.

Configuring settings

You are required to configure some settings before starting the tournament.

Format: The structure of the tournament, determining how players are matched up and placed in a bracket or other competition structure
- Single Elimination: a simple knockout tournament, where players are placed in a bracket and are eliminated after a single loss
- Single Elimination with Consolation: a single elimination tournament where players with a loss get placed dynamically into a consolation bracket
- Double Elimination: a knockout tournament where players are eliminated after two losses, and are placed into a lower bracket after one loss where they still have an opportunity to win
- Round-robin: also known as all-play-all, a format where every player plays every other player, and the results are determined by ranking number of wins
- Swiss-system: players play similarly performing opponents in each round without eliminations, and the winner is determined by overall points
- Leaderboard: a points-based tournament where players are ranked according to how many points they have accumulated throughout the competition
- Ladder: a continuous competition where players challenge each other to move up in rank
- Two-stage: a combination of multiple tournament formats with a qualifier stage and finals/playoff stage
- - The qualifier stage can be a group stage (groups > 1), where players play opponents in their assigned group and only the top ranked players in each group qualify for the finals/playoff stage
Seeding: The method of placing players in a bracket or tournament structure based on how they are ranked prior to the competition

Certain formats like round-robin and leaderboard do not have seeding since a prior ranking of players is not necessary in these formats.

- Advantage: the most common method, where players with a higher pre-rank or “seed” have a significant advantage over their opponent (e.g. in an 8-player tournament, 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, 3 plays 6, and so on)
- Equitable: a more niche method that gives players with a lower seed an easier path to progress in the tournament, and narrows the gap between seeds
- Shuffle: randomly shuffles players into the bracket
Games per match (best-of): The number of games to play in each matchup, enabling keeping score for different games in a single matchup

If your tournament has a different amount of games in later rounds, set games per match to the maximum number of games.

Adding locations, players, and details

Before starting the tournament, you can provide the tournament name, the game being played in the tournament, the list of players, and locations.

Locations

Locations are physical or virtual locations where individual matches take place. Only specify locations if you want these to be automatically assigned as the tournament progresses. Manual location management will be rolled out in a future release.

Enables a shareable link for players to join the tournament with their player accounts. Check this box when you want to host a virtual sign-up sheet for players to join your competition

If you want players to be able to link their accounts to record their results in this tournament, you should keep “Signup link” checked.

Signup Settings

Max players: Cap the number of players that can join your tournament
Require teams: Whether to require players to sign up as a team instead of individually
- Team size: the minimum team size required
Signup period: When to allow signups

Manual player entry

Adding players manually is required if “Signup link” is not checked. You must add all players in the tournament and the tournament will not have an intermediate signup step.

When “Signup link” is checked, adding players is optional. The signup list will be pre-populated with any players added here.

Public landing page

For more public-facing tournaments, you can enable a landing page to promote your tournament. It is highly recommended to also have signup links enabled when enabling this setting since signing up is the primary call-to-action of the landing page.

Descriptive fields

In the details tab, there are many optional descriptive fields for the tournament. These fields are used in the public landing page and also when presenting the tournament in the ggLeap client.

Adding a start date and end date with “Schedule matches” checked enables scheduling individual matchups. Setting an end date to another day will let you set the specific day of the match as well.

If you checked “Signup link” when starting the tournament, then you will be able to manage a virtual signup sheet. The primary advantage of accepting signups is that players can sign up with their player accounts to link their ranking in this tournament. You also can add anonymous players or teams manually with their name.

QR code and link

The QR code and link enables players to sign up with their ggLeap tournaments player profile. This account is typically linked to one or more ggLeap centers and signing up via this method automatically adds their result in the tournament to their account. Players can scan the QR code or you can share the link with players directly.

When the tournament is set up with a public landing page, the sign-up link (not the QR code) refers to the public landing page.

Team sign-ups

You can toggle whether to enable individual sign-ups or team sign-ups with the “Team sign-ups only” toggle. When this toggle is on, players signing up with their player profile will be required to register a team for this tournament. This setting can also be configured when initially creating the tournament.

The sign-up sheet prior to starting the tournament

The sign-up sheet with players

Starting the tournament

Once you are ready, you can press “Start tournament” to close the sign-up process and begin the tournament.

For tournaments where seeding is important like single elimination and double elimination, make sure to order the players by their pre-rank or “seed” before starting the tournament. They will be placed according to the seeding method chosen when initially creating the tournament.

Running the tournament

The initial matchups in the tournament will be determined based on the chosen format and seeding (if relevant). An administration or organizer can keep score and select winners while running the tournament. The tournament platform will automatically determine subsequent matchups based on wins according to the format details. These matchups will also be presented with a suggested number/order to keep the tournament running smoothly without bottlenecks.

A matchup card with score and win controls

The full tournament view

Best-of series

If you set games per match to be greater than 1, you will be able to set the score for each game in the series. When finalizing the winner (i.e. pressing “Player wins”), the overall score will be updated to the match record.

A matchup card with tabs for setting the score for each game

Scheduling matches

You can schedule matches if you set a start date and checked the “Schedule matches” checkbox when setting up the tournament. These scheduled times will appear in the read-only/share view.

Scheduling a match

A scheduled match

If you set an end date and it is more than a day later than the start date, a full date and time picker can be used to schedule the match like in the images above.

Otherwise, only a time picker will be available to schedule the match.

Sharing/displaying the tournament

You can share a read-only link to the tournament with players or an audience by pressing the “Share” button in the top-right corner. It will prompt you with a list of options for sharing. If you just want to open the read-only link directly, you can right click the “Share” button. This view will update live as the tournament progresses.

The read-only view

You can display this live view on a TV, or share with players so they can view tournament progress on their mobile devices.

Players will also have access to the tournament details view showing rankings, history, and tournament metadata.

Showing the bracket only

You can click the expand icon in the top right corner to only show the bracket and not the matchup list.

Undoing

You can undo declaring a player the winner by using the “Undo” button in the top right corner.

Undo actions are displayed in tournament history, and will be announced in the live read-only view.

Determining rankings and viewing history

To determine rankings during or after the tournament, you can press “View details” from the main tournament view. Rankings update as players are eliminated from the tournament.

Live rankings during the tournament

Final rankings after the tournament

You can also view tournament history, metadata, and players in this view.

Player profiles can also be viewed here for any player who signed up with their ggLeap tournaments player account.

Revisiting tournaments

You can revisit tournaments as an organizer/admin via the tournament list accessible from Tournaments tab in ggLeap. Completed tournaments will also be included in this list. Completed tournaments are also accessible indefinitely via their read-only link and via the player profiles of tournament players, displaying their placement/ranking in the tournament.

The tournament list

Tournament API

There is a tournament API available for organizers to integrate tournaments with other platforms and systems. Contact tournament@ggcircuit.com or post in the Discord for more information.

Player Profiles

Refer to the “Managing player profiles for tournaments in ggLeap” documentation

Updated on: 20/03/2026

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