What are brackets?
About Bowling ¤ Brackets
Current Features of Bowling ¤ Brackets
Works on Microsoft Windows-XP, Vista and Windows-7
For those unfamiliar with brackets let me explain what they are. Brackets are a type of pot game in which bowlers can compete directly against other bowlers during league or tournament play. Bowlers get seeded in a certain bracket position and bowl against the person seeded in the bracket position next to them. The number of games being played determines the number of bowlers in a bracket. A normal 3 game league would consist of 8 bowlers per bracket. A bowler's bracket position is chosen randomly. The bowler in position 1 would be playing against the bowler in position 2; position 3 would be playing 4 and so on. After the 1st game the bowler with the higher score in their bracket pairing would move on to the next bracket level. Starting with 8 bowlers after game 1 there are now 4 bowlers left. The bracket tree causes the 4 bowlers to be paired into 2 groups of 2 bowlers. After the 2nd game the bowler with the higher score in their bracket pairing would move on to the final bracket level. Now there are 2 bowlers and they bowl against each other. The bowler with the highest 3rd game would get the Winners share of the money and the other bowler would get the Runner-up share of the money. Brackets can be run for any amount of money. A typical 3 game league bracket would cost each bowler $5.00; 8 bowlers times $5.00 is a total kitty of $40.00. There is usually a $5.00 charge (this is the money you make), paid to the person running the brackets. That leaves $35.00 in the kitty. This money is usually a split $30.00 for the Winner share and $ 5.00 (money back) for the runner-up share. In my league the person running the brackets usually has 20 brackets going simultaneously.
You can now see that running brackets can be a real moneymaker for you. Let's say that you run brackets for one league. If you run 20 brackets a night, that's a cool $100.00 for you. Just for running the brackets. Do this for a normal 36 week season and you take home $3600.00. By making a small investment you can get a big payoff.
Bowling ¤ Brackets by Better Office Business Systems
Bowling ¤ Brackets is written for Windows XP & Vista and has been developed and tested under both. We here at Bowling ¤ Brackets are bowlers too. Our goal is to deliver to the market a reasonably priced, reliable Windows brackets application. In the next few years we will continue to add features that you and your bowling buddies will enjoy.
Bowling ¤ Brackets / PAT
New Version 7.80
NEW Feature (7.54)
Support MacAddresses instead of USB Keys
Ø Team Support
You can define teams of 2, 3, 4, or 5 players.
You can run brackets, sidepots and even tournaments using teams.
You could run a singles tournament while running singles Brackets, Sidepots and some type of team brackets, Sidepots, Tournament.
Ø Bracket Features:
You can specify what game a bracket starts on.
This allows you to run multiple bracket sets within a Tournament (tournaments are a new feature).
If you are running a 7 game tournament you could run a bracket starting on game 1 for games 1, 2 & 3
and then start another bracket on game 5 for games 5, 6 & 7.
Ability to run as many different bracket types as you like:
You have the ability to pay multiple spots (up to 8) in a 32 player 5 game bracket.
Pay 2 places for a 2 game four player bracket
Pay 2 places for a 3 game eight player bracket
Pay 3 places for a 2 game nine player bracket
Pay up to 4 places for 4 game 16 player bracket
Pay up to 8 places for 5 game 32 player bracket
Brackets now allow up to 3 different handicap bases and percentages. You can choose which handicap base and percentage a bowler will use.
New Bracket type
3 Game 16 Player
Game 1:
Game 2: 8 Players play each in groups of two
Game 3: 4 Winners play against each other.
How they bowl determines how they finish
1 in 7 seating in Round-1
And as close to a 1 in 3 seating in Round-2 as mathematically possible
NEW Scatter seating – tries to spread players around all brackets evenly.
9 player 2 game bracket
Players are seated in groups of 3 and then 3 winners from each grouping move on to the finals.
Mystery Doubles (sometimes called BLIND doubles) added for 2 & 3 game brackets.
ALL Brackets NOW Support Teams (2, 3, 4 & 5 player teams)
Big Bracket Option - 64, 128, 256 Player / Team Brackets now available as an option.
Ø Sidepots Features:
Sidepots now allow up to 3 different handicap bases and percentages. You can choose which handicap base and percentage a bowler will use.
Ability to run different Sidepot types just like brackets above.
Sidepots now contain a space for additional added money.
Sidepots can start on any game during a tournament.
Sidepots available are:
NEW Mystery Doubles Sidepot
Love Doubles Sidepot
High Game Every Game
High Squad Game
High Squad Series
Eliminator (or as I call it cut-the-field):
You can define how many players to cut after each game and pay up to 10 winners in the finals. Because sidepots also have the ability to start on any game you could start the eliminator on game 2 and run for 5 games during a 7 game tournament.
Divisional Eliminator
Multiple Eliminators running at the same time filtering into one Final.
Ø Tournament Features:
Tournaments now allow up to 3 different handicap bases and percentages. You can choose which handicap base and percentage a bowler will use.
All tournaments support Singles, Doubles, and Teams.
Single squad tournaments.
Multi-squad tournaments.
Tournaments can have additional money added to them should you have a sponsor putting up some cash.
Pay up to 250 places in a tournament, if needed we will expand this for you.
Multi-Squad Tournaments
Match Play Tournaments – Both Scratch and Handicap are supported
Ø Lane Assignments / Manual & Automatic Seating
You can define what pairs are being used and how many pairs to skip after each game.
What pairs to skip because they are out of service.
This allows all the reports for retrieving player scores to be printed by where you expect to find the player after a certain game.
Seating can be Manual or Automatic (random or sequential)
Ø Categories
Support for categories has been added.
16 User defined categories are allowed.
Categories can be based on average for players.
You can have one Category assigned to any Bracket, Sidepot or Tournament type.
A player or team can be assigned multiple categories.
Ø Sponsors
You can define a sponsor or multiple sponsors for any player or team.
A sponsor can be sponsoring multiple players or teams
Ø Online Help
Online help is available (Press the F1 key). Anywhere in the system and you will be placed in the proper help section for what you are working on.
Bug / Trouble reporting system
Ø Other
Better Printer Font Support.
Hide / Unhide Active Frameworks.
Tournaments, Sidepots and Brackets now allow up to 3 different handicap bases and percentages.
You can choose which one handicap base and percentage a bowler will use.
Bracket & Tournament HTML Reports
SMART Auto Printing Switches – Auto select reports you need
Batch processing of scores supported
Process scores for bracket only players
Accounting Features (How many, Total Collected, Total Payouts, etc)
Backup / Restore Database
Change change fonts for:
Setup - Types Window, Players Window
Processing - TreeView
Printer Default Font
Save Player Email Addresses and Export for Importing into Microsoft Outlook
Import data from:
Previous versions of Bowling Brackets
Weekly Average file from Bowl101 software.
Import WinLabs Player Averages
Perfect Secretary Current Average Report
BLS2004 Common delimited file (Bowler Name, Bowler Average)
BLS2007 Common delimited file (Bowler Name, Bowler Average - Removes Nicknames - Allow Lane#, Team#)
BLS2009 Common delimited file (Bowler Name, Bowler Average)
BLS2010 Common delimited file (Average List Report)
NOTE: We will make FREE of charge custom import routines for ANY league software you are using.