Every tournament organizer knows the drill: you close registration, export the list to Excel and start sorting by hand. Who plays at what level? How do you spread the stronger teams fairly across the groups? With 20 participants you can still manage. With 40 or 50 it becomes a puzzle that eats up an hour and still never quite comes out right.
From now on, Slams handles this automatically. With a single click, the platform generates a complete group assignment based on skill level.
How does it work?
Slams uses a snake-draft algorithm. All registered teams are sorted from strongest to weakest based on their DSS rating. They are then distributed across the groups in a snaking pattern: the strongest team goes to group A, the second to B, the third to C, the fourth back to C, the fifth to B, and so on.
The result: every group has one strong team, two average ones and one weaker team. The average rating per group is almost identical. That produces fairer matches, more tension right up to the end of the group stage and less debate afterwards about the draw.
What if a player has no rating?
Not every participant in an open tournament has a DSS rating history with Slams. New players or external participants choose their level during registration: Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced. Slams translates that into a temporary starting value (7.5, 8.0 or 8.5) that is used for the matchmaking. After the tournament, those players get a real rating based on their results.
The organizer stays in control
The algorithm generates a proposal, not a final draw. The organizer always sees a preview first: which team sits in which group, and what the average rating per group is. From that preview you can manually drag or swap teams before you activate the assignment.
That way you combine the speed of the algorithm with your own knowledge of the participants. Know two teams that always butt heads? Put them in different groups. Don't want a pair of friends facing each other in the very first round? Adjust it. The system works for you, not the other way around.
Transparent to players
Once the assignment is activated, every participant receives a notification with their group and the reason for the draw. "You have been placed in Group B based on your rating of 8.2." No surprises, no questions for the organizer. Everyone knows where they stand and why.
What this changes for clubs
For clubs that regularly organize tournaments, this makes a noticeable difference. Preparation takes less time, the groups are fairer and players feel that the system takes them seriously. That boosts engagement and the odds that they'll sign up again next time.
Skill-based matchmaking is part of the tournament module in Slams and available to all clubs on the Club and Growth plans. Read the full explanation of the matchmaking feature or book a demo to see it in action.
