Tag Archives: gaming

16 Person Round-robin Rook Tournament: Instructional Guide

Bracket with 4 TeamsDue to a request, I have decided to create a post for how a set partner rook tournament would go with 16 people.  With round-robin, you have two stages of the tournament.  The round-robin portion which basically produces two tournament brackets to complete the tournament.

Initial Notes

  • 16 People
  • 8 Teams
  • Broken up into two different groups
  • Final tournament to crown one team as champion
  • Each round should be played either for time or to certain points

The Setup

With 8 teams, you will ultimately need to break up your group into two divisions. Randomly place 4 teams in one division and 4 teams in another division.  These 4 teams will then play each other to seed themselves in the tournament bracket portion.

Round-Robin Stage

During the Round-robin stage, the four teams will play each team in their division.  So for group A that has teams 1 through 4, each team will play three rounds.  Team 1 vs 2, while team 3 vs 4.  Then team 1 vs 3 while team 2 vs 4.  Finally team 1 vs 4 while team 2 vs 3.

After the 3 games are played, the scores are are recorded and calculated to see the seeding.  The rankings of the teams from the round robin group are as follows:

  1. Most wins
  2. Point differential in games.  Add total points for and subtract total points against.  (If tied for wins)
  3. Who looks the best (if tied for point differential)

The top 2 teams from each pool then go on to the winners bracket while the bottom two teams go on to the losers bracket.

Tournament Bracket Portion

There will be a winners bracket and a losers bracket now.  Team ranked 1 from pool A will play team ranked 2 from pool B while team ranked 1 from pool B will play team ranked 2 from pool A.  The winners of this match will then play a final game vs each other to produce a winner.

Some people choose not to have a losers bracket, it is up to you if you want to play a losers bracket.  If you do, it would be the same concept where team ranked 3 from pool A would play team ranked 4 from pool B, and so forth.

Winner is Crowned

In total, you are looking at 5 total games to produce a clear winner with all the bragging rights for the day.  Congratulations to you, but you can expect you victory will be short lived as someone else is ready to take over your crown the next rook tournament.

Additional Notes

  • Some people choose to play games to 500 pts and do not time the games.  The downfall with this is one game could end in 20 minutes while another game could end in 2 hours.  Other people choose to just play timed matches.  40 minutes per match and whoever is winning by the end of the time get the victory.  This can throw a wrinkle in some strategies for extending games, but keeps time to a minimum.
  • You can expect that this tournament may take about 4 – 5 hours to crown a winner (possibly more with longer games).    So be prepared for a long night if you start a 10:00pm!

Rook Turned 105 in 2011

Old Rook Cards

Yeah, it’s not the big century mark, but this rook game website was not quite around in 2006, so we thought we would give a happy birthday shout out to rook this year.  105 years ago the greatest card game known to man was born.  The card game rook born to give non-gamblers a way to battle it out on the card table for many years was created 105 years ago.  And to this day, the variations of rook keep pouring in.

Rook Tournament Review: Jan 12, 2011

So we held our first rook tournament of 2011 this past week.  What a great day it was.  We had 8 people playing and there was of course food and treats along side.

After warming up with a game of Settlers of Catan while we waited for everyone to show up, the tournament began.  Quite a simple tournament actually.  Single elimination and each match went to 500.  So team 1 played team 2 while team 3 played team 4 and then winners played winners and losers played losers.

If you have never been able to set up a tournament, may I ask why?  I have to say that playing a rook tournament is the perfect way to have a game night.  As long as you have:

  • At least 8 people to make the tournament worth while
  • At least 1 to 2 hours to complete the entire tournament
  • 2 nice decks of rook cards
  • a group of players that are all of the same skill level

As far as the outcome…well, lets just say it wasn’t my partner’s and my night.  It was one of those nights that every time you stretched your bidding hoping that the kitty was going to at least help a little, the kitty completely messed you over.  And every time your opponents would go all out on a risky bid, their partner would have the exact cards they needed to bail them out.   Not to mention the few rounds where my partner and I couldn’t even get close to taking a trick because our opponents had every single high card in the deck.

Yeah, I am little bitter at the hands we got 🙂

No worries though, I am sure the next go around is going to be better.

Let me know your thoughts if you have ways to spice up a rook tournament someway.  We haven’t ventured out into the team trading realm yet, but I am sure that would be a major switch.

Best Places to Play Rook: On a Camping Trip

While nothing beats the comfort of playing in your own home, around a card table set up with perfect lighting, smooth countertops, and endless fresh reverse osmosis water, playing rook with a group of friends on a camping trip can make for some of the best times possible.  Sitting next to a campfire, s’mores in your hand, and sitting around a picnic table with your favorite card game.

The rook game is easy for camping because there are a number of games that can be played anywhere from 2 to 8 players. Its also semi-competitive in nature so you can play it for fun, or challenge yourself to some real strategic plays.  Being that anyone with a little bit of understanding of card games can pick the concept up really quickly, it makes for including the entire group in a camping trip extremely easy.

So next time you are planning a camping trip out somewhere, make sure you remember to pack your deck of rook cards and let the games begin!

We Want to Hear from You

What are some of your favorite places to play rook?

Are There Professional Rook Players?

Clearely, if the question “Are there professional rook players” interests you, you are a true fan of rook. To get the answer, I must compare the question to a similar field.  What makes a professional card player?

  1. They spend a significant amount of time playing or promoting their card playing.
  2. They make a significant portion of their income from card playing.
  3. They likely do not have a side job, and purely use card playing as the main source of income.

These comments lead me to find out, how exactly might someone who loves to play rook, and may even be very good at it, be a professional rook player?  Well, quite simply, there is currently not a way to make this happen.  OK, yes I have heard of some decent size rook tournamants where the winning teams gain some nice lawn chairs or even tickets to a football game, but not quite the payoff that someone might get from say a major poker event.

The truth is, the rook card game just was not meant for making money.  And the crowd that follows it is not that much into the idea of making money off playing cards as well.  You have to realize that some people refer to rook as missionary poker becuase the missionaries that played it did not believe in playing with regular decks of cards.

In all likelyhood, there would need to be some major deal with ESPN or something like that to get enough of a following for rook to actually think about ever becoming a professional rook player. Until that day, we will just have to enjoy tailgaiting at our football game with our new lawn chairs!