Guides
How to run a pool night
Everything we know about running a bar tournament that people come back to: the format, the money, the timing, and the handful of things that actually go wrong. Free, no signup, no email gate.
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How to run a pool tournament at a bar
A complete, practical plan for running a bar pool tournament: the format, the money, the timing, and the four things that actually go wrong.
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How to split a pool tournament pot
The standard payout splits by field size, worked examples with real numbers, how to handle a house cut, and how to round so nobody is counting out change.
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What to charge for a bar pool tournament
How to set a buy-in that fills the room instead of thinning it, what the bar actually makes, and why the most profitable number is often lower than you think.
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How long does a pool tournament take?
Real timings for three-strikes and bracket formats, the arithmetic behind them, and the specific things that make a night overrun.
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How to start a weekly pool league at your bar
Turning a one-off tournament into a weekly that still has people at it in March: the season structure, the points, the promotion and the realistic first eight weeks.
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Three strikes vs Killer: the same game with two names
Why American bars and British pubs call the same pool game different things, which rules actually differ, and how to translate between them.
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Why your pool night loses ten minutes a rack
The specific, measurable things that stretch a two-hour tournament into a three-hour one, and what each of them costs in minutes.
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Nine bar pool formats, ranked by how well they fill a room
Every format worth running in a bar, compared on player count, length, skill tolerance, and whether people stay in the room after they lose.
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Running a pool night when the bar wi-fi is bad
Why tournament apps fail in exactly the rooms they are needed in, what to check before you rely on one, and how to run a night that cannot be stopped by a dead connection.
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Every Killer pool variation, and which to actually use
The house rules people add to Killer and three-strikes pool — extra lives, scratch penalties, buy-backs, team play — and an honest verdict on each.
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How to keep track of whose turn it is in a pool tournament
Four ways to run a rotation — whiteboard, paper, phone and screen — with the honest failure mode of each.
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What to put on a pool tournament flyer
The six things a bar tournament poster has to say, what to leave off, and where to actually put it.
Run your next night on it
Free, and it runs a whole night — the strike engine, the TV display, the player QR card, who has paid and what the pot pays out. No ads on any plan.