Running a pool tournament at your bar shouldn't take an hour to set up. Here's the start-to-finish workflow that gets you from "I have eight people who want to play" to "we have a champion" — without arguments, without a whiteboard that gets erased halfway through, and without spreadsheet skills.
Step 1 · Gather your players
Walk around the bar. Ask who wants in. Take names — first names are fine, nicknames are fine, just make them unique enough that you don't have two "Mike"s. Aim for an even count: 4, 8, 16, or 32. If you end up with 7 or 13, that's OK — BTop will hand byes to the top seeds (more on that below).
Step 2 · Sign up at btop.app
Hit btop.app on your phone or laptop. Click Drop In. Sign up takes 30 seconds — venue name, email, password. No credit card. Free forever for single-table single-elimination events.
Step 3 · Set up the tournament
You'll see a setup form. Three things to decide:
- Game type — pick 8-Ball Pool. (You can run any game; pool is the default.)
- Bracket type — pick Single Elimination unless you specifically want every player to get two losses before they're out. Single is twice as fast and what most bar tournaments use.
- Race to — pick 1 (knockout, single rack decides the match) or 2 (best of 3). Anything higher takes premium token; you don't need it for a casual night.
Hit Save. The tournament is created.
Step 4 · Add players
Type each name into the player input, hit Enter. As you add them, the live bracket preview reshapes below — you can see exactly how the matchups will look.
Step 5 · Cast to the TV
Click the TV View button in the nav. Scan the QR code with the bar's TV (or open the link on a Roku, Fire Stick, or laptop hooked to HDMI). The TV now shows a "WAITING" screen with the BTop logo. Players know something's happening.
Step 6 · Start the draw
Hit Start Draw on the admin. The TV flips to an animated card-flip reveal. Click Reveal Next to flip cards one at a time (creates suspense) or Reveal All if you're behind schedule. Players see their slot in the bracket as their card flips.
Step 7 · Click "Finish Draw → Start Bracket"
Now the TV switches to live tournament mode. Three views rotate every 18 seconds: Now Playing (current matches with table assignments), Bracket (the full tree), and Leaderboard. A live news ticker scrolls fun facts at the bottom.
Step 8 · Run matches
The admin shows you which match is up next on each table. When a match finishes, tap which player won. The bracket auto-advances; the TV shows the winner sliding into their next slot with a slam animation.
Mistake? Hit undo on the most recent match. Older matches are locked — bracket integrity matters.
Step 9 · Champion
Last match wins, the TV cuts to a glowing trophy reveal with the champion's name in arcade red. Hit Download Report on the admin to get a branded PDF with the full bracket and leaderboard. Share it on the bar's Instagram. Done.
Common questions
What if a player drops out mid-tournament?
Pick a winner for their pending match (pick the other player). The bracket advances normally. There's no "forfeit" button yet — picking the other player as winner does the right thing.
Can players see the bracket on their phones?
The TV URL is shareable. Anyone with the link can watch the bracket update live on their phone. They don't need an account.
How long does an 8-player tournament take?
Single elim, race-to-2, on one table: roughly 45 minutes. Add tables to cut that down. Add longer race-to to extend it. We've seen 16-player single-elim wrap in 90 minutes on two tables.
That's the whole flow. Free tier covers the most common case. When you need more — multi-table, double elim, longer races — premium tokens are $9.99 each or $79 for ten.