Tournaments are competitive events organized to allow individuals and teams to face off against one another in a set number of matches, usually over time, where a winner is decided based on winning a percentage of them. They’re especially common in sports with limited competitors: such as team and racket sports, combat sports, card and board games and competitive debating.
Tournament structures vary significantly but typically aim to provide a fair and efficient means of selecting the most capable athletes from among competitors in any particular sport or game. This may be accomplished using brackets of various kinds or seeding (determining who plays whom), or more exotic techniques like shootouts.
Local or weeklies tournaments are the smallest tournaments, often started as friendly competitions between friends. Held in various venues with low entry costs and frequent scheduling opportunities for newcomers to test out competitive play, locals/weeklies offer newcomers an excellent introduction into tournament competition. A step above locals, monthlies are larger events with larger venues and more participants. They tend to place emphasis on encouraging people from neighboring communities to attend.