Editing Tournament (section)

==Multi-stage tournaments==
{{anchor|Group stage}}<!--[[Group stage]] redirects here-->
Many tournaments are held in multiple stages, with the top teams in one stage progressing to the next. American professional team sports have a "regular season" (group tournament) acting as qualification for the "post season" or "[[playoffs]]" (single-elimination tournament). A '''group stage''' (also known as '''pool play''' or the '''pool stage''') is a [[Round-robin tournament|round-robin]] stage in a multi-stage tournament. The competitors are divided into multiple groups, which play separate round-robins in parallel. Measured by a [[Group tournament ranking system|points-based ranking system]], the top competitors in each group qualify for the next stage.  In most editions of the [[FIFA World Cup]] finals tournament, the first round has been a group stage with groups of four teams, the top two qualifying for the "knockout stage" played as a [[single-elimination tournament]]. This format is common in many international team events, such as [[World cup competition|World Cup]]s or [[Olympic Games|Olympic]] tournaments. Some tournaments have two group stages, for example the [[1982 FIFA World Cup]] or the [[1999–2000 UEFA Champions League]]. As well as a fixed number of qualifiers from each group, some may be determined by comparing between different groups: at the [[1986 FIFA World Cup]] and [[UEFA Euro 2016]], the best four of six third-place sides qualified; at the [[1999 Rugby World Cup]] the best one of five third-place sides did so.

Formerly in the [[Swiss Football League]], teams played a double round-robin, at which point they were split into a top "championship" group and a bottom "relegation" group; each played a separate double round-robin, with results of all 32 matches counting for ranking each group. A similar system is also used by the [[Scottish Premiership]] and its historic predecessor, the [[Scottish Premier League]], since 2000. After 33 games, when every club has played every other club three times, the division is split into two halves. Clubs play a further five matches, against the teams in their half of the division. This can (and often does) result in the team placed seventh having a higher points total than the team placed sixth (because their final five games are considerably easier), nevertheless, a team in the bottom half never receives a higher final ranking than a team which qualified for the top half.

A multi-stage pool system was implemented by [[Curling Canada]] for the Canadian championship curling tournaments (the [[Scotties Tournament of Hearts]] for women and the [[Montana's Brier]] for men) starting in 2018. The change was intended to allow the expansion of the main stage of the tournament from twelve to sixteen teams while keeping the round robin at eleven games. The teams are seeded using [[CTRS standings|a ranking system]] in which points are calculated based on the teams' results in all competitive [[bonspiel]]s using a complicated formula. Seeds 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 16 and placed in Pool A while seeds 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 and 15 are placed in Pool B. After each team has played seven games, the top four teams from each pool advance to the "Championship Pool". Carrying over their entire round robin records with them, Championship Pool teams play one game against each of the four teams in the opposite pool, with the top four teams qualifying for the [[page playoffs]]. In contrast, teams that fail to qualify for the Championship Pool play only one additional "Placement Round" game against the team that finished in the same position in the opposite pool for the purposes of determining final tournament ranking. For these teams, there is little else to play for since there is no form of relegation (and, with the expansion of the field to sixteen teams, no "pre-qualifying tournament") and seeding is based solely on the performances of the participating teams and not the past results of the provinces and territories they represent.

The [[Premier A Slovenian Basketball League|top Slovenian basketball league]] has a unique system. In its first phase, 12 of the league's 13 clubs compete in a full home-and-away season, with the country's representative in the [[Euroleague]] (an elite pan-European club competition) exempt. The league then splits. The top seven teams are joined by the Euroleague representative for a second home-and-away season, with no results carrying over from the first phase. These eight teams compete for four spots in a final playoff. The bottom five teams play their own home-and-away league, but their previous results ''do'' carry over. These teams are competing to avoid relegation, with the bottom team automatically relegated and the second-from-bottom team forced to play a mini-league with the second- and third-place teams from the second level for a place in the top league.

=== Super 6s / Super 8s ===
Sometimes, results from an earlier phase are carried over into a later phase. At the [[Cricket World Cup]], the second stage after group stage, known as '''Super 6s''', features three teams from two preliminary groups, total six teams into one same group. At this stage the qualified teams do not replay the others they have already played, but instead reuse the original results in the new league table, to determine the teams qualified for the knockouts. However, in the [[Men's T20 World Cup|T20 World Cup]] (T20Is; the other format of cricket), the second stage after group stage, is known as '''Super 8s''', which features two teams from four preliminary groups divided into two groups of four which then play a single round-robin in each of the two groups respectively, to progress in the knockout stage.