More tournaments, more fun: introducing Weekend Cups

Friday, October 23, 2026

Tournaments are one of the most popular features of Whisthub. So popular, in fact, that I often receive requests to increase their frequency. Currently, tournaments are only held on weekdays, and unfortunately some players have obligations during the week which makes it impossible for them to participate.

Obviously I have already thought in the past about organising tournaments during the weekends as well, but until now there were always a few things holding this back. There have been a few weekend cups in the past, for example in May 2021 and March 2022, but it turned out that they are way harder to fill up with a sufficient number of players—and this was still during the Covid times!

That's understandable, because people often have other things to do during their weekends than play cards online, but the problem is also made worse by the fact that tournaments on Whisthub are knockout tournaments. This means that only the top two players of every round qualify for the next round, and consequently, after the first round, half of all players are already eliminated. Imagine keeping your Sunday free in order to participate in a tournament on Whisthub, only to be eliminated after the first round. Ain't no fun for nobody.

Pure knockout tournaments also mean that the number of participants always has to be a power of two: 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, ... For Weekend Cups, 64 turns out to be too hard to consistently fill up, but on the other side, 32 players seems to be too low. It would be nice too if a non-fixed number of players could be used - for example, a minimum of 32 and a maximum of 64 - but again, that's not possible with knockout tournaments.

One solution I have considered is a simple league format. This would mean that everyone plays a fixed number of rounds, and the winner of the tournament is simply the player with the most points. Super simple, but the problem with this is that players might be inclined to just leave the tournament when they see after a few rounds that winning is not possible anymore anyway, which would cause AI players to be introduced in the tournament. It also lacks the sheer excitement you get from a knockout format: when the scores are very close, you can really feel the adrenaline surge through your body, all to end up at those precious first two spots.

The solution: hybrid tournaments

Both knockout and league formats clearly have their pros and cons, but you can also make a mix of both. I call this format the hybrid format, and it's the format that will be used for tournaments during weekends, which will, unsurprisingly, be called Weekend Cups.

Arguably, a hybrid format is nothing new. In fact, the most well-known example is the FIFA World Cup. It starts with a group stage so that every team gets to play at least 3 matches, then to be followed by the knockout stage, where every match is played with the utmost intensity, and it is not uncommon for a game to be decided by penalties—the ultimate, nail-biting experience!

Now, the hybrid tournaments on Whisthub will be a little different from the FIFA World Cup because there won't be separate groups in the group stage. In fact, a better comparison is the format that is used for the UEFA Champions League since 2024-2025. Each tournament will start with 3 qualifying rounds, and every player plays in every round. This solves the problem of needing a fixed number of players: Weekend Cups will have a maximum of 48 players, but this is only a maximum, and they can be held with fewer players as well.

During the qualifying stage, the points scored in each round are all added together, from which the group stage standings are compiled. Below is an example of what the group stage standings could look like after three rounds for Colour Whist.

In this case, the top 8 players qualify for the knockout stage. Note that the main parameter that determines the ranking is the sum of points obtained in the qualifying rounds. The place obtained in each round is of no importance, except in case of a tie break, in which the player that obtained the best positions wins.

It works this way so that there's always an incentive to keep playing. Even if you've lost the first two rounds, you can still qualify if you get an exceptionally good score in the last round! This is good, but it also means that you have to be careful taking too many risks!

For example, if you're in last place during a round, you might be inclined to take more risks in an attempt to climb higher, under the impression that you have nothing to lose anyway. While that might work in a knockout tournament, it can severely backfire during the qualifying rounds because if you lose badly, it will be reflected in the standings!

Indeed, have a look at Monica and Mike in the example. Both Monica and Mike ended second in all of their rounds, but Monica qualifies, while Mike doesn't, because she played better and has considerably more points than Mike!

After the qualifying rounds, the rest of the tournament works exactly like the current tournaments: the best two players of each room go through to the next round. Weekend Cups will initially have 2 knockout rounds: a semi-final, and of course the final.

Note that apart from qualifying, the position you obtained in the rankings also determines who you get seeded with in the semi-final. Numbers 1 and 2 are put in separate rooms for the semi-final, as are numbers 3 and 4, and so on. So, in theory you should have an advantage if you got first place after the qualifying rounds as you are guaranteed to be paired with "weaker" players, and in theory it should be easier to reach the final.

Tournament series and their champions

If you've participated in tournaments before, you probably know that the winner of a tournament gets a badge next to their name until the next tournament is held for that game, and up until now, there was only ever a single champion per game. With the introduction of the Weekend Cups, that doesn't work anymore. Weekend Cups are fundamentally different from the knockout tournaments held during the week, so it would make sense that both the Weekend Cups and the Midweek Cups have separate champions.

That's exactly what will happen. Each tournament is now part of a series, and if you win a tournament of a specific series, you get to keep the badge until the next tournament of that series. More specifically, if you win a midweek tournament, you keep the badge until the next midweek tournament, and if you win a Weekend Cup, you keep the badge until the next Weekend Cup. Note that this means that there will be multiple players around on the website wearing the badge at the same time!

If you play Manille often, the concept of tournament series will sound familiar: there are already two series here: the Solo Cups and Team Cups. Until now, only the winner of a Solo Cup got a badge, but that changes. If you (and your partner in the final) win the Team Cup, you both get to wear the badge as well until the next Team Cup!

With every tournament now belonging to a specific series, this also has a nice side effect that I'm personally quite happy about. If you read the blog post about the tournament schedule, you might remember this quote:

Subsequently the tournament configuration is generated automatically, and all I have to do is come up with a name for the tournament - which is surprisingly hard sometimes! Actually, naming tournaments is the only reason why tournaments are not generated completely automatically!

Now that every tournament belongs to a series, every tournament simply gets the name of its series. So, Weekend Cups will always simply be called "Weekend Cup" wherever they appear, and the tournaments during the week will have their names changed to "Midweek Cup". This way I no longer have to make up a name for every single tournament, which also made me hesitant to increase the tournament frequency!

Anyway, you'll soon see the Weekend Cups appear on the tournament calendars. Keep an eye on them, and hopefully you can become the weekend champion one day!