During a tournament the organizer looks at one panel: who plays next, on which table, and why everyone else is waiting. The next-match suggestion is the heart of that panel. It is not artificial intelligence or a complex optimizer, just one predictable procedure worth knowing, so you know what to expect and when to decide for yourself.

Which matches are candidates at all

A match enters the queue when it meets three conditions:

• the match is pending, meaning it has not started and has no result;
• both players are known. A second-round match waiting for the winner of a first-round match is not a candidate until that result has been entered;
• the phase the match belongs to is current. A phase marked stale, meaning a result in an earlier phase feeding it is being corrected, waits with its own label ("waiting for a corrected result upstream") until that phase completes again; if its entrants come out unchanged, nothing is redrawn.

The order

Candidates are put in one order, the same for the whole tournament, by four criteria applied in turn:

1. The phase's layer in the graph. The initial phase comes before the phases that follow from it. Two phases fed by the same phase (a main bracket and a consolation bracket) sit in the same layer and their matches interleave.
2. The round. Round one before round two. In groups a round is a wave of matches within the group.
3. The bracket side. In double elimination the main bracket first, then the losers' bracket, the grand final last.
4. The position in the round. Match number 1 before match number 2, as on the bracket from the top.

This order does not change during the tournament. If the suggestion points at a match lower on the list, it is only because the matches above it are held, not because the system judged their importance differently.

Who can play now

Walking down the queue from the top, the system checks for each match whether anything holds it. There are three hold reasons (plus the stale-phase label) and each is shown next to the match:

• Player unavailable. One of the players is in another match right now, or is paused. The organizer can pause a player for a set number of minutes (the pause lifts itself) or indefinitely (until revoked). A paused player is skipped in suggestions but never taken off a table: a match already in progress is played out.
• Waiting for a table. Every table this match could be played on is taken. A table is taken while any match is on it, including one from another tournament at the same club, and while somebody's reservation covers it at that moment.
• Waiting for an assigned table. There are free tables, but none of them is permitted for this match by the table restrictions (more below).

The first match from the top that nothing holds becomes the suggestion. It is paired with the first free and allowed table on the tournament's table list. If nothing on the list is ready and something is waiting because of tables, the panel says so plainly: players are ready, tables are missing.

Table restrictions

The organizer can assign tables to a phase, to a specific group or to a specific bracket round. For example: groups A and B play on tables 1 to 4, groups C and D on tables 5 to 8, and the final on the TV table. The most specific rule wins: a group setting overrides the phase setting, and so does a round setting. No setting means no restriction.

Restrictions steer the suggestion, and when starting a match that nothing holds the organizer may pick any free table of the tournament, assigned or not; the suggested match itself starts on the table it was suggested with. A match waiting for an assigned table gets no start button, though: the way out is to change or clear the assignment in the settings. The hard rules when starting a match are different: the match must be pending, both players known, the table free (across the whole club, not just this tournament), neither player may be playing on another table at that moment, and the phase must be current.

A tournament without a club

A private tournament may have no venue assigned, and therefore no tables. Then matches are started without a table and the suggestion names only the match. This is deliberately distinguished from a tournament that has a club whose tables were taken back mid-event: there every match waits for a table, and the organizer sees that tables are the problem, not a lack of matches to play.

The waiting queue

Besides the single suggestion, the panel shows the queue: the following matches in the fixed order, each with its hold reason, or with none if it is simply waiting for its turn. Every pending match is listed, not just the first few, because a row without its reason reads as unexplained. Players see the same thing from their side: on the tournament page a player sees their next match, the table once it is on one, and a warning if they are paused.

Penalty shootouts

If a group table ends in a tie the criteria cannot break, a penalty shootout is created: a series of single shots for two or more players, unless the organizer switched the shootout off in the tie-break settings, in which case the group's draw order decides. In the queue it behaves like an ordinary match, only with more participants: it occupies a table and is held while any of its participants is playing elsewhere.

Why so simple

One could imagine a cleverer algorithm: one that predicts match durations, balances table load and minimizes waiting time. It is deliberately absent. The organizer at the desk must understand at any moment why the panel suggests what it suggests, and must be able to do otherwise with one action. A fixed order, three clear hold reasons and the first free table give exactly that. Everything that requires reading the room stays a human decision.