There are three ways onto a tournament's list of players: signing up yourself, being entered by the organizer, or accepting an invitation. Each has different conditions and slightly different consequences. This article sorts out all three, along with what happens to the roster between creating a tournament and starting it.

First: draft and publication

A new tournament is always a draft. The creation form collects the basics, the date and the venue, and the tournament comes into being visible to nobody but the organizer. A draft holds no tables at the club and nobody can sign up for it. The organizer adds the description and publishes the tournament from its settings when ready. Publishing is a one-way decision: from then on eligible players can see the tournament, the sign-up window opens according to the configured dates, and the selected tables are reserved for the tournament's duration.

Way one: self sign-up

A player with an account signs up on their own, with the button on the tournament page. For the sign-up to succeed, all of the following must hold:

• The tournament is published and has not started yet.
• The sign-up window is open, that is the current moment lies between the registration opening and closing dates. Outside the window the button is not shown at all; the tournament page carries a status badge instead, "Upcoming" before the window and "Registration closed" after it.
• The player has a tournament rating in the game the tournament is played in. The rating is created the first time a skill level is set for that game. If it is missing, the app asks for a level pick and only then completes the sign-up. That rating is stored with the entry and is what the roster shows.
• If the organizer restricted the tournament to selected tiers (for example amateurs and intermediates only), the player's tier must be within that set. Otherwise the sign-up button is withheld with a short explanation.
• The participant limit, if the organizer set one, has not been reached.

Until the tournament starts, a player can withdraw. One exception: if the tournament has an entry fee and the organizer marked it as paid, withdrawing requires talking to the organizer. Pressing "Join tournament" a second time changes nothing.

Way two: entry by the organizer

The organizer can add a player manually from the tournament management panel. This is the path for people who came to the club without an account, for latecomers, and for players who for some reason cannot sign up themselves. An organizer entry bypasses the sign-up window, but it does not bypass three things: the tournament must be published, must not have started yet, and the participant limit binds the organizer too.

There are three ways to enter somebody by hand:

• A walk-in profile (a player without an account) the organizer created: first name, surname, country and optionally a city. Such a profile is reusable. The same player who turns up for the organizer's next tournament is already on the list to pick from.
• A friend in the app, that is a person with an account the organizer has a friendship with.
• A one-off name, typed in for this tournament only. Nothing is created and nothing is remembered, so the same person typed in again next time is a different entrant with no shared history.

The first two are picked from a pool the search offers, and what the pool holds depends on the tournament. A public tournament at a billiard hall is an official tournament, the kind that moves ratings: it offers reusable profiles and friends alike, and an organizer with the player-directory role can also find the profiles other organizers entered. A private tournament is not official, so it takes no account-less profiles at all: there it is friends or a one-off name.

When creating a new profile, the system checks whether the pool already holds somebody with that first name and surname. If it does, the first attempt is refused and a reason must be given for creating a second profile with the same name. That friction is deliberate: it is easier to check whether it is the same person now than to merge two profiles with tournament history later.

The rating at entry. Every entrant carries one, and where it comes from depends on the way in. Creating a walk-in profile asks for a tier (beginner, amateur, intermediate, advanced, pro) and refuses to save without one; nothing is preselected, because a rating is what the draw and the ranking are built on.

That tier seeds the profile's rating once, and afterwards only official results move it, so entering the same player next time reads the rating they have earned rather than asking again. A one-off name is the only case with a default: the tier is set to intermediate unless the organizer says otherwise. For a friend with an account no tier is picked at all, their real rating in that game is used, and an entry is refused if they have none yet.

Tier restriction and the start. A tier restriction blocks self sign-ups, but it does not tie the organizer's hands: they can knowingly enter a player outside the allowed tiers. The reverse is possible too: the tournament was open, somebody signed up as a pro, and only later did the organizer restrict it to amateurs. In both cases the tournament cannot be started while such a player is marked present; the roster marks every entrant it applies to, confirmed or not, so the organizer sees it before confirming anybody. The pre-start checklist names the problem and links to the participants panel. The organizer has three ways out: withdraw the player, leave them unconfirmed, or widen the set of allowed tiers.

Way three: an invitation

Invitations apply to private tournaments in the "invited only" mode. A private tournament is visible to its creator and to people who have access through a private place, through friendship (in the "friends" mode) or through an invitation. An invitation does exactly one thing: it grants the invited person visibility of the tournament and sends a notification. It does not put them on the roster and does not take a seat in the participant limit. The invitee still signs up themselves, under the rules from way one.

Only the organizer's own friends in the app can be invited. Invitations are sent from the tournament settings after publication, because an invitation to a draft would lead to a tournament the invitee cannot see anyway. Inviting the same person again does nothing and sends no further notification. Revoking an invitation takes away visibility but never removes somebody who has already signed up: a player who is in the tournament keeps access to it regardless of invitations and friendships.

What the roster says, and what it does not

Being on the roster is not the same as being in the draw. For every player the organizer marks attendance: "not here yet", "present", "did not come". Signing up is self-service and needs nobody's approval, but only confirmed players go into the draw. That is why on the day the organizer goes down the list and confirms who is present. Confirming and marking absent also affect a player's reputation: attendance raises it, absence lowers it. Both are applied once, at the start.

If the tournament has an entry fee, the organizer marks next to each player whether it has been paid. An unpaid fee does not block the start; it is only a warning on the checklist. Paying at the table right before the start is a normal situation in a club.

In short

• Self sign-up: a published tournament, an open sign-up window, a rating in that game, an allowed tier, a free seat.
• Entry by the organizer: a reusable profile, a friend, or a one-off name, outside the sign-up window, always with a rating, and a player marked present outside the allowed tiers blocks the start.
• Invitation: friends only, private tournament in the invited mode only, grants visibility, not an entry.
• Only players confirmed on the day go into the draw.