PONGIQ

Help & Guide

Everything you need to play in — or run — a tournament on PongIQ, in plain language.

For players

  1. Create your account

    Register with your email, then fill in your profile — handedness, grip, and playing style. Your rating starts at the standard baseline and moves after every rated match you play.

  2. Find a tournament

    Browse Tournaments and open one. Each tournament contains one or more categories — the competitions you actually enter, like Men’s Singles or Women’s Doubles.

  3. Join a category

    Tap Enter, pick your categories, and confirm. For doubles you’ll pick a partner. The organiser accepts entries, so your spot shows as pending until then.

  4. Play your matches

    Once the draw is published you can see your bracket or group on the tournament page, live scores included. After each match your rating updates automatically — win against stronger opponents and it climbs faster.

For organisers

Any account can become an organiser — the button is on your dashboard. Running an event takes four steps:

  1. Create the event

    Name, venue, and dates. The event is the container — nobody can enter it until it has at least one category.

  2. Add categories

    A category is one competition inside your event. For each you choose:
    • Discipline — who plays and how: Men’s/Women’s Singles, Doubles, or Mixed Doubles.
    • Age group — OPEN means anyone; U15/O40-style bands restrict by birth year, shown exactly as official documents publish them.
    • Draw size — the bracket’s capacity (8, 16, 32…). Fewer entries than places is fine: the system fills the gaps with byes, ITTF-style.
    • Seeds — how many top-rated entries get protected placements so they can’t meet early. Typical: 2 for a draw of 8, 4 for 16, 8 for 32.
    • Match format — best-of how many games, and points per game. Standard is best of 5, games to 11 — but every value is configurable, down to best-of-7 games to 7.

    A simple first tournament is one category: Men’s Singles, OPEN, draw of 8, 2 seeds, standard format.

  3. Publish and collect entries

    Publishing lists your event publicly so players can join. In the Entries tab, accept players as they come in, then use Auto-seed to rank them by rating — that freezes the seeding the draw will use.

  4. Run the draw, then score

    In Draws: run the draw (every placement follows ITTF rules and records why), approve it, then lock it — locking generates all the matches. From Matches, open any match’s score pad on a phone. Brackets, standings, and ratings all update live as results come in.

Scoring a match

The score pad is built for one hand at the table: tap the winner’s half of the screen after each point. It tracks serve rotation, tells you when to change ends, and closes each game at the right score for that category’s format — you never need to remember the rules mid-match.

Made a mistake? Undo steps back one point at a time, even across games. The match only becomes final when you confirm the result on the end screen — and injuries, no-shows, and disqualifications are all handled from the menu with the proper reason recorded.

Glossary

Category
One competition inside a tournament — e.g. Men’s Singles OPEN. Players enter categories, not the tournament itself. (Federations call this a “subevent”.)
Draw
The official placement of every entry into the bracket or groups. PongIQ draws follow the ITTF rulebook and record the reason for every placement, so the draw can always be justified later.
Seed
A top-rated entry given a protected placement so the best players can’t meet in early rounds. Seeds 1 and 2 are placed at opposite ends of the draw.
Bye
A free pass through round one, used when the bracket has more places than entries. Byes are placed against the seeds first — that’s the official rule, and it rewards the highest-rated players.
Groups vs knockout
Knockout: lose once and you’re out. Groups: everyone in a small group plays everyone, and the top finishers advance. Group standings use the full ITTF tie-break procedure, including the part most software gets wrong.
Best of N / points per game
“Best of 5, to 11” means first to win 3 games, each game to 11 points (win by 2). Every category sets its own format.
Walkover / retirement
A walkover is a match won because the opponent didn’t play (no-show, injury before the match). A retirement is stopping mid-match. Both are recorded with a reason — they affect results but never count as on-table wins for ratings.
Rating
Your playing strength as a number, updated after every rated singles match using the same maths as the German TTR system. Beating stronger opponents moves it up faster; new players start at the standard baseline.
Win prediction
Before a match, PongIQ estimates each side’s chance of winning from ratings and head-to-head history — always with an honest confidence label. When there isn’t enough data, it says so instead of inventing a number. Our real track record is public on the accuracy page.

Still stuck? The fastest way to learn is to create a practice tournament with a draw of 8 and click through the whole flow — nothing breaks, and you can delete it after.