Enjoy the Grand Slam? Bring Groups and Knockout to Your Own Pub

Published 7 Nov 2026

There's something I like about a tournament that starts with groups. One bad match doesn't immediately send you home. You've got a chance to settle in, find your doubles and give yourself something to play for in the next game.

It's part of what makes the Grand Slam interesting. With the last qualifiers now confirmed, the attention turns to the group stage and then the knockout matches. And it raises a fairly simple question: why keep that kind of tournament just for the professionals?

You can bring the same groups-then-knockout idea to your own pub or club with Pub Darts Manager. The software supports groups of four or five players, followed by knockout rounds. The Grand Slam's 2026 groups contain three players, so your local event uses its own format, with more group matches for each player.

Give everyone a proper evening of darts

Take a local event with 16 players. Put them in four groups of four and everyone gets three group matches. That's a much better evening for someone who's travelled to play than losing one first-round match and packing their darts away.

With Pub Darts Manager, the group stage leads into an A-round for the top two players in each group. If you use the B-round as well, the other two can carry on in their own knockout competition. Now you've got something for the stronger players to chase without ending everybody else's evening early.

That's the bit I like for pub darts. The final still matters, but so does giving the whole room a reason to stay involved.

Let the website handle the organising

The organiser already has enough to do. Somebody needs a board, somebody wants to know when they're on, and somebody else is asking whether that last result has changed the standings.

Pub Darts Manager brings the players, group results and knockout rounds together. Add your participants, choose your tournament settings and enter the scores as the matches finish. Players can use the shared link or QR code to look up their group, board, matches and results on their phone.

You still run the night and enter the results. The website helps keep the tournament information together, instead of leaving you to piece it back together from scraps of paper.

If watching the Grand Slam has made you fancy running something at your own venue, have a look at how Pub Darts Manager handles groups and knockout rounds. You don't need a television stage to put on a good tournament. A few boards, a room full of players and a format that suits them is a pretty good start.

Ready to give it a go? Create your account and set up your own darts tournament.

Photo license: CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sources

Image: Stephen Bunting, Premier League Berlin, 3 April 2025 (archive photo) — Sandro Halank.