In every example we've seen from the past three years, team tables slump - and not insignificantly so - when Soloway KOs are introduced or expanded to include all brackets. Possible reasons why include that players may not want to commit to a two-day event; less experienced players may not like the Soloway format; players may not be familiar enough with the format yet to play in Soloway KOs (nobody likes change, least of all bridge players); there may be others. Without some serious polling it's hard to say for sure. But even without any player polling, one thing is clear: recent examples of tournaments and their organizing committees have found out the hard way that Soloways hurt table count turnout - while getting rid of Soloway KOs re-engages team players. |
DEPRESSES TEAM TABLE COUNTS |
IMPROVES TEAM TABLE COUNTS | |
 In 2024, Pittsburgh held bracketed teams play each day of their tournament. With a year off, they're returning in 2026, but they've moved to Soloway KOs only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This tournament did not run on a Monday in 2024, so we will be looking at Wednesday and Friday's team participation rates for comparison. Will they be the exception to the rule? We'll know at the end of September. One takeaway from these charts is tournament organizers should be able to learn something from them, but then not everyone listens to us. In 2026, the St Louis MO Regional decided to add a Soloway-style KO to their tournament schedule on Wednesday of regional week. 10 teams entered the Soloway-style KO on the 2026 Wednesday in question, for 20 tables of teams that day. The problem: 30 teams, or 60 tables of teams played on Wednesday in 2025 when the schedule was bracketed teams only. This one-day team tables drop of -66.7% contributed to the not insignificant St Louis MO Regional overall table decline of -14.6% from one year ago. But this is another example that more often than not, Soloway KOs kill teams play when put on the open regional schedule.  In 2025, the Houston TX Lone Star Regional held bracketed teams only (and no Soloway KOs). The schedule was posted for 2026 to change three days of the week (M-W-F) to Soloway KOs for everybody - with no bracketed team option during those days of the regional. The graph above shows the result. Monday, the total team tables at the Lone Star Regional in 2026 fell by -34.4% from 122 tables one year earlier to just 80 tables in 2026. It got worse as the week went on. Wednesday's team tables fell by more than half in 2026, and for these three days, the overall drop in team participation was 216 fewer team tables or off -40.3%. Keep in mind, this was the 3rd biggest regional in the country in 2025. UPDATE: The 2027 Houston TX Regional schedule is out - guess what's missing? In 2024, the Rancho Mirage CA tournament had days with team play that were scheduled as Soloway KOs for the top-tier teams - and then bracketed teams for everyone else. The decision was then made to change this to all-Soloways for Tuesday and Thursday of their 2025 holiday tournament in SoCal. "Soloways for everyone!" This experiment lasted all of one year, as the total team tables on Tuesday and Thursday at this tournament fell by more than ⅓ when lesser masterpoint players were forced with the Soloway as the team option. UPDATE: The schedule for 2026 in Palm Springs has gone back top-tier Soloways only. |
 In 2025, the Irvine CA Regional forced all teams during Tuesday and Thursday to play Soloway style KOs. Tuesday saw 54 team tables in play, with 42 team tables on Thursday that year. Then the decision was made to go back to one-day bracketed teams in 2026, and the result: Tuesday in 2026 found 94 team tables in play (an increase of +74% from the Tuesday just one year earlier), with Thursday's 86 team tables in 2026 an increase of +105% over 2025's Thursday team tables. This tournament in 2026 saw an increase in their overall table count increase of +00.0% compared to one year earlier - aided in no small way by getting rid of their Soloway KOs. San Diego Pacific Southwest organizers required all players who wanted to play teams on Tuesdays and Thursdays in 2025 to play teams in the Soloway KO format. No bracketed teams were held those days. In 2026, however, bracketed teams were re-introduced to this tournament, with Soloway KOs only for the "top-tier" players. The result: on both days in question during the 2026 tournament, team tables were up a full +50.0% compared to the same day at the tournament one year earlier. Gopher Regional organizers went to a blend of Soloway and Bracketed Teams in 2023, moving to Soloways for all in 2024. It didn't work out too well. But getting rid of the Soloway KO for everyone and going back to Bracketed Teams in 2025 saw their team tables double (from 28 team tables to 56 on the prior Soloway-only Tuesday). For the 2-days that were Soloway-only and then Bracketed Teams, team table participation increased +25.5%. They've opted out of the two-day Soloways now for the forseeable future. Not all tournaments will necessarily see a huge jump in team tables by getting rid of the Soloway KOs at the Open Regional level - but this shows it is possible to re-engage players into the teams format with this simple schedule change.
 Previous Santa Clara CA Regionals had Soloway KOs for everyone on Wednesday, most recently being 2024. Tournament organizers elected to move to a top-tier only Soloway for Wednesday the following year, and team tables on Wednesday of 2025 more than doubled (up +106%) when the bracketed teams option was re-introduced. This schedule was maintained for 2026, with no significant dropoff in team tables on Wednesday (actually, team tables were up +2.7%). This tournament has a two-day pairs event at the end of the week (the All-Western Championship), so bridge players here might be more willing to play a two-day teams event - but that doesn't show up in the data. And exactly how, you may wonder, did this "Soloway Slump" business even become a thing? The answer: First-hand experience. Soloways sound like a fun idea - so your blogmaster on this site elected to try them as the Tournament Chair at our regional in 2024. The team tables that enlisted in the Soloway KO were disappointing, but as the first post-COVID regional in Rochester we had no other data to go by. We got rid of the Soloway KOs in 2025, and lo and behold, our two-day total team tables went from 32 to 48 - an increase of 50%. Was it really that simple to increase your table count by jettisoning the Soloways? This deserved more research - and the results of that research are what you're reading on this webpage.
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