Compete, improve, and climb the ranks
Everything you need to know about setting up your profile, joining tournaments, understanding your ratings, and making the leaderboard.
Your profile
Your profile is your identity on Grassroots. It includes your display name, avatar, bio, and social links so other players and organizers can find you.
Handle
Your unique @handle is how others mention and find you. Choose something memorable — handles are unique across the platform and can be changed later in settings.
Social links
Connect your Twitter, Discord, Twitch, YouTube, and Steam accounts. Add custom links to your personal site or portfolio. These appear on your public profile.
Avatar & bio
Upload a profile picture and write a short bio. Both are visible on leaderboards, tournament brackets, and club member lists.
Joining tournaments
Grassroots supports several ways to participate in competitive events.
Browse open tournaments
Public tournaments are listed on the tournaments page. Filter by discipline, format, or status to find events that match your interests.
Join via invite link
Organizers can share private invite links for their tournaments. Click the link and confirm your participation — you'll be added to the bracket automatically.
Club tournaments
If you're a member of a club, you'll see club-exclusive tournaments in your dashboard. These are only visible to club members.
Tournament formats
Understanding the format helps you know what to expect during a tournament.
Single elimination
Lose once and you're out. Fast, high-stakes, and decisive. Best for smaller fields or quick events.
Double elimination
Two brackets — winners and losers. You need to lose twice to be eliminated. Gives every player a second chance and produces more reliable rankings.
Swiss
Players are paired against others with similar records each round. No one is eliminated — everyone plays every round. Great for larger fields where you want maximum games.
Round robin
Every player faces every other player. The most thorough format — ensures a complete picture of relative skill, but takes the most time.
Ratings & rankings
Grassroots uses established rating systems to track your competitive strength across disciplines.
Elo rating
The classic chess rating system adapted for all disciplines. Your rating goes up when you win and down when you lose, with the magnitude depending on your opponent's strength. Beat a stronger player, gain more points.
Glicko-2 rating
An advanced system that also tracks rating reliability. If you haven't played in a while, your rating deviation increases — meaning your next results will have a bigger impact. Organizers choose which system to use.
Per-discipline ratings
Your chess rating is separate from your pool rating. Each discipline tracks its own leaderboard, so you can compete across multiple games without cross-contamination.
Leaderboards
Public leaderboards rank players by rating within each discipline. Your position updates automatically after rated tournament results are processed. Only public rated tournaments contribute to leaderboard standings.
View leaderboardsMembership tiers
Grassroots is free to use for competing in tournaments. Membership tiers unlock additional features for organizers and club owners.
Free
Join unlimited tournaments, track your ratings, appear on leaderboards, customize your profile with social links. Everything a player needs.
Basic
Create public tournaments, manage series, and access priority support. Ideal for community organizers getting started.
Pro
Create clubs, access the External API, choose rating systems per tournament, and unlock all platform features. Built for serious organizers and platform integrators.