Competitors in the IATF Tournament Circuit are awarded Tournament Points based on their finishing position in tournaments. IATF mobile app subscribers are eligible to earn Tournament Points. These points will serve as a measure of tournament participation and success.

Points awarded to a player at a tournament will remain in the player’s tally until the tournament is run again, typically the following year. For contrast with the existing Collins Rating System, which features match-by-match rating adjustments, the Tournament Rating Points leaderboards will be more stable, updating when Tournament Circuit events occur.

IATF mobile app subscribers are eligible to appear on the Global & Regional Tournament Rank leaderboards.

The Collins Rating System (CRS) provides players with a relative sense of where they stand against an opponent. Higher rated players tend to win against lower rated players. Because ratings adjustments are possible following every match, the system is self-correcting, meaning ratings following a match more closely align with the match result. Understanding how a rating has changed over time gives a sense of development as a competitive player.

Beginning with the 2025-2026 Integrated Tournament Circuit calendar, the IATF will award Tournament Points based on performance in tournaments. Given the IATF already has a rating system, let’s examine how Tournament Rank adds another dimension to measurement of competitive development.

Recall the Collins Rating Key Principles:

• Head-to-head competition should be used to assess skills and determine ratings.
• Winning against lower rated players is less valuable than winning against higher rated players.
• Higher levels of competition should raise the stakes by allowing larger adjustments, if required, to better reflect players’ relative skill. ie. Wilson Cup has higher stakes than Grand Slams and Majors, which in turn has higher stakes than league playoffs.
• Throwing an 81 and winning the tiebreaker should never result in a downward adjustment.
• Throwing more frequently should not disproportionately inflate ratings.

The introduction of the Integrated Tournament Circuit and feedback on the CRS prompted the development of another system that rewards performance on the tournament circuit and is stable over a longer period of time.

Tournament Points Design Considerations::

• Participation in a variety of tournaments is rewarded
• Strong performance in a tournament setting is rewarded
• Tournament Points are earned only when Integrated Tournament Circuit events occur, so the ranking is less volatile than with CRS
• Higher levels of competition should raise the stakes by allowing more points to be earned, ie. Wilson Cup has higher stakes than Grand Slams and Majors, which in turn has higher stakes than league playoffs.
• Further integrates the circuit
• Creates a new option to seed tournaments
• Similar to points systems used in other sports (tennis, golf, motor sport, etc), which makes the system more accessible and simple to understand

Tournament Points and Ranking provides a new view of player performance and further integrates the IATF’s Tournament Circuit.

Starting at IATC 2026, some Wilson Cup Round 2 reserved bids will be allocated to top Tournament Rank players. These bids will be for players who have performed well on the Tournament Circuit, but have not yet earned a bid from a top finish on the Circuit.

Collins Rating and Tournament Ranking provide independent ways to look at competitive development.

The 2025-2026 Tournament Circuit, as currently planned, does have geographical variation, i.e. not all geographical areas have an equal number of planned events. This means leaderboards will reflect regional differences. Statistics like Tournament Points per Grand Slam or Tournament Points per Major will be of interest as a normalizing measure that can be used to compare across regions.

Tournament Points will be categorized by throwing discipline. Tournament Points from Standard and Premier tournaments will be aggregated and totaled separately from Big Axe and Knife tournaments. Because this category of points is separate, tournaments can award points as Marquees do. Should a player compete in tournaments of each discipline, they will have separate Tournament Point totals, one from Standard and Premier tournaments combined, one from Big Axe tournaments, and one from Knife tournaments.

Tournament Points earned in tournaments where the registration is restricted to competitors who meaningfully identify as a woman, non-binary person, or other marginalized gender will also earn Tournament Points. Because this category of points is separate, similar to Big Axe or Knife tournaments, tournaments can award points as Marquees do. These Tournament Points will be aggregated and totalled separately to better highlight achievement in these tournaments, as well as to recognize access parity in open registration tournaments.

Competitors in tournaments where the registration is restricted by average will also earn Tournament Points. The points awarded by these tournaments will be scaled by the limiting average.

A limit of 70+ Standard Average will award 75% (rounded) of a Marquee.

A limit of 60-69 Standard Average will award 65% (rounded) of a Marquee.

A limit below 60 Standard Average will award 60% (rounded) of a Marquee.

At events where there are more than one tournament would award points into the same category, be it Hatchet, Big Axe, Knife, Women’s tournaments etc, it will be made clear how points will be awarded for them. Generally, one of the tournaments will award points as described in the tables above, and the other(s) will award points rounded (to avoid decimal points) to 75% of the points awarded. This is likely an unusual case, but could happen, for example, if there are a Premier hatchet tournament and a Standard hatchet tournament scheduled during the same event.

At launch, Doubles tournaments will not award Tournament Points. In the future, Doubles tournaments will award Tournament Points to each player on a team.  The points awarded will be as described above, depending on whether the tournament is a Marquee or Feature, the Discipline, any limits by average, and any restrictions on registration.

The IATF procedure for awarding bids to the Wilson Cup, Grand Slams, and IATC feature tournaments for the first two years of the circuit has been as follows:

• Grand Slams: The top 4 throwers are awarded bids, in order, starting with the 1st place thrower.
  • If a thrower has placed in a Grand Slam to earn a Wilson Cup bid and they have earned a bid from a previous Major, Grand Slam, RATC, or IATC, the bid will trickle-down to the next eligible thrower.
• Majors: The top thrower from a Major tournament is awarded a bid to the Wilson Cup. The top 2 throwers, excluding the thrower awarded the Wilson Cup bid from the same tournament, are awarded bids to a pre-determined Grand Slam.
  • If a thrower has placed in a Major to earn a Wilson Cup bid and they have earned a bid from a previous Major, Grand Slam, RATC, or IATC, the bid will trickle-down to the next eligible thrower.
  • The Grand Slam bids trickled down, in order, from the Wilson Cup bid, regardless of prior bids won.
• Feature Tournaments: The top thrower from a feature tournament that has a corresponding tournament at IATC will receive guaranteed into that tournament at IATC.
  • This bid does not trickle-down.

Trickle-down procedure specific to Doubles Tournaments:

1. Entry into the Doubles Tournament at IATC is awarded to the throwers as a team. In order to redeem this spot, they must register in the IATC Doubles Tournament as a team.
2. If an individual thrower wins multiple entries with different partners, only one of that thrower’s teams may accept the entry.
3. Trickle-down will only be engaged if the team (both throwers together) have already earned entry into the Doubles Tournament at IATC.
4. A team will have the option to decline the bid or self-identify as ineligible to receive a bid. They must follow the procedure outlined in “Players Declining A Reserved Spot”.

In the event that a bid trickles down to a tied spot (eg. 5th place in double elimination), the tie is broken by looking at the following, in order:

1. Most rounds won in their final match.
2. Fewest number of rounds lost in their last match. If still tied, consider the previous match, etc…
3. Thrower who entered the B bracket last (i.e. stayed in the A bracket longer), is the winner.
4. Best score in the final match of the tournament.
5. Best overall performance in the group stage (if applicable).
6. Fewest number of rounds lost in the group stage (if applicable).

If, after examining each tie-breaker element, the throwers are still tied, this is a perfect tie and BOTH throwers will be awarded the bid in question.

We have made a series of updates to AxeScores over the past few weeks to address features and bugs reported via Upvoty, by IATF members, and via email.

The following updates are live on AxeScores now:

• We’ve updated the 81 Club and the 75+ Average Club. Both Clubs now have separate views for Standard and Premier.

• Some Standard 81s were not previously reporting on the Club list; the underlying issue has been resolved and this list will stay current, updating weekly on Mondays.

• The (unofficial) Wilson Cup qualification status can be viewed on AxeScores.com at this link: https://axescores.com/iatc/qualification or by selecting “IATC 2025” from the AxeScores home page. The qualification status is intended to give players looking to qualify for Wilson Cup a sense of where they are in that process. The official list will be produced after the qualification period ends March 7, 2025.

• Some Recreational leagues, mostly related to past tournaments, appeared on players’ profile stats. The underlying issue has been addressed and these should no longer appear there.

• Premier playoff Clutch statistics are now separated between 5 and 7-point clutches on AxeScores.com. A coming update to the AxeScores mobile app will bring this feature to that platform.

Several AxeScores updates are in progress.

We are aware of some impossibly high scores present in the stats. We’ve been working to understand how these happen and how best to address them. Having done that, these results are beginning to be corrected. It is a gradual process that should be completed by mid-January.

The next update to the AxeScores mobile app will bring some highly requested features:

• Premier CRS on players’ profiles; this will be in addition to Standard CRS for players with both ratings.

• Wilson Cup (unofficial) qualification status will be included on player profiles.

• Updates to the 81 Club, 75+ Average club, and Premier playoff clutch stats to the mobile app.

• Google and Facebook have some coming updates to their social login flow. These should have little impact on the user, but it is a necessary update that we are spending the time to ensure works as expected.