How to Run an eSports (Video Game) Tournament

If you’ve ever wanted to run your own eSports or video game tournament, but weren’t sure where to start, this book gives you the blueprint from someone who’s actually lived it.

For over two decades, Marcel 'Cello' Torres has been in the trenches of competitive gaming. Long before eSports became a billion-dollar phenomenon, he was hosting packed events in New York City, building The Best in New York City Official Tournaments (BIN) back in 1999.

From the N64 era onward, while growing up in the shadow of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, he hosted tournaments for Smash, Mario Kart, and Street Fighter helping to build communities and shaping the grassroots foundation of the competitive gaming scene we know and love today.

After stepping away for a time, he returned in 2019 to find a totally new landscape and rebuilt from the ground up. New venues, new tech, a global pandemic, and the shift to online brackets didn’t slow him down. Instead, he evolved, running international events and proving that great tournaments are possible anywhere when you understand the fundamentals.

Now living in a new state and still pushing the craft forward, Cello distills 20+ years of real experience into a clear, practical guide for new and aspiring Tournament Organizers. Whether you want to host a local bracket, start a community, or turn your passion into a long-term venture, this book gives you the essential knowledge, mistakes to avoid, and battle-tested systems that actually work.

If you’ve ever dreamed of building something meaningful in gaming, this is your head start.