A bracket turns a list of teams into a clear path to a champion. This generator builds a single-elimination bracket for anywhere from 4 to 64 entries — office ping-pong, a chess club, a video game night or a school fundraiser — with proper seeding, byes where needed, and winners you can advance with a click. When you are done, print it for the wall or save it as a PDF.
How to use the tournament bracket generator
- Type the teams or players, one per line. In seeded mode, list them from strongest to weakest.
- Choose Seeded in list order or Random draw.
- Add an optional title, then press Build bracket.
- As matches finish, click the winner’s name to move them into the next round. Click again to undo.
- Press Print for a clean paper copy. The bracket and results are saved in this browser.
How the bracket is built
Bracket size and byes
Byes are given to the top seeds, who advance without playing. Because a bracket of size 2m always has fewer than m byes, no first-round match ever pairs two byes.
Seeding order
Standard seeding is built by repeatedly pairing each seed with its “complement.” Starting from [1, 2], each step replaces every seed s with the pair (s, size + 1 − s):
| Bracket | First-round order (top to bottom) |
|---|---|
| 4 | 1–4, 2–3 |
| 8 | 1–8, 4–5, 2–7, 3–6 |
| 16 | 1–16, 8–9, 4–13, 5–12, 2–15, 7–10, 3–14, 6–11 |
If the favorites keep winning, seed 1 meets seed 4 in the semifinal and seed 2 in the final — the arrangement used by most sports leagues.
Worked example
Ten teams, seeded in list order.
The next power of two is 16, so the bracket has 6 byes and 4 rounds: Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Final. Seeds 1 through 6 receive byes. The only first-round games are 8 v 9 and 7 v 10.
The tournament needs 10 − 1 = 9 games: 2 in the first round, then 4, 2 and 1.
Bracket sizes at a glance
| Entries | Bracket size | Byes | Rounds | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| 6 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 8 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 7 |
| 12 | 16 | 4 | 4 | 11 |
| 16 | 16 | 0 | 4 | 15 |
| 24 | 32 | 8 | 5 | 23 |
| 32 | 32 | 0 | 5 | 31 |
| 48 | 64 | 16 | 6 | 47 |
| 64 | 64 | 0 | 6 | 63 |
Seeded or random?
Seeding rewards past results and keeps the strongest entrants apart until the late rounds, which usually produces the most competitive final. A random draw suits casual events where nobody has a track record, or where you want any matchup to be possible. If you seed some entrants and not others, put the seeded ones at the top of the list and pick seeded mode; the rest fill the lower seeds in the order you list them.
Running the event
- Schedule first-round games in the order shown; the top half and bottom half can run on separate courts or tables.
- For a third-place game, play the two semifinal losers separately — single-elimination brackets do not include it.
- Odd numbers of entrants are no problem: byes absorb the difference.
Need to form the teams first? The random team generator can balance them by skill. Settle who picks sides with the coin flipper, or draw a random order of play with the wheel spinner.
Frequently asked questions
How are byes assigned?
When the number of entries is not a power of two, the bracket is filled up to the next power of two with byes, and the byes go to the top seeds. Ten entries make a 16-slot bracket with six byes, so seeds 1 to 6 go straight to the second round.
How does seeding work?
In seeded mode the first line of your list is seed 1. The bracket uses the standard pairing in which the seeds in each first-round match add up to the bracket size plus one (1 v 16, 8 v 9 and so on) and the top two seeds can meet only in the final.
How many games are in a single-elimination tournament?
Always one fewer than the number of entries, because every game eliminates exactly one team and all but the champion must be eliminated. Twenty teams need 19 games, no matter how the byes fall.
Can I change a result?
Yes. Click the winner again to undo it, or click the other team. Later rounds that depended on the old result are cleared automatically, so the bracket can never show an impossible path.
How do I print the bracket?
Press Print. Only the bracket prints — landscape for up to 32 entries, portrait for larger brackets — with winners shaded. Choose Save as PDF in the print dialog to share it.