Tournament guides
How the formats work, in plain terms, with worked examples drawn by the same engine that builds the brackets.
What is a round robin?In a round robin, every team plays every other team. Nobody is knocked out, so everyone gets the same number o…Double elimination, explainedDouble elimination means a team is out after two losses, not one. It takes more games than single elimination,…Byes and seedingA bracket needs a power-of-two number of slots: 4, 8, 16, 32, 64. If your field is smaller, the empty slots ar…The Swiss system, explainedSwiss is for fields that are too big for a round robin and too long for elimination. Everyone plays every roun…Pool play rulesPool play gives every team several games and still ends in a bracket. Teams play a round robin inside a small …Round robin tiebreakersWrite the tiebreakers on the sheet before the first game. The usual order is wins, then the result between the…Single elimination, explainedSingle elimination is the fastest format: one loss and you are out. A field of n teams plays n − 1 games, what…Run a tournament in one eveningCount games, count courts, count minutes. The format is whichever one fits the clock you have, not the one tha…Bracket mistakes to avoidMost bracket mistakes come from drawing the bracket by hand. These are the ones that show up most.…How many games are in a tournament?Single elimination takes n − 1 games. Double elimination takes 2n − 2, or one more. A round robin takes n × (n…
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