Knockout bracket
The tournament bracket, with the byes handed out properly
Who plays whom in each round and who goes straight through to the second. Free, no account and ready to print.
How many entries you are
Any number between 3 and 64 works: open the closest one and change the number in the address.
What a knockout is
Whoever loses is out, and there is one fewer match than entries
The same for pairs, players or teams.
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A knockout tournament (a bracket) is the format where whoever loses is out. Each round has half as many entries as the one before, until two are left and the final is played. It is the format for an afternoon or a weekend: you do not have to book courts for months.
There are always one fewer matches than entries, because each match eliminates exactly one: with 24, twenty-three matches. It works the same for padel pairs, tennis players or football teams: the bracket does not know what is inside it. Here is an eight-team basketball bracket run here, with its third-place match.
Byes, which is the part nobody explains
With 12 the bracket is of 16, and the 4 spare slots go to the seeds
Without a ranking the draw is random, and it says so.
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A bracket only fits if the number of entries is a power of two: 4, 8, 16, 32. And almost no amateur tournament gets exactly 16 pairs. When it does not fit, the bracket is built at the next size up and the spare slots are handed out as byes: whoever is drawn against a gap goes through to the second round without playing.
With 12 entries the bracket is of 16 and 4 slots are spare. The question that always comes up is who gets them, and the right answer is not “any four”: they go to the top four seeds. It falls out of how the bracket is laid out, where the last seeding positions are drawn against precisely the first ones.
If you do not have a ranking, the draw here is random and it says it was random. That is more honest than faking a ranking that does not exist.
Questions
What if we are not a power of two?
The bracket is built at the next size up (12 entries go into a bracket of 16) and the empty slots are handed out as byes: whoever is drawn against a gap goes through to the second round without playing.
Who skips the first round?
The top seeds, not any four at random. With 12 entries in a bracket of 16 there are 4 gaps, and they are placed so that the byes fall to seeds 1, 2, 3 and 4. That is what makes the draw fair instead of a lottery.
How many matches does a knockout have?
Always one fewer than entries, because each match eliminates exactly one: with 12, eleven matches. One more if the third-place playoff is played.
Do I need a ranking to make the draw?
No. Without one the draw is random, with a draw number you can change. If you do have one, tick that the list is in order of standard and then the first name is seed number 1, so the favorites cannot meet until the end.
And the winner moves up to the right tie on their own
Run on Peldia, results go in from a phone, every entrant can see when they play without having to ask, and it can be chained after a group stage.
Creating your own needs an account, and those screens are in English too.