Bracket generator

How to make a tournament bracket

1. Paste the entrants into the box, one per line, best seed first. The counter shows how many byes the bracket needs.
2. Choose Single elimination or Double elimination (with an optional grand final reset), and As listed or Random seeding.
3. Tap Make bracket. Every match gets a number (M1, M2 …) and every empty slot says where its player comes from, such as Winner of M3 or Loser of M5.
4. As matches finish, tap the winner's name. Switch on Enter scores to record a score too, and use Undo if you tap the wrong one.
5. Print it for the wall, save a PNG or SVG, or send a Share link so players can see the draw.

How byes and the losers bracket are worked out

A knockout bracket needs 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 slots, so the size is the next power of two and the spare slots are byes. Seeds are placed in the standard order (1 v 8, 4 v 5, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 in an 8-slot draw), which keeps seeds 1 and 2 in opposite halves, so the byes always land against the top seeds. Worked example: 6 entrants fill an 8-slot bracket with 2 byes. Seeds 1 and 2 go straight to round 2; seeds 4 v 5 and 3 v 6 play round 1. Single elimination then has 5 matches, because every match knocks out exactly one of the 6 and one is left: always entrants minus one.

In double elimination everyone but the champion loses twice, so there are twice as many matches less two: 10 for 6 entrants, 14 for 8, plus one if the grand final is reset. Losers of round 1 meet each other first. After that the losers bracket alternates: survivors play the players who have just dropped down, then play each other. Drops from winners round 2 come in reversed order (in an 8-player draw the loser of M6 meets the winner of M7, whose two players came from the other half), so two players who met in round 1 are not paired again straight away. A bye in round 1 means a bye in the losers bracket too, and the tool skips it rather than showing a fake match.

With the reset on, the grand final is played a second time only if the losers-bracket champion wins it, because the winners-bracket champion has not lost yet. The page marks the reset as Not needed otherwise.

What it cannot do

• No live updates between devices: a share link carries a copy of the bracket as it was, and results you add later need a new link.
• No round-robin or group stage yet, and no Swiss pairings: single and double elimination only.
• Up to 64 entrants, names up to 40 characters. Long names are shortened with … inside the bracket (the full name is in the tooltip, the share link and the saved copy).
• No third-place match and no manual dragging of players between slots; to change the draw, edit the list and make the bracket again.
• The PNG and SVG use a standard sans-serif typeface rather than this site's font, and a 33 to 64 entrant bracket prints small (two sheets, still readable at arm's length).
• A link only passes 2,000 characters for a big bracket of long, varied names (measured: 64 names of 20 random letters with every result is about 2,000; 32 such names about 1,100). Some chat apps cut links that long, so the page tells you the length, and the PNG always works.

Privacy and what is stored

The names never leave your device. The page sends an anonymous page-view count and, when you make or share a bracket, one of three fixed words (bracket-make, bracket-share-make, bracket-share-open); never a name or a result. Your list, settings and results are kept in this browser's local storage so a reload does not lose them; Clear saved bracket removes them in one tap. A share link carries the bracket after the #, which browsers do not send to any server, and opening one saves nothing unless you tap Save this copy on this device.

Questions

How does a double elimination bracket work?

Everyone starts in the winners bracket. Your first loss drops you into the losers bracket, and a second loss knocks you out. The winners-bracket champion meets the losers-bracket champion in the grand final. With 8 entrants that is 7 winners matches, 6 losers matches and 1 grand final: 14 matches, or 15 if a reset is played.

What is a losers bracket and where do losers go?

The losers bracket is the second chance for anyone who has lost once. First-round losers play each other; after that, each losers round alternates between survivors playing the players who just dropped from the winners bracket, and survivors playing each other. Drops from winners round 2 come in reversed order so two players who met in round 1 do not meet again straight away. Every empty slot is labelled, for example Loser of M5.

How do I make a random bracket?

Paste the names, choose Random under Seeding and tap Make bracket. The order is shuffled with crypto.getRandomValues, the browser's cryptographic random generator, using rejection sampling so no position is favoured, and it is fixed before the bracket is drawn. Choose As listed to seed in the order you typed, best first.

How are byes decided in a bracket?

A bracket needs a power of two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64) slots, and the empty slots are byes. They go to the top seeds: with 6 entrants in an 8-slot bracket, seeds 1 and 2 skip round 1 and seeds 3 to 6 play. With 12 entrants, seeds 1 to 4 get byes. A player with a bye advances without a match, in the losers bracket too.

Can I print a blank or filled-in tournament bracket?

Yes. Tap Print to get a landscape sheet, A4 or Letter: one sheet for up to 32 entrants, two sheets for 33 to 64 (winners and losers brackets, or the two halves of a single elimination draw). Print it before any results for a blank bracket with every slot labelled, or after for the results so far.