How single elimination works
Every match has a winner who moves on and a loser who is out. With 8 teams there are 3 rounds (quarterfinals, semifinals and the final) and 7 matches in total. In general, a tournament with N teams always has N − 1 matches.
Byes explained
Brackets work best with 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 entries. When the number does not match, some teams get a bye: a free pass to round two. Byes go to the top seeds as a reward. With random draw, byes land on whoever is drawn into those spots.
Uses for brackets
- Office tournaments: ping-pong, foosball, video games, trivia
- "Best of" debates: favorite snack, movie or song brackets
- School sports days and club competitions
- Fantasy and prediction pools
Need to split players into teams first? Use the random team generator. Need a random team for each person? Try the random NFL team generator.
Last reviewed October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make a tournament bracket?
Enter the team or player names, one per line, choose seeded or random order, and press Create bracket. Click a name in any match to advance it to the next round, all the way to the champion.
What if I do not have 4, 8, 16 or 32 teams?
The bracket rounds up to the next power of two and gives "byes" to the top seeds, who skip the first round automatically. For example, 6 teams get an 8-slot bracket with byes for seeds 1 and 2.
What is seeding?
Seeding ranks teams so the strongest do not meet early. In a seeded bracket, seed 1 plays the lowest seed, seed 2 plays the second lowest, and the top two seeds can only meet in the final. List your teams from strongest to weakest.
Can I print the bracket?
Yes. Press Print to get a clean bracket on paper, either blank for predictions or with the winners you have filled in.
Does it support double elimination?
This tool makes single-elimination brackets, where a team is out after one loss. It suits most office pools, game nights, sports days and gaming tournaments.