What is a single-elimination bracket?

A single-elimination (or knockout) bracket is a tournament format where the loser of every match is immediately out. Winners advance through rounds — quarter-finals, semi-finals, final — until one entrant remains as champion. It is the format used by most cup competitions, playoff series and weekend tournaments because it produces a winner in the fewest possible matches.

How are byes handled when my entrant count is not a power of two?

Brackets need a power-of-two number of slots (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64). When your entrant count falls between those, the generator pads the bracket with byes and assigns them so the top seeds get the free passes. Any entrant drawn against a bye advances automatically to the next round with no match required.

What does seeding do?

Standard seeding orders the bracket so the strongest entrants are kept apart for as long as possible — seed 1 only meets seed 2 in the final, seed 1 plays the lowest seed in round one, and so on. Toggle to entry order if you would rather pair entrants exactly as you typed them, or use Shuffle for a fully random draw.

Do winners advance automatically?

Yes. As soon as you enter two different scores for a match, the higher score wins and that entrant is written into the correct slot in the next round. Change a score later and the whole downstream tree re-computes, so corrections cascade correctly all the way to the champion.

Is my bracket saved if I close the tab?

Your tournament name, entrants and every recorded score are saved in your browser''s local storage, so reopening the page restores exactly where you left off. Nothing is sent to a server, so the data stays on the device you used. Clearing your browser storage removes it.

What can I do with the exported files?

The PDF is a print-ready A4 sheet — ideal for pinning to a wall, handing to officials or sharing as a fixture list. The SVG is a resolution-independent vector you can open in design tools, embed on a website or scale to any poster size without blurring.

Tournament Bracket Generator

A single-elimination tournament bracket generator that takes a list of teams or players and turns it into a properly seeded knockout draw — then keeps the bracket live as results come in. It is built for anyone organising a competition: a five-a-side football weekend, an office table-tennis ladder, a chess club championship, an esports cup or a school sports day. Instead of drawing boxes on paper and re-writing names every round, you enter scores once and the winners advance themselves all the way to the final.

How it works

Type your entrants one per line, then click Generate bracket. The tool rounds your entrant count up to the next power of two and lays out the full match tree — round one through to the final. If your number of entrants is not a power of two (say eleven players for a sixteen-slot bracket), it inserts byes and places them against the top seeds so those entrants advance automatically, exactly as a real tournament committee would seed the draw.

You can shape the draw three ways. Standard seeding orders the slots so the best entrants meet as late as possible — the classic 1-vs-16, 2-vs-15 ladder. Entry order pairs entrants exactly as you typed them. Shuffle and draw randomises the field for a blind draw. Switching between these rebuilds a fresh bracket.

As each match finishes, type the two scores under Record scores. The moment the scores differ, the winner is written into the next round automatically and the round headers update — quarter-finals, semi-finals, final. If you mistype a result, just correct it: the entire tree downstream re-computes from round one upward, so a single change ripples through to the champion without leaving stale names anywhere. When the final is decided, the champion is announced at the top of the bracket.

Example

Imagine an eight-team five-a-side tournament: Lions, Falcons, Sharks, Wolves, Eagles, Bears, Hawks and Tigers. With standard seeding, Lions (seed 1) open against Tigers (seed 8) while Falcons (seed 2) sit on the opposite half of the draw, so the two favourites can only meet in the final. You enter the quarter-final scores — Lions beat Tigers 3-1, Sharks edge Eagles 2-1 — and those winners slot straight into the semi-finals. After the final score goes in, the bracket crowns its champion and you export a clean A4 PDF to pin on the wall, plus an SVG for the club website. Every calculation happens in your browser; no team names or scores ever leave your device.

The bracket is auto-saved locally, so you can close the tab between rounds and pick up exactly where you left off — handy when a tournament runs across a whole day.