Tournament bracket generator
Seeded, byes handled, winners advance on their own. Build it in a minute, score it as you go, then print or share it.
Tournament details
Participantsdrag to re-seed
No byes needed — every entrant plays in round one.
0 of 7 matches decided
Tournament bracket
8 entrants · single elimination · 7 matches · 0 byesHow a knockout bracket actually works
A knockout bracket is drawn on a power of two — 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 — because each round halves the field. Every match eliminates exactly one team, so a tournament of n teams always takes n − 1 matches, no matter how you arrange them. Sixteen teams is fifteen matches; sixty-four teams is sixty-three.
When your entry list is not a power of two, the bracket is drawn on the next size up and the empty slots become byes. Twelve teams sit on a sixteen-team frame, leaving four byes. Those byes go to the top four seeds, which is the point of seeding: the strongest entrants are spread apart and rewarded for their ranking, and nobody meets the top seed in round one by bad luck.
Seeding pairs the highest against the lowest — 1 v 16, 8 v 9, 5 v 12 and so on — so that, on paper, seeds 1 and 2 can only meet in the final. Drag your participants into the order you want and the generator does the rest. Prefer an open draw? Hit random draw and the order is shuffled before the bracket is built.
Common questions
Can I use an odd number of teams?
Yes. Any number from 2 to 128 works. Odd counts simply produce more byes — 7 teams sit on an 8-team bracket with one bye, 13 teams sit on a 16-team bracket with three.
How do I add a third-place playoff?
Choose Knockout + 3rd place as the format. A separate match appears alongside the final, contested by the two beaten semi-finalists.
Can I change a result after entering it?
Yes — tap the winning name again to un-pick it, or edit the score. Everything downstream re-calculates instantly.
Where is my bracket saved?
In your own browser, so it is still there when you come back. Nothing is uploaded. To move it to another device, copy the share link — the tournament is encoded into the link itself.