Free tournament bracket maker: single and double elimination

List your entrants, one per line, from 2 to 64. Or choose a number and press Fill in names to get Entrant 1, Entrant 2 and so on. Then choose:

• Format. Single elimination knocks you out after one loss. Double elimination knocks you out after your second.
• Seeding. Seeded treats the order you typed as the seed order, so the first name is seed 1. Random draw shuffles the names, and pressing the button again gives a new draw.
• Third-place match. Tick it to add a match between the two semifinal losers. It applies to single elimination with 4 or more entrants.

Press Generate bracket. Each round is a column on a wide screen and a list on a phone. Every match has a number, and a later match that depends on an earlier one says so: Winner of M3, Loser of M5.

Your names stay in your browser. There is no account and nothing is sent to Flobit.

A bracket needs a power of two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 places). When your field is smaller, the empty places are byes: the entrant who would have faced an empty place goes straight to the next round. The bracket maker always gives the byes to the top seeds. With 6 entrants there are 8 places, so seeds 1 and 2 get a bye, and round 1 is 4 v 5 and 3 v 6.

The placement is the standard one. Wikipedia's article on single-elimination tournaments describes it as pairing the highest and lowest seeds, the second highest and second lowest, and so on, which for 8 places gives 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5. For 16 places the first-round pairs are 1 v 16, 8 v 9, 4 v 13, 5 v 12, 2 v 15, 7 v 10, 3 v 14 and 6 v 11. The layout keeps seeds 1 and 2 on opposite halves, so with no upsets they can only meet in the final.

A bye is not a match. It takes no match number and the entrant simply appears in round 2, marked bye.

With Random draw, the byes still go to seeds 1, 2, 3 and so on, but those seeds are drawn by lot.

Choose single elimination for a one-day event or a big field: it is the fastest way to find a winner. Choose double elimination when people have travelled or paid to play, so nobody goes home after one bad match.

With n entrants, single elimination always takes n − 1 matches, because every match knocks out exactly one competitor. Double elimination takes 2n − 2 matches, or 2n − 1 when the grand final has to be played twice, as Wikipedia's article on double-elimination tournaments explains.

In double elimination the bracket maker shows a winners bracket, a losers bracket and a grand final. Anyone who loses in the winners bracket drops into the losers bracket, and a second loss ends their tournament. The grand final is between the winners-bracket finalist and the losers-bracket finalist. If the losers-bracket team wins it, both teams have lost once, so the grand final reset is played. The bracket maker lists the reset as Played only if needed. If the winners-bracket team wins the first game, the tournament is over.

Add one when there is a prize for third place. It is played between the two semifinal losers and numbered just before the final. Wikipedia calls it the third place playoff.

There is no third-place match in double elimination, because the losers bracket already decides the later places. With 2 or 3 entrants there are not two semifinal losers, so the option has no effect.

Yes. Download CSV saves one row per match with these columns: match number, round, the two entrants, an empty score for each side, and an empty winner column. Fill in the results as you go.

Two details make it open correctly. The file starts with a UTF-8 byte order mark, so names such as Əli, Çağlar or Иван keep their letters in Excel. And the separator follows the page language: a comma in English, a semicolon in Azerbaijani, Russian, Turkish and Spanish. Excel splits a CSV on the list separator of the computer's regional settings, and Microsoft's help page says the default is a comma. Where the regional list separator is a semicolon, a comma file lands in one column. If a file still opens in one column, use Excel's Data > From Text/CSV and pick the delimiter.

Copy for WhatsApp puts the bracket on your clipboard as plain text, with each round as a bold heading. Print gives a clean page with only the bracket on it.

This tool draws the bracket and stops there: it keeps no scores and does not move winners forward. Use it to plan, to print for a venue wall, or when your event lives in a group chat.

In Flobit tournaments you create single or double elimination inside a community, approve entries and keep a waitlist, and the bracket updates as results come in, with live scores and referees. Results confirm automatically after 24 hours, and organizers can correct tournament results. The tournament formats guide compares knockouts with leagues and group stages, and the round-robin generator is the tool for leagues.

How many matches are in a single elimination bracket?

How many matches are in a double elimination bracket?

What is a bye in a bracket?

How are seeds placed in a bracket?

Can I draw the bracket at random?

Is the bracket maker free, and does it need a login?

Does Flobit run brackets?