Tournament bracket generator — single-elimination draws with byes

How to use the tournament bracket generator

1. Type the players or teams into Players or teams, one per line. You need at least 2 and at most 256.
2. Choose Seeding: Random draw, or As listed (first = top seed) if your list is in ranking order.
3. Press Generate bracket.
4. Read the summary (players, bracket size, byes, rounds and matches to play), the bracket from the first round to the Final, and the First round table, which you can copy or download as round-1.csv.

What it does and when to use it

Use it for a table-tennis or chess club evening, a five-a-side cup, an office video-game tournament, a school sports day, a debate competition, or a “best snack” vote in pairs. The tool takes care of the awkward part, an entry list that is not a power of two, by giving byes to the strongest seeds.

To form the teams first, use the random team generator. To decide who serves or kicks off in each match, use the spinner wheel. Keep the score during matches with the scoreboard.

How it works

The bracket size is the next power of two at or above the number of players: 6 players need 8 places, 20 need 32. Byes are the difference. The tool places seeds in the standard order (for 8 places: 1, 8, 4, 5, 2, 7, 3, 6) and pairs neighbours, so seed 1 meets the lowest seed and the byes fall to the top seeds.

Matches are numbered M1, M2 and onward through every round. Later rounds show “Winner M1” and so on, and a player with a bye goes straight into the next round. Rounds are named Quarter-finals, Semi-finals and Final at the end. With Random draw, the list is shuffled with crypto.getRandomValues before seeding, so every arrangement is equally likely.

Worked examples

Six players, seeded as listed. Ava, Bruno, Chen, Dara, Emeka and Fatima give an 8-place bracket with “Byes: 2”, 3 rounds and 5 matches to play. The first round is M1 Ava v Bye, M2 Dara v Emeka, M3 Bruno v Bye and M4 Chen v Fatima, so the table shows “M2 | Dara | Emeka”.

Four players, seeded. A, B, C and D give two semi-finals, A v D (“M1 | A | D”) and B v C, then the Final.

Duplicates. The list A, B, A is reduced to two players and the note “Duplicate names were removed.” appears.

Limits and tips

• Names must be unique; add a surname or a number to tell two players with the same name apart.
• There is no third-place match.
• Everything runs in your browser; nothing is saved, so download the CSV if you need it later.