🏆 Tournament Bracket Generator
Paste in your players and get a proper single-elimination draw — byes handled automatically, no manual bracket math required for a party or game-night knockout round.
How single-elimination seeding works
A single-elimination bracket needs a number of slots that's a power of two — 2, 4, 8, 16, and so on — because every match halves the field until one player remains. When your actual player count doesn't hit one of those numbers exactly, the extra slots become byes: a bye player simply advances to the next round without playing, rather than sitting out the whole event.
Byes are traditionally given to the strongest entrants (the top seeds), which is exactly what this generator does using the order you list players in. Everyone else is paired off for a real round 1 match.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens when the number of players isn't a power of two?
The bracket rounds up to the next power of two (5 players becomes an 8-slot bracket, for example) and the difference becomes byes. Byes go to the top seeds in the order you listed them, so the strongest entrants skip round 1 and advance straight to round 2 — the standard way knockout tournaments handle an uneven field.
Does seed order matter if everyone's about equal?
It only changes who gets a bye when byes are needed. If your group has no clear seeding, list players in a random order and byes will land randomly too — there's nothing unfair about that, since the tool doesn't know anyone's actual skill.
How many rounds will the tournament take?
A bracket of size N (after rounding up to a power of two) always takes exactly log₂(N) rounds to reach a single champion — an 8-slot bracket is 3 rounds, a 16-slot bracket is 4, and so on, regardless of how many byes round 1 has.
Can I generate round 2 in advance?
Not from this tool — round 2 depends on who actually wins round 1, which isn't known ahead of time. Once round 1 finishes, come back and re-run the generator with just the winners (plus any bye players) to seed the next round.
For friendly game-night knockouts and party tournaments — not a gambling or wagering tool of any kind.