A bracket that fills itself in
Running a small tournament on paper goes wrong in predictable places: an odd number of entries nobody knows how to pair, a result written in the wrong box, a league table that has to be recounted after every match. Here you type the entries once and the page keeps the structure straight while you only enter scores.
Two formats cover most club nights, office competitions and school events. In a knockout bracket, every match sends one side home and the winner moves to the next round until one champion is left. In a round robin, everyone plays everyone once and the table decides — fairer for small groups, but with more games.
You can draw the bracket at random or use your list order as seeding, so the strongest entries are kept apart until the late rounds.
Running a tournament
Decide the format and seeding before the first result: drawing again clears every score.
Type the teams or players, one per line, and choose “Knockout bracket” or “Round robin”.
Press the draw button. Leave the list order option off for a random draw, or switch it on if the list is already ranked from strongest to weakest.
After each match, type both scores into its card. In a knockout the winner appears in the next round; in a round robin the table under the fixtures updates.
What it keeps track of
Everything that is usually done with a pencil and an eraser.
- Knockout brackets for 2 to 64 entries
- Round robins for 2 to 20 entries, everyone against everyone once
- Byes for the top seeds when the count is not a power of two
- Random draw, or seeding by the order of your list
- Winners advance as soon as a score is entered
- League table with 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw
- Ties in the table broken by score difference, then scores for
- Everything stays in this browser between visits
Club nights, offices and schools
Wherever a handful of games has to produce one winner.
An office table-tennis cup with eleven players: the top five seeds get first-round byes and the final is played on Friday.
A board game club runs a six-player round robin over a month and checks the table before each evening.
A school sports day draws sixteen class teams into a knockout bracket shown on the hall projector.
A FIFA night among friends uses a round robin of five, so one person rests each round.
A chess club seeds eight players by rating to keep the two strongest apart until the final.
A quiz league tracks ten teams over a season with points per evening.
How brackets and tables are built
A knockout bracket is padded to the next power of two. With eleven entries the bracket has sixteen places, and the five empty ones become byes. Standard seeding decides the places: seed 1 meets the last seed, seeds 1 and 2 can only meet in the final, and byes fall against the top seeds, so a bye never meets another bye.
A round robin uses the circle method: one entry stays fixed while the others rotate, which gives everyone a different opponent every round. With an odd number, one entry rests each round and every entry rests exactly once. Each result is stored with the pairing it belongs to, so if you change an earlier score and a different team reaches the next round, that later match simply waits for a new result.
What it does not do
A knockout match cannot end level. If your game allows draws, record the tiebreak — penalties, an extra frame — as part of the score.
There is no double elimination, Swiss system or group stage followed by a knockout yet.
It is not an official results service or a betting tool, and the bracket is not shared online with players; show the screen or take a screenshot.
For a tournament without disputes
- Agree before the start how draws are settled in a knockout and how table ties are broken.
- Seed only if the ranking is genuine; otherwise a random draw is easier to defend.
- With more than eight entries, a round robin gets long: eight entries already need 28 matches.
- Put the page on a shared screen, so everybody sees who plays next without asking.
Tournament questions
How are byes handled?
The bracket is filled up to the next power of two and the empty places become byes. They go to the top seeds, and a player with a bye moves straight to the second round.
Can I seed the bracket instead of drawing it?
Yes. Put the entries in ranking order and switch on the list-order option. Seed 1 then meets the lowest seed, and the top two can only meet in the final.
How many matches does a round robin need?
Each pair plays once, so n entries play n×(n−1)/2 matches: 6 entries play 15, 10 entries play 45.
How is the league table sorted?
By points — 3 for a win, 1 for a draw — then by score difference, then by scores for, and finally by name.
What if I typed a wrong score?
Correct it. Winners and the table update immediately; a later knockout match that now has a different pairing waits for a new result.
Are my results saved?
Yes, in this browser. You can close the tab and continue later on the same device.
Can players follow the bracket on their phones?
Not yet: there is no shared session for tournaments. Put the page on a big screen or send a screenshot after each round.