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20 team double elimination bracket

20 entrants, two lives each: 19 matches in the winners bracket, 18 in the losers bracket over 8 rounds, and a grand final. Type your names over the sample ones and print both trees.

20 entrants in a 32-slot double-elimination draw: 19 winners-bracket matches, 18 losers-bracket matches across 8 losers rounds, and the grand final — 38 in all, or 39 if the bracket is reset. 12 byes to the top 12 seeds, which leaves 12 losers-bracket boxes nobody can ever fill.

Check this before you rely on it. This bracket generator is provided free and without warranty, and its results are not professional advice.

The bracket

Winners bracket

Round of 32

  1. Ashford
    Bye
  2. Pendleton
    Quarrington
  3. Halstead
    Bye
  4. Ivybridge
    Bye
  5. Dunmore
    Bye
  6. Marchbank
    Thornbury
  7. Eastfield
    Bye
  8. Lowick
    Bye
  9. Bye
    Kirkby
  10. Bye
    Fernhill
  11. Sedgefield
    Netherton
  12. Bye
    Castleton
  13. Bye
    Jesmond
  14. Bye
    Granton
  15. Ravensworth
    Oakhurst
  16. Bye
    Bellweather

Round of 16

  1. Ashford
     
  2. Halstead
    Ivybridge
  3. Dunmore
     
  4. Eastfield
    Lowick
  5. Kirkby
    Fernhill
  6.  
    Castleton
  7. Jesmond
    Granton
  8.  
    Bellweather

Quarter-finals

  1.  
     
  2.  
     
  3.  
     
  4.  
     

Semi-finals

  1.  
     
  2.  
     

Final

  1.  
     

Undefeated

  1.  

Losers bracket

Losers round 1

  1. Bye
     
  2. Bye
    Bye
  3. Bye
     
  4. Bye
    Bye
  5. Bye
    Bye
  6.  
    Bye
  7. Bye
    Bye
  8.  
    Bye

Losers round 2Round of 16 losers drop in

  1.  
     
  2. Bye
     
  3.  
     
  4. Bye
     
  5. Bye
     
  6.  
     
  7. Bye
     
  8.  
     

Losers round 3

  1.  
     
  2.  
     
  3.  
     
  4.  
     

Losers round 4Quarter-finals losers drop in

  1.  
     
  2.  
     
  3.  
     
  4.  
     

Losers round 5

  1.  
     
  2.  
     

Losers round 6Semi-finals losers drop in

  1.  
     
  2.  
     

Losers semi-final

  1.  
     

Losers finalWinners final loser drops in

  1.  
     

One loss

  1.  

Grand final, and the reset

  1.  
     
  2.  
     

Top box: the entrant who arrives undefeated. Bottom box: the one who arrives out of the losers bracket, already carrying a loss. The second match is played only if the undefeated entrant loses the first — at that point they have lost once, and one loss does not eliminate anybody in this tournament.

What 20 teams look like in two brackets

20 entrants sit in a 32-slot draw, so the winners bracket runs 5 rounds — round of 32, round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final — and the losers bracket runs 8 behind it. The sheet carries 31 winners boxes and 30 losers boxes, plus the grand final that joins them.

Everybody except the champion has to lose twice, which fixes the total at 38: 19 winners-bracket matches, 18 losers-bracket matches and one grand final. Single elimination for the same 20 entrants is 19, so the second chance costs 19 extra matches. That ratio holds at every size and it is the only honest way to budget the day.

Twelve of the 32 slots are empty, so twelve of the 20 entrants skip round one. They are the top twelve seeds, because a bye is one fewer match to win and that belongs to whoever earned the seeding. On a single-elimination sheet that is the end of the matter. Here it also punches twelve holes in the losers bracket, which is the part nobody expects.

The 20-team losers bracket, round by round

The 8 losers rounds are 8, 8, 4, 4, 2, 2, 1, 1 boxes wide — 30 boxes in all, of which 18 are played at 20 entrants. They come in pairs: an odd-numbered round takes a fresh batch of beaten entrants from the winners bracket, and the round after it folds the survivors together. Beaten entrants therefore arrive on a timetable — round of 16 losers join at losers round 2, quarter-final losers join at losers round 4, semi-final losers join at losers round 6 and the beaten winners finalist joins at the losers final.

Losers round 2 is 8 boxes wide and it is the one that goes wrong. Drop winners match 1 into losers box 1 and an entrant meets the person who has just knocked them out about half the time, which is precisely what the second life was for. The losers are dropped in reversed here instead, and at 20 entrants that makes the rematch impossible in that round.

Twelve of the 30 losers boxes cannot be played at all. Four of those have nobody on either side and drop out of the tournament entirely: 20 entrants in a 32-slot draw simply do not generate enough first-round losers to fill the opening losers round. The rest are walkovers, marked as such.

Running a 20-team double elimination

38 matches at a quarter of an hour each is about 9.5 hours of court time. On one court that is more than a day and has to be split; the losers bracket is where the time goes, because 18 of the 38 matches happen in it and none of them can start until the winners round above has finished.

Decide before anybody plays whether the grand final can be reset. If it can, the schedule is 38 matches with a 39th held in reserve. If it cannot, an entrant can win this tournament having lost once, against somebody who has lost nothing — defensible, but only if it was said at the start rather than after the 38th match has gone the wrong way.

31 winners boxes and 30 losers boxes across 13 columns wants A3, or four sheets with each bracket in halves. For 20 entrants that is 38 matches to write down, and at this size the losers bracket is the bigger administrative object — it deserves its own wall.

Common questions

How many matches in a 20 team double elimination bracket?

38, or 39 if the grand final is reset. 19 of them are in the winners bracket and 18 in the losers bracket, because every entrant but the champion has to lose twice and 20 entrants therefore absorb 38 losses.

How many rounds is a 20 team double elimination tournament?

5 winners rounds and 8 losers rounds, then the grand final — 38 matches for 20 entrants. The losers bracket needs roughly twice as many rounds because it folds in a fresh batch of beaten entrants after every winners round: round of 16 losers join at losers round 2, quarter-final losers join at losers round 4, semi-final losers join at losers round 6 and the beaten winners finalist joins at the losers final.

Where do the byes go in a 20 team double elimination bracket?

To the top twelve of the 20, the same as single elimination — but with a second consequence here. Twelve of the 30 losers boxes then have no loser coming, because a walkover produces none, so they are marked unplayable on the printed sheet rather than left looking live.

Every size

Every double-elimination size

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