How to Create Brackets for Elimination Games
If you're organizing any type of elimination-style game or competition involving multiple players, it helps to organize the game in a bracket format. By drawing out a bracket, you can pair up the competitors and determine who faces whom in each round of your game. You need to know the total number of players competing in your game so you'll know how far the bracket expands.
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Instructions
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1
Draw a single horizontal line near the right-hand edge of a sheet of paper at the center of the edge. This line represents the eventual winner of your game. Make the line just long enough so you could write down that player's name legibly.
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2
Make a two-pronged design, similar to a sideways U with sharp corners, that connects to the first line at the left end of the line. The final design will look like a sideways tuning fork. These two new connecting lines represent the two players competing in the game's final round.
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3
Add more of these U-shaped brackets to each individual line of the previous bracket. You'll travel from right to left across the paper, and the number of "bracket lines" will double on each new column you create, going from two to four to eight, and so on. Continue until you have a column of lines equal to your number of players.
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Write down the names of each player on the lines in the first (left-hand) column on the paper--this is actually the last column you drew out. Each individual bracket in this column will have two players in it--one on each line. These two players will face off against each other in the first round, with the winners moving on the the next column and facing the players in the next connecting brackets.
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Copy this sheet of paper if you want each player to have a copy of the brackets--make enough copies for the number of players. If you want a larger "master bracket" for the game, use the above method to draw it out on a large board, such as a chalkboard or a large dry-erase board.
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Tips & Warnings
You may have a number of players that can't be paired up evenly to begin the game. For example, 12 players can't be evenly paired since the brackets will go from four to eight to 16. In this case, you'd have to split off one branch of each bracket only and extend the brackets' second lines into single lines. This will give some players "first-round byes" where they advance without playing.
If you are separating your players into separate groups, divide the total number of players by the number of groups you will have. Create one series of brackets for each group that expands into the number of players within the group. If you're dividing 16 players into four groups, you'll have four series of brackets that have four players each at the start.
