Double elimination explained
In a double-elimination tournament you have to lose twice to be knocked out. One bad match, a tough early draw or a slow start no longer ends your day. It is popular in pool, darts, table tennis, esports and softball, and it gives a more reliable champion than a single knockout for about twice the number of matches. It also confuses players more than any other format, so here is how it works.
Two brackets
- Everyone starts in the winners bracket, an ordinary knockout.
- Lose a match in the winners bracket and you drop into the losers bracket. Lose again there and you're out.
- The winner of the winners bracket (still unbeaten) meets the winner of the losers bracket (one loss) in the grand final.
The losers bracket alternates between two kinds of round. In one, players who are already in the losers bracket play each other. In the next, the survivors meet the players who have just dropped down from the winners bracket. That is why the losers bracket has roughly twice as many rounds as the winners bracket.
The grand final and the reset
The grand final pits an unbeaten player against a player with one loss. If the unbeaten player wins, it's over. If the losers-bracket player wins, both now have one loss, so a second, deciding final is played: the reset. Some events skip the reset and play a single grand final to save time; it is quicker but slightly unfair to the unbeaten player, so announce the choice in advance.
How many matches?
Everyone except the champion loses exactly twice, and the champion loses at most once. So a double-elimination event with n entries takes 2n − 2 matches, or 2n − 1 if the reset is needed. That is about twice a single knockout (n − 1), and far fewer than a round robin.
A worked example: 8 players
| Round | Matches | Who plays |
|---|---|---|
| Winners round 1 (quarter-finals) | 4 | All 8 players |
| Losers round 1 | 2 | The 4 quarter-final losers |
| Winners round 2 (semi-finals) | 2 | The 4 unbeaten players |
| Losers round 2 | 2 | Losers round 1 winners v the 2 semi-final losers |
| Winners final | 1 | The last 2 unbeaten players |
| Losers round 3 | 1 | The 2 losers round 2 winners |
| Losers final | 1 | Losers round 3 winner v the winners final loser |
| Grand final (+ reset if needed) | 1 (+1) | Winners-bracket champion v losers-bracket champion |
| Total | 14 (15) |
Every player is guaranteed at least two matches, against one in a single knockout.
Avoiding instant rematches
If the players dropping down from the winners bracket were placed in the same order every time, two players who just met could meet again straight away in the losers bracket. Good brackets cross the drop-ins: losers from the top half of a winners round are sent towards the bottom half of the losers bracket, and vice versa. It is a small detail that players notice immediately when it's missing.
Final placings
| Place | Who (8 players) |
|---|---|
| 1st | Grand final winner |
| 2nd | Grand final loser |
| 3rd | Losers final loser |
| 4th | Losers round 3 loser |
| =5th | The two losers round 2 losers |
| =7th | The two losers round 1 losers |
Players knocked out in the same losers round share a place; in bigger brackets that gives places such as =9th and =13th. If your results feed a series ranking, shared places split the points of the places they cover.
Seeding and byes
The winners bracket is seeded like any knockout, with byes for the top seeds when the field isn't a power of two (see seeding and byes). Byes also appear in the losers bracket in that case, which is normal.
When to choose double elimination
| Single knockout | Double elimination | Round robin | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matches for 16 players | 15 | 30–31 | 120 |
| Guaranteed matches per player | 1 | 2 | 15 |
| One bad match ends your day? | Yes | No | No |
| Easy to follow | Very | Needs a clear diagram | Very |
The weak spot is the end of the day: the grand final can't start until the losers final is played, and the losers-bracket player arrives having played more matches. Schedule the losers bracket quickly, use as many courts as you can early on, and give the finalists a short break before the grand final.
Run it with the tournament manager
Our free tournament manager builds double-elimination brackets for 3 to 256 entries, with crossed drop-ins, an optional grand-final reset, seeds and byes, and draws both brackets as diagrams with lines. Players follow it live on their phones, which takes care of most "where do I play next?" questions.