Double Elimination Tournament Structure

Tournaments are some of the best events for fans of any type of competition, from sporting events to board game or video-game competitions. Tournaments allow for almost any number of participants while rewarding only the most consistently successful ones. For audiences, each match becomes more exciting, as the highest-skilled participants survive longer into the tournament. Double elimination tournaments are a modification of the standard tournament structure that allows each participant to survive longer into the event.

  1. Standard Tournament Structure

    • Most tournaments, including the playoffs of all major North American professional sports leagues, are based on a single elimination structure. In this structure, each participant has only one chance to overcome his opponent; after defeat, a player is removed from the competition. The highest-seeded participant, or the one with the best chance of winning the tournament, is matched against the lowest seed. The next highest seed is matched against the next lowest and so on. As the tournament progresses, the higher seeds meet up and the matches are expected to become closer and more exciting to watch. The greatest benefit of single elimination tournaments is that they can accommodate a large number of participants.

    Double Elimination Tournament

    • Unlike standard tournaments, in a double elimination tournament each participant must be defeated twice before he is removed from the tournament. The first round of the tournament plays out the same way a standard tournament would. However, the losers of the first sets enter a "loser's bracket," a mirror of the first set. In the "winner's bracket," players progress normally. Each defeated participant in the winner's bracket enters at a higher set in the loser's bracket. In the end, the champions of the winner's and loser's brackets meet up, and the winner of that final set determines the grand champion.

    Advantages of Double Elimination

    • The double elimination structure not only allows almost as many participants as single elimination, but it is also more likely to award the truly deserving participant. Because each participant is given two chances to win the tournament, it is less likely that a participant will lose because of something like poor luck or another extraneous variable. Double eliminations can be less predictable and therefore more entertaining to watch than single elimination. Although first sets are generally more predictable, the seeding is more complicated in the later stages of the tournament and the chances for upsets improve.

    Frequent Uses for Double Elimination

    • Double elimination tournaments aren't used as often in athletic sports because they require the loser's bracket to play more games than the winner's bracket, giving the losers a disadvantage due to fatigue. On the other hand, international athletics usually become a double elimination in the semi-finals, with each loser competing for third place. Double elimination is more often used in video-game, card game and board game tournaments. Although the loser's bracket still requires more games than the winner's and mental fatigue can still be a factor, participants are better able to recover from mental exertion than physical.