How to Make a Best of Three Tournament Bracket

Determine the number of teams playing in the tournament then multiply 2 by itself as many times as needed until you reach a result greater than the number of teams. For example, in a tournament with 14 teams, 2 is multiplied by 2 to get 4, then the result is multiplied by 2 again to get 8, and again to get 16, or 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16. The number of twos shows how many rounds in your tournament, meaning the example tournament would have four rounds.

Divide the result of the multiplication by two to determine the number of pairings needed for the first round. For the example, eight pairings would be needed because 16 divided by two equals 8.

Draw the required number of pairings in pencil on the left edge of the poster. A pairing is drawn as a rectangle without its left side.

Draw a line as wide as your pairing brackets emerging from the right side of each pairing, with the line parallel to the top and bottom of the pairings and beginning at the middle of the right side of the first-round pairings.

Connect the ends of the horizontal lines drawn in the prior step in pairs to make the second round pairings. Connect the right end of the line emerging from the first pairing in the opening round to the right end of the line emerging from the second pairing, then connect the third to the fourth, the fifth to the sixth and so on. You will have half as many pairings in the second round as you did in the first round.

Continue adding rounds until only one pairing remains and the horizontal line coming off it denotes the tournament winner.

Fill in numbers on the bracket writing the seeds for the teams on the lines in the first-round pairings. When placing numbers in a bracket, the goal is to always have the best team playing the worst team in each round, the second best playing the second worst and so on, provided the higher seeds win every game. The easiest way to do this for a beginner is to work backwards. The final should pair 1 vs. 2, meaning the pairings in the semi-finals should pair 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3. The pairings in the quarterfinals would be 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5, and so on as you add rounds.

Fill in team names next to their seedings on the bracket.

Advance any teams that do not have an opponent in the first round due to seeding. In the example, as there are only 14 teams for 16 lines, the number one and number two seeds would automatically advance the second round. These teams are said to have a "bye."

Go over the lines on the bracket with permanent marker and erase any pencil lines. If any teams received byes, do not draw their first round pairing in marker, just erase the pencil.

Draw a pair of vertical lines atop each horizontal line near the right edge of the horizontal line. Keep enough space after the second line, and between the two lines, to write scores for the games. These lines make three scoring sections to show the results of the best-of-three series for each pairing.

Fill in scores from games as they are played, writing scores for first games to the left of the first vertical line, scores for second games between the lines and scores for the third game to the right of the second line.

Advance teams to the next round of the tournament when they have won two games, continuing to move teams through as games are played.