Creating a Fair Bracket

When seeding a single elimination bracket, highest seeds should be paired with lowest seeds for the fairest match-ups. Therefore, a bracket of 8 based on seeding looks like:

This is the default seeding generated on Stadium.

However - according to many internationally recognized sports authorities - certain bracket placements are equal, so the players that land within them can be randomized. This way you can make changes to the matchups but still keep things fair for the players.

Places 1 & 2 cannot be changed because there is only 1 option for each spot. However, there are two players tied for 3rd, so seeds #3 and #4 can be interchanged. Finally, there are four players tied for 5th, so they can be placed in any of the four 5th place spots.

Therefore, a tournament organizer could move players around to create the following bracket and still be within the same seeding rules:

The same concepts apply as the brackets get exponentially larger.

Coming from a Group (Round Robin) Stage

When groups are snake-seeded (tournament default), they look like this:

If the results all go as expected, the highlighted players should advance to the next stage.

When seeding the next stage as a single elimination round, we then follow the same logic as the general single elimination bracket.

• The highest-seeded player expected to advance is #1.
• The lowest-seeded player expected to advance is #8.