Single - elimination tournament A single - elimination tournament , also called a knockout , cup or sudden death tournament , is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match or bracket is immediately eliminated from winning the championship or first prize in the event . This does not always mean that the defeated competitor will not participate further in the tournament : in some such tournaments , consolation or " classification " contests are subsequently held among those already defeated to determine the awarding of lesser places , for example , a third place playoff . Where more than two competitors can play in each match , such as in a shootout poker tournament , players are removed when they can no longer play until one player remains from the group . This player moves on to the next round . A simple way to describe a single - elimination tournament is that the winner of each match moves on and the loser goes home . Some competitions are held with a pure single - elimination tournament system . Others have many phases , with the last being a single - elimination final stage called playoffs . Brackets . Assuming two competitors per match , if there are formula _ 1 competitors , there will be formula _ 2 rounds required , or if there are formula _ 3 rounds , there will be formula _ 4 competitors . In the opening round , formula _ 5 competitors will get a " bye " . Often , the number of participants in a single - elimination tournament is fixed as a power of two , so that nobody gets a bye . For example , the tennis Grand Slam singles championships are tournaments of 128 players . This ensures all competitors will face opponents who have previously played the same number of matches . The full schedule of pairings across all rounds ( the " bracket " ) may be allocated before the start of the tournament , or each round may be allocated at the end of the preceding round . Each successive round halves the number of competitors remaining , assuming there are no byes . Byes . In cases where the number of competitive entities at the start of the tournament is not a power of two , some competitors may receive a " bye " in the first round , which entitles these competitors to advance to the second round automatically without playing . Often , these byes will be awarded to the highest - rated competitors in the event as a reward for some previous accomplishment ; indeed , in some American team sports — most notably American football — the number of teams qualifying for the postseason tournament will be intentionally set at a number which is not a power of two , in order to provide such an advantage to a high - achieving team in the just - completed regular season . Additionally , the player / team getting byes may get them exclusively by luck or random chance ( i . e . if there are 7 competitors , one random one will automatically advance to the next round ) Multiple rounds of byes are also possible : in the FA Cup , the teams in the top two league divisions enter in the third round " proper " ( of eight ) ; the two next - highest divisions ' teams will have entered in the first round ; lower - division teams in one of 6 preliminary rounds . Another example is the UEFA Europa League . Nomenclature . The round in which only sixteen remain is sometimes called the " Round of Sixteen " or " Last Sixteen " , when eight remain at the start it is generally called the " quarter - final " round ; this is followed by the " semi - final " round in which only four are left , the two winners of which then meet in the final or " championship round " . If some teams get a bye , the round at which they enter may be named the " first " round , with the earlier matches called a " preliminary " round , or " play - in games " . Names of rounds in various systems and competitions : Classification . When matches are held to determine places or prizes lower than first and second ( the loser of the final - round match gaining the latter position ) , these typically include a match between the losers of the semifinal matches called third place playoff , the winner therein placing third and the loser fourth . Sometimes , contests are also held among the losers of the quarterfinal matches to determine fifth through eighth places - this is most commonly encountered in the Olympic Games , with the exception of boxing , where both fighters are deemed to be third place . In one scenario , two " consolation semifinal " matches may be conducted , with the winners of these then facing off to determine fifth and sixth places and the losers playing for seventh and eighth ; those are used often in qualifying tournaments where only the top five teams advance to the next round ; or some method of ranking the four quarterfinal losers might be employed , in which case only one round of additional matches would be held among them , the two highest - ranked therein then playing for fifth and sixth places and the two lowest for seventh and eighth . Seeding . Opponents may be allocated randomly ( such as in the FA Cup ) ; however , since the " luck of the draw " may result in the highest - rated competitors being scheduled to face each other early in the competition , " seeding " is often used to prevent this . Brackets are set up so that the top two seeds could not possibly meet until the final round ( should both advance that far ) , none of the top four can meet prior to the semifinals , and so on . If no seeding is used , the tournament is called a random knockout tournament . One version of seeding is where brackets are set up so that the quarterfinal pairings ( barring any upsets ) would be the 1 seed vs . the 8 seed , 2 vs . 7 , 3 vs . 6 and 4 vs . 5 ; however , this is not the procedure that is followed in most tennis tournaments , where the 1 and 2 seeds are placed in separate brackets , but then the 3 and 4 seeds are assigned to their brackets randomly , and so too are seeds 5 through 8 , and so on . This may result in some brackets consisting of stronger players than other brackets , and since only the top 32 players are seeded at all in Tennis Grand Slam tournaments , it is conceivable that the 33rd - best player in a 128 - player field could end up playing the top seed in the first round . While this may seem unfair to a casual observer , it should be pointed out that rankings of tennis players are generated by computers , and players tend to change ranking positions very gradually , so that a more equitable method of determining the pairings might result in many of the same head - to - head matchups being repeated over and over again in successive tournaments . Sometimes the remaining competitors in a single - elimination tournament will be " re - seeded " so that the highest surviving seed is made to play the lowest surviving seed in the next round , the second - highest plays the second - lowest , etc . This may be done after each round , or only at selected intervals . In American team sports , for example , both the NFL and NHL employ this tactic , but the NBA does not ( and neither does the NCAA college basketball tournament ) . MLB does not have enough teams in its playoff tournament where re - seeding would make a difference in the matchups , ( The NFL is at the minimum , which is 6 from each league ( or conference in the NFL , NBA or NHL ) for a total of 12 ) . The NBA ' s format calls for the winner of the first - round series between the first and eighth seeds ( within each of the two conferences the league has ) to face the winner of the first - round series between the fourth and fifth seeds in the next round , even if one or more of the top three seeds had been upset in their first - round series ; critics have claimed that this gives a team fighting for the fifth and sixth seeding positions near the end of the regular season an incentive to tank ( deliberately lose ) games , so as to finish sixth and thus avoid a possible matchup with the top seed until one round later . In some situations , a seeding restriction will be implemented ; from 1975 until 1989 , the NFL , and , since 1998 , MLB have a rule where at the conference or league semifinal , should the top seed and last seed ( wild card ) be from the same division , they may not play each other ; in that case , the top seed plays the worst division champion ; the second - best division champion plays the wild card team . Evaluation . The single - elimination format enables a relatively large number of competitors to participate . There are no " dead " matches ( perhaps excluding " classification " matches ) , and no matches where one competitor has more to play for than the other . The format is less suited to games where draw s are frequent . In chess , each fixture in a single - elimination tournament must be played over multiple matches , because draws are common , and because white has an advantage over black . In association football , games ending in a draw may be settled in extra time and eventually by a penalty shootout , viewed by many fans as an unsatisfactory conclusion to a fixture , or by replaying the fixture . In various forms of one - day cricket , a bowl - out has been used in recent years to settle tied matches . Another perceived disadvantage is that most competitors are eliminated after relatively few games . Variations such as the double - elimination tournament allow competitors a single loss while remaining eligible for overall victory . In a random knockout tournament ( single - elimination without any seeding ) , awarding the second place to the loser of the final is unjustified : any of the competitors knocked out by the tournament winner might have been the second strongest one , but they never got the chance to play against the losing finalist . Also , if the competitors ' performance is variable , that is , it depends on a small , varying factor in addition to the actual strength of the competitors , then not only will it become less likely that the strongest competitor actually wins the tournament , in addition the seeding done by the tournament organizers will play a major part in deciding the winner . As a random factor is always present in a real world competition , this might easily cause accusations of unfairness . Other tournament systems . Variations of the single - elimination tournament include : Other common tournament types are