Home / Guides
Tournament guides
Everything you need to run a clean tournament - then build it in seconds with the free Roundra bracket maker.
How to make a tournament bracket
From a list of teams to a crowned champion - seeding, byes, and advancing winners explained.
Single vs double elimination
The trade-offs between a fast knockout and a fairer format with a losers bracket.
Round robin scheduler
How round-robin pairings are generated, how standings and tiebreakers work, and when to use it.
Tournament Seeding Explained
How bracket seeding works: why 1 plays 16, how the standard seed order is built, and what happens when you shuffle, reverse or seed by hand.
Byes in a Tournament Bracket
Why brackets come in powers of two, how many byes a field of any size needs, who should get them, and what a bye does to your schedule.
How Many Matches Will My Tournament Have?
Match counts for single elimination, double elimination and round robin, how many rounds each needs, and how to turn that into a realistic schedule.
Group Stage into a Knockout: How to Run Pool Play
How to split a field into groups, run pool play, and feed the qualifiers into a bracket - group sizes, how many advance, and how to seed the knockout.
Round Robin Tiebreakers: How to Rank a Group That Finished Level
How round-robin standings break ties - score difference, points for, points against and seed, the order they apply in, and why head-to-head is missing.
Best-of-3, 5 and 7: What a Series Does to Your Tournament
What best-of-3, 5 and 7 mean, how many games each can run, why longer series produce fairer results, and what series play does to your schedule.
Third-Place and Consolation Matches: Worth Playing?
What a third-place match and a consolation bracket each do, what each costs in venue time, and when double elimination or a group stage is the better fix.
How to Run a Tournament on the Day
An organiser's timeline for a one-day tournament: pick the format, fix the field, publish the rules, do the schedule maths, and keep the day moving.