TourBracketFree Tournament Bracket Generator

4 Team Single Elimination Bracket

Four teams is the smallest bracket that still feels like a bracket. It fits a power of two exactly, so nobody gets a bye and nobody sits waiting: both semi-finals can be played at the same time, and the winners meet straight away.

Because it is over in three matches, this is the draw to reach for when you have one court and forty minutes. If you have more time than that, four teams is also small enough to play as a round robin instead, which gives everybody three matches rather than one guaranteed match.

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How the draw is structured

4

Entrants

4

Matches played

3

Rounds

0

Byes

Round by round

RoundMatchesEntrants left after it
Semi-Finals22
Grand Final11
3rd Place11

Opening round by seed

Seeds are paired so the strongest and weakest meet first, which keeps the top seeds in opposite halves of the draw. This is the order the board is drawn in, top to bottom.

How long it takes

Rounds run one after another, because a round cannot start until the one feeding it has finished. Matches inside a round can all run at once, so the number of courts you have decides the day more than the number of entrants does.

Courts10 min matches20 min matches30 min matches
140m1h 20m2h
230m1h1h 30m
430m1h1h 30m

Playing time only. Add changeovers, warm-ups and the gap between rounds.

Questions

How many matches are in a 4 team single elimination bracket?
Three: two semi-finals and the final. Adding a third place play-off between the two beaten semi-finalists makes it four.
How are 4 teams seeded?
Seed 1 plays seed 4 and seed 2 plays seed 3, so the top two seeds can only meet in the final. Type your teams strongest first, or shuffle the seeds for a random draw.

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