Talk:Double-elimination tournament

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I'm confused, the article states that the winner of the upper bracket only has to lose once to lose the tournament. This is never the case as the winner of the consolation bracket will always have to defeat the upper bracket winner twice.

Contents 1 rewrote article 2 Comparisons 3 Determine number of teams in losers bracket 4 Variations mentioned under "Conducting the Tournament"

[edit] rewrote article

I re-wrote much of the article in order to offer a clearer explanation of why things happen the way they do, rather than a confusing explanation about how the teams that have won once and lost once face the teams that have lost after winning the first round, the losers having lost twice and the winners who have won once and lost once then won again facing the teams that won twice and lost once, on and on and on. This, coupled with the lack of a diagram, makes it rather difficult to swallow if you don't already know how a double-elimination tournament is conducted.

Instead, I noted that each round in the Losers Bracket is conducted in two stages, the second one allowing the losers from the Winners Bracket to be "filtered down" into the Losers Bracket. This, I believe, establishes the fundamental principle behind the arrangement of the Losers Bracket (in other words, the why), rather than going off on an accurate but overwhelmingly confusing treatise on just the end result (in other words, the what).

I picked up the diagram from the Bracket (tournament) article (props to whoever made that), which while still not crystal clear, still offers a way for people to see the results and perhaps, with the aid of the written text of the article, suddenly reach that epiphany of "oh, I get it now!". -- Vystrix Nexoth 22:37, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

I found the diagram most useful, in particular the fact that the winner of the top bracket loses and gets reintroduced as a loser-on-second-chance and then goes on to win. That wasn't apparent just from reading the text. (Nor, I must admit initially understood from first glance at the diagram; it was only when working out how many matches get played per person that I needed something to explain the errors in my own disgrams, lol.) ;o) Ferdinangus 15:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comparisons

Someone care to write something comparing it with the Swiss system and Round-Robin system?70.111.251.203 13:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Determine number of teams in losers bracket

Maybe add this for more information? the number of teams in the losers bracket for any round will always be the number of teams in the losers bracket the previous round divided by two and added to the number of teams in the winners bracket after being divided by two.(number of teams in winners bracket divded by two, not the solution to the rest of the formula divided by two). or N=L/2+(W/2) L- teams in losers bracket previous round. W- number of teams in winners bracket previous round.

To find how many teams are in the losers bracket for the second round of the tournament(first with team(s) in the loser bracket)you take the number of teams in the tournament and divide it by 2. Same for third round. Fourth round divide amount of teams by 2 2/3. Fifth divide it by 4. Sixth round divide by 6 2/5. Seventh divide by 10 2/3. Eighth divide by 18.2857(round your answer). Ninth divide by 32. Tenth divide by 56.8(repeating.)These work until you have two teams left, then the next round will have one.

Note:I cannot source these from any website or book;I figured these out on my own, you are free to try them if you think they are incorrect.

Your calculations are wrong. You missed the fact, that the losers from the Upper Bracket only join the Lower Bracket at every second stage, not every stage (exception for first-round losers). The correct numbers are:

1st and 2nd round of Lower Bracket: n/2

3rd and 4th round of Lower Bracket: n/4

5th and 6th round of Lower Bracket: n/8

and so on. See the picture in the article, which exactly matches my numbers. --UncleOwen (talk) 11:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Variations mentioned under "Conducting the Tournament"

I found the paragraph

An exception is in tournaments in which at one point there is one Winner's Bracket team left and an odd number of Loser's Bracket teams left. Quite often these tournaments will make the last Winner's Bracket team play the lowest-seeded Loser's Bracket team remaining, thus preventing more bye-rounds for teams, shortening the tournament, and potentially making the final a one-game winner-take-all event. For instance, in a double-elimination tournament of eight teams, in the fourth round there will be three Loser's Bracket teams left and only one Winner's Bracket team left. The Winner's Bracket team plays the worst Loser's Bracket team, while the other two teams play each other. If the Winner's Bracket team wins, there will be two teams left and they will go straight to the finals (with the Winner's Bracket team having a one game advantage as usual). However, if the Winner's Bracket team loses then three teams will still be in the tournament, all with one loss. Usually in the subsequent fifth round either the last Winner's Bracket team that just lost has a bye-round or the top seed remaining will have a bye, while the other two teams square off. This leaves two teams for a one game final in the sixth and last round. Whether the Winner's Bracket team wins or loses in round four, this cross-bracket procedure shortens an eight team double elimination tournament from 6-7 rounds to 5-6 rounds.

highly confusing. In a double-elimination tournament of eight teams there will never be three teams left in the Loser's Bracket. If done right, that is. The french article has a nice grafics. Note how équipe G joins the Loser's Bracket in round 4, not in round 3.

It took me quite some time to figure out that this paragraph is actually describing a variant to speed things up, not the pure Double-elimination tournament! That's why I think it should be moved down to the variants. The paragraph about the College World Series should go down there, too. --UncleOwen (talk) 11:39, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I moved the paragraph about the College World Series. Not sure what to do about the first one. --UncleOwen (talk) 11:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Now I also moved the paragraph about cross-bracket elimination. I also had to rewrite part of it. What do you think? --UncleOwen (talk) 11:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)