In double elimination a team is out only after its second loss. That makes it fairer than single elimination for tournaments where teams travelled and one bad game should not end the weekend. The price is roughly twice the games.
Open the free bracket builder (set the play-off to double elimination on the page)
Six invented teams are seeded 1 to 6. The bracket is sized to 8, so the #1 and #2 seeds get a first-round bye. Teams that lose in the winners bracket drop into the losers bracket; a second loss ends their run. Matches are named so you can follow who plays whom: "winner of W2M1" is whoever wins that game.
| Round | Match | Teams |
|---|---|---|
| Winners Quarterfinals | W1M2 | #4 Bears vs #5 Lynx |
| Winners Quarterfinals | W1M4 | #3 Foxes vs #6 Wolves |
| Winners Semifinals | W2M1 | #1 Hawks vs winner of W1M2 |
| Winners Semifinals | W2M2 | #2 Owls vs winner of W1M4 |
| Winners Final | W3M1 | winner of W2M1 vs winner of W2M2 |
| Losers round 2 (WB drop-downs) | L2M1 | loser of W1M2 vs loser of W2M2 |
| Losers round 2 (WB drop-downs) | L2M2 | loser of W1M4 vs loser of W2M1 |
| Losers round 3 | L3M1 | winner of L2M1 vs winner of L2M2 |
| Losers round 4 (WB drop-downs) | L4M1 | winner of L3M1 vs loser of W3M1 |
| Grand final | GF1 | winner of W3M1 vs winner of L4M1 |
| Grand final reset (only if the losers-bracket team wins GF1) | GF2 | winner of GF1 vs loser of GF1 |
If the losers-bracket team wins GF1, a reset game GF2 is played between the same two teams, which makes 11 games. Otherwise the tournament ends after GF1.
The bracket comes from the same code the page runs and a test recomputes this table from it, so it cannot drift from the tool.
With 6 teams it is 10 games, or 11 if the grand final reset is needed. In general a double-elimination field of n teams plays between 2n - 2 and 2n - 1 games, because every team except the champion loses exactly twice and the reset game is played only when the losers-bracket team wins the grand final.
The winners-bracket finalist has not lost yet, the losers-bracket finalist has lost once. If the losers-bracket team wins the grand final, both teams now have one loss, so a second game decides the title. If the winners-bracket team wins the first game, the tournament is over.
The bracket is sized up to the next power of two (8 for 6 teams) and the top seeds skip the first round. In the example, the #1 and #2 seeds have a first-round bye, and the losers bracket skips every match a bye leaves without an opponent.
Use it when one bad game should not end a team's weekend, such as a youth or rec tournament where every team travelled. It costs about twice the games of a single-elimination bracket, so check you have the courts and daylight for them.
Related: how a single-elimination bracket is seeded, how to make a round-robin schedule, how a Swiss tournament works, and how an Americano rotation works.