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Why some participants go straight to round #2

← Bracket Setup
In single and double elimination brackets, you'll often find that some participants skip the first round (they receive byes). This cannot be avoided unless the number of participants is a power of two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, ...) — a number that can be repeatedly halved until only 1 person remains.

Imagine you paired everyone in round #1 of a 6 player bracket: 1v6, 2v5, 3v4. Three players would advance, leaving you with a bad situation. See top portion of the image below.

To avoid this, byes should be awarded in round #1 to two players. Following this rule, round #1 (sometimes referred to as the qualifying round in this scenario) would have 3v6 and 4v5. The two winners, or qualifiers, would advance to join players 1 and 2 in the next round. The bracket at this point becomes balanced with 4 participants, a power of 2. See bottom portion of the image below.


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