How to Make a Tournament Bracket on iPhone

The office ping-pong cup has 12 names on the sign-up sheet. Drawing the bracket by hand goes fine until the count isn't 8 or 16 and you have to decide who gets a bye. This guide explains how a knockout bracket fits together, then how to make one, play it through and print it with Bracket Cat, our tournament bracket maker for iPhone.

What goes into a knockout bracket

The teams or players. A knockout means you lose once and you're out, so every match sends one side on to the next round.
A draw size. A bracket halves each round, so it needs 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 places and so on. With 12 teams you use a 16-place draw.
Byes for the gaps. The empty places are byes: a team drawn against a bye goes straight to the next round without playing. 12 teams in 16 places means 4 byes.
Seeds. Seeding is the order of strength. In the usual layout, seed 1 plays the lowest seed, the top two seeds can only meet in the final, and the top seeds get the byes.

Bracket Cat works all of this out for you. The order of your list is the seed order: the first team you type is seed 1. Type your strongest team first if you want to seed the bracket, or shuffle the list for a random draw.

Make the bracket

Open Bracket Cat and tap New bracket (the + button once you have brackets).
Type a name in the first field, like "Office ping-pong". Leave it empty and it's called "Bracket".
Under Format, keep Knockout. The footer reads "Lose once and you're out. Byes fill the gaps."
In Teams, type one team per line. Empty lines are skipped, so a list pasted from a sign-up sheet works as it is.
Check the line under the list. It counts for you: "12 teams, 4 byes." If a name is in the list twice, a Listed twice line names it so you can fix it.
Want a random draw instead of seeds? Tap Shuffle above the list. It mixes the order, and the order of the list is the order of the bracket.
Tap Create. You need at least 2 teams.

The board opens with the rounds side by side, joined by lines. Byes show as Bye, and places that depend on a match not played yet show as Waiting.

Play it through

Tap a team to make it the winner. It gets a checkmark, the loser is crossed out, and the winner moves into the next round.
Tap the winner again to take the result back.
Changed your mind about an earlier match? Tap the other team. Later results that no longer make sense, because a different team now goes through, are cleared.
Undo steps back one change at a time, and it still works after you close and reopen the app.
When the final is played, the champion's name appears above the bracket with a trophy, and in the list of brackets on the home screen.

A name spelled wrong or a team that changed its name? Tap More (the ⋯ button), then Rename. You can change the bracket's name and any team's name, and "Results stay with the team, so renaming changes no results." Rename changes names, not the number of teams.

Tap the share button (Share or print) on the board:

Print sends the bracket to your printer as a landscape page on Letter or A4, picked by your region.
Share PDF sends the same pages as a PDF file.
Share image makes one full-size picture of the whole bracket, for a group chat.

Matches not played yet print as blank lines to write names on, so you can print it before the first game and fill it in on the wall. A big draw that wouldn't fit at a readable size is split into parts, one per page, plus a finals page. On the finals page, a place not decided yet says which part it comes from ("Winner of part 1"). Results you've already tapped in print with them, and the winner of the final goes in the box marked CHAMPION.

If you're putting up a poster to announce the tournament, see how to make a flyer on iPhone.

Double elimination and seeding (Pro)

Bracket Cat Pro adds three things:

Double elimination. In Format, pick Double: lose twice and you're out. Losers drop into a losers bracket, and if the losers-bracket team wins the grand final, a reset match decides it. Without Pro, picking Double shows a lock, and Create opens the Pro sheet with your typed teams kept.
Seeds. From More, Seeds lets you drag teams into order or type a seed number, and Show seed numbers puts each seed next to the name on the board and in print. Seeds lock once the first result is in, so a re-seed can't wipe results.
Logo and colour. Your club's logo next to the bracket's name and a colour for the winners' marks, on the board and on paper.

Seeding by typing the list in order is free; Pro's editor is for changing that order afterwards and showing the numbers.

What it costs

Knockout and round robin brackets for any number of teams, tapping winners, Undo, Rename, Print, Share PDF and Share image are free, with no limit on brackets and no watermark. There are no ads and no account. Bracket Cat Pro is an optional one-time purchase that adds double elimination, the seed editor, and a logo and colour. Your brackets are kept on your phone and leave only when you share them. More on the Bracket Cat page.

Quick answers

How do you make a bracket with an odd number of teams?
Use the next draw size up (8, 16, 32 and so on) and fill the gaps with byes. Bracket Cat does it for you and tells you how many byes, like "5 teams, 3 byes."

Who gets the byes in a tournament bracket?
The top seeds. In Bracket Cat, the top of your list is seed 1, so the first teams you type get the byes.

Can seed 1 and seed 2 meet before the final?
Not in a Bracket Cat knockout. Seed 1 plays the lowest seed, and the top two seeds can only meet in the final.

Can I print a blank bracket to fill in by hand?
Yes. Make the bracket and print it before tapping any results. Unplayed matches print as blank lines to write on.

Is double elimination free?
No, it's part of Bracket Cat Pro. Knockout and round robin are free.

Try Bracket Cat

Try Bracket Cat: free, no watermark, no sign-up → iyio.com/apps/bracket-cat