Double-elimination Tournament - Variations

Variations

Some variations on double elimination are used. For example, in Judo, players that end up in the L bracket can finish third at best. The winner of the W bracket will win the tournament, with the losing finalist finishing second. The other losers of the W bracket will end up in the L bracket, which will only be played to the first stage of the final, resulting in two 3rd placed players. Thus, compared to the standard double elimination, there is no second stage of the final of the L bracket played, and there is no game between the winners of the W and L bracket.

Another aspect of the system used in Judo is that losers of the first round (of the W bracket) only advance to the L bracket if the player they lost to wins his or her second round match. If a player loses to a second round loser, they are eliminated from the tournament.

Another variant, called the (third-place) challenge, is used, particularly in scholastic wrestling. The winner of the L bracket may challenge the loser of the finals in the W bracket, if and only if the two contestants had not faced each other previously; if the challenger (the winner of the L bracket) wins, he is awarded second place, and the loser of the W final is dropped to third place. This system is used particularly where the top two places advance to a higher level of competition (example: advancement from a regional tournament to a state tournament).

Another is the balanced variant which is a bracket arrangement that is not strictly divided into two brackets based on number of losses. Players with different numbers of losses can play each other in any round. A goal of the variant is that no player sits idle for more than one round consecutively. The added complexity of the brackets is handled by using "if necessary" matches. The flexible approach allows practical bracket designs to be made for any number of competitors including odd numbers (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, etc.).

The College World Series has frequently tried to modify the double-elimination format to set up, if possible, a single championship game. Until 1988, the College World Series did this by adding an extra round to the Losers' Bracket. What would be the Losers' Bracket semifinals (i.e., the round where the Winners' Bracket semifinal losers dropped down) became the Losers' Bracket quarterfinals, with the Losers' Bracket semifinals having the two participants in the Winners' Bracket final (i.e., the WINNERS of the Winners' Bracket semifinals) drop down. This thus left open the possibility that the Winners' Bracket champion would pick up a loss, albeit in the Losers' Bracket semifinal. If, however, the Winners' Bracket champion prevailed in the Losers' Bracket semifinal, the same two-game final setup existed in effect, albeit not in practice ... for under the CWS pre-1988 version, the unbeaten Winners' Bracket champion would be playing a once-beaten Losers' Bracket opponent in the Losers' Bracket final, with the winner to advance to play the unbeaten Winners' Bracket champion in the finals (if necessary). The CWS subsequently broke up its eight-team field into two four-team double elimination tournaments, with the winners meeting in either a sudden-death or, currently, a best-of-three final.

A way to reduce the number of rounds is to do cross-bracket elimination in the last rounds. For instance, in a double-elimination tournament of eight teams, you could have both the winner and the loser of the Upper Bracket final join the third round of the Lower Bracket, the winner facing the lowest-seeded Loser's Bracket team or crossing inversely how winners bracket semifinal losers are placed in losers bracket. 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. This system also gives more odds to a single game final (75% of situations, instead the ordinary 50%)