Murray State University
An Alternative Schedule for Double Elimination Tournaments
Institution
Murray State University
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Scott Lewis
Abstract
Double elimination schedules are commonly used for many games and sports including Olympic sports such as softball and volleyball. The most common form of double elimination begins with a winners’ bracket and then places teams in the losers’ bracket as they lose games. The winners of these two brackets then play each other in order to determine the winner of the tournament. Some advantages of using a double elimination schedule instead of a single elimination schedule are that a double elimination schedule allows a good team to play poorly in one game without losing the entire tournament as a result and guarantees every participant at least two games in the tournament. An alternative double elimination tournament schedule is presented in the project for any number of players equal to a power of two. In this alternative schedule, for any two teams the difference in the number of wins needed in order to win the tournament is at most one, which is significantly smaller than in the standard double elimination schedule. Also, the sit outs of the tournament are distributed so that no team sits out more than one round whereas in the standard double elimination schedule, the winner of the winners’ bracket sits out several rounds. The point of the project is to make changes to the standard form of double elimination scheduling in order to make it shorter and more equitable.
An Alternative Schedule for Double Elimination Tournaments
Double elimination schedules are commonly used for many games and sports including Olympic sports such as softball and volleyball. The most common form of double elimination begins with a winners’ bracket and then places teams in the losers’ bracket as they lose games. The winners of these two brackets then play each other in order to determine the winner of the tournament. Some advantages of using a double elimination schedule instead of a single elimination schedule are that a double elimination schedule allows a good team to play poorly in one game without losing the entire tournament as a result and guarantees every participant at least two games in the tournament. An alternative double elimination tournament schedule is presented in the project for any number of players equal to a power of two. In this alternative schedule, for any two teams the difference in the number of wins needed in order to win the tournament is at most one, which is significantly smaller than in the standard double elimination schedule. Also, the sit outs of the tournament are distributed so that no team sits out more than one round whereas in the standard double elimination schedule, the winner of the winners’ bracket sits out several rounds. The point of the project is to make changes to the standard form of double elimination scheduling in order to make it shorter and more equitable.