Generating Brackets

Last updated June 2026  ·  5 min read

Once competitors are in divisions, brackets are one dialog away. The bracket generator batches as many divisions as you select, applies your chosen format and seeding, and produces ready-to-run brackets in seconds.

The five-step generator

Open the Divisions section and click Generate Brackets. The generator walks through five steps:

• 1
  Select divisions A checkbox list with a name search, a "has competitors" filter, and Select All / Deselect All. Generate one division or every division in the tournament in a single pass.
• 2
  Competition type Kumite, Kata Flags, Kata Points, or Kobudo — this determines which bracket formats are offered next.
• 3
  Bracket format Single elimination, double elimination, repechage, round robin, pool play, ranking list, and the kata formats. See Bracket templates for when to use each.
• 4
  Seeding How competitors are placed into slots — see below.
• 5
  Match duration Minutes per match, pre-filled from your defaults. Feeds the scoreboard timer for these divisions.

Seeding options

• Random — a fair shuffle.
• Registration order — first registered, first seeded.
• By rank — higher belts seeded apart.
• By age — younger competitors first.
• By country — spreads national teams for international events.
• By dojo (club separation) — actively avoids first-round matches between teammates. When one club has more entries than the round has room to separate, some clashes are unavoidable, but the algorithm minimizes them.
• Previous results — seeds from recorded past performance.

Byes

Divisions that aren't a power of two get byes automatically: the bracket is sized up to the next power of two and the extra slots become byes. Competitors drawn against a bye advance without a match — no result entry needed.

Regenerating brackets

Until scoring starts, brackets are fluid. Approve a late competitor or remove a no-show and the affected bracket regenerates automatically to stay correct. You can also rerun the generator manually to change format or seeding.