A single-elimination, knockout , or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, whose winner becomes the tournament champion(s). Each match-up may be a single match or several, for example two-legged ties in European sports or best-of series in North American pro sports. Defeated competitors may play no further part after losing, or may participate in "consolation" or "classification" matches against other losers to determine the lower final rankings; for example, a third place playoff between losing semi-finalists. In a shootout poker tournament , there are more than two players competing at each table, and sometimes more than one progresses to the next round. Some competitions are held with a pure single-elimination tournament system. Others have many phases, with the last being a single-elimination final stage, often called playoffs .
43-564: The Basketball Classic presented by Eracism was a single-elimination , fully-bracketed men's college basketball postseason tournament created in 2022 as a successor to the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament after its scheduled 2020 and 2021 tournaments were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic . The tournament featured up to 32 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I teams not selected to participate in
86-420: A draw may be settled in extra time and eventually by a penalty shootout or by replaying the fixture. Another perceived disadvantage is that most competitors are eliminated after relatively few games. Variations such as the double-elimination tournament allow competitors a single loss while remaining eligible for overall victory. However, losing one game requires the competitor to win more games in order to win
129-462: A far better World Championship than the one to be staged in Rome". Despite their role as hosts, Italy were still required to qualify, the only time the host needed to do so. The qualifying matches were arranged on a geographical basis. Withdrawals by Chile and Peru meant Argentina and Brazil qualified without playing a single match. Twelve of the 16 places were allocated to Europe, three to
172-456: A match between the losers of the semifinal matches called third place playoffs , the winner therein placing third and the loser fourth. Many Olympic single-elimination tournaments feature the bronze medal match if they do not award bronze medals to both losing semifinalists. The FIFA World Cup has long featured the third place match (since 1934 ), though the UEFA Euro has not held one since
215-635: A one-off match in Rome , which the United States won. The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament. Asia (0) Africa (1) North, Central America and Caribbean (1) South America (2) Europe (12) 10 of these teams made their first World Cup appearance. This included 9 of the 12 European teams (Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Austria, and Switzerland) as well as Egypt. Egypt
258-434: A period of self-imposed exile from FIFA, also refused to participate, even though FIFA had offered England and Scotland direct entry to the tournament without qualification. Football Association committee member Charles Sutcliffe called the tournament "a joke" and claimed that "the national associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have quite enough to do in their own International Championship which seems to me
301-500: A possible match-up with the top seed until one round later. MLS' format is identical, except that the conference quarterfinals is a best-of-three series. In some situations, a seeding restriction may be implemented; from 1975 until 1989 in the NFL , and from 1994 until 2011 in MLB there was a rule where at the conference or league semifinal, should the top seed and last seed (wild card) be from
344-437: A quarter-final from the previous year . Sometimes the remaining competitors in a single-elimination tournament will be "re-seeded" so that the highest surviving seed is made to play the lowest surviving seed in the next round, the second-highest plays the second-lowest, etc. This may be done after each round, or only at selected intervals. In American team sports, for example, the NFL employs this tactic, but MLS , NHL and
387-596: A random factor is always present in a real-world competition, this might easily cause accusations of unfairness. Variations of the single-elimination tournament include: Other common tournament types include: 1934 FIFA World Cup The 1934 FIFA World Cup was the 2nd edition of the FIFA World Cup , the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams. It took place in Italy from 27 May to 10 June 1934. The 1934 World Cup
430-402: A straight knockout tournament. If a match was tied after ninety minutes, then thirty minutes of extra time were played. If the score was still tied after extra time, the match was replayed the next day. The eight seeded teams – Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary – were kept apart in the first round. All eight first-round matches kicked off at
473-695: Is 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5, for example this is used for 16 seeds in the World Snooker Championship and 32 seeds in the World Darts Championship . Some tournaments stray from this, for example it is not the procedure that is followed in most tennis tournaments, where the 1 and 2 seeds are placed in separate brackets, but then the 3 and 4 seeds are assigned to their brackets randomly, and so too are seeds 5 through 8, and so on. This may result in some brackets consisting of stronger players than other brackets, and since only
SECTION 10
#1732790298817516-533: Is first - for example, if sorting the numbers 1-4 ascending, if 4 and 3 meet in the first round, 3 and 1 will lose in the first round and 2 will lose in the second, selecting 4 as the largest number in the set, but insufficient comparisons have been performed to determine which is greater, 1 or 3. Despite this, the candidate that loses in the final round is commonly considered to have taken second place (in this case, 2). When matches are held to determine places or prizes lower than first and second, these typically include
559-517: Is rare in English itself, with noticeable use in American debate tournaments. The round before the round of sixteen is sometimes called round of thirty-two in English. Terms for this in other languages generally translate as "sixteenth final". Earlier rounds are typically numbered counting forwards from the first round, or by the number of remaining competitors. If some competitors get a bye ,
602-421: The 1980 edition . Sometimes, contests are also held among the losers of the quarterfinal matches to determine fifth to eighth places. In one scenario, two "consolation semifinal" matches may be conducted, with the winners of these then facing off to determine fifth and sixth places and the losers playing for seventh and eighth; those are used often in qualifying tournaments where only the top five teams advance to
645-573: The NBA do not (and neither does the NCAA college basketball tournament ). Although MLB does have enough teams (12) in its playoff tournament where re-seeding would have made a large difference in the matchups; only the WNBA's at the minimum, which is at least four from each conference for a total of 8. The NBA's format calls for the winner of the first-round series between the first and eighth seeds (within each of
688-675: The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament , the NIT , or the College Basketball Invitational . All games were streamed on ESPN+ . In lieu of a traditional bracket, The Basketball Classic used the old NIT model in which the matchups were set after each round. The tournament consisted of three rounds, single elimination, the games were held on campuses of participating schools. All gate receipts were collected by The Basketball Classic. Schools could host games in
731-482: The Olympic football tournament in 1936 . For a list of all squads that appeared in the final tournament, see 1934 FIFA World Cup squads . With five goals, Oldřich Nejedlý was the top scorer in the tournament. In total, 70 goals were scored by 45 players, with none of them credited as an own goal. In 1986, FIFA published a report that ranked all teams in each World Cup up to and including 1986, based on progress in
774-519: The Americas, and one to Africa or Asia (including Turkey). Only 10 of the 32 entrants, and four of the 16 qualified teams (Brazil, Argentina, United States and Egypt, the first African team to qualify for a World Cup finals tournament), were from outside Europe. The last place in the finals was contested between the United States and Mexico only three days before the start of the tournament in
817-572: The National Fascist Party was the venue for the final. With 80 minutes played, the Czechoslovaks led 1–0. The Italians managed to score before the final whistle and then added another goal in extra time to be crowned World Cup winners. Throughout the years, several sources have reported that the tournament was marred by bribery and corruption, and could have been influenced by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini , who used
860-505: The competition and the successful national team, considered one of the best in the country's history , emerged victorious also in the Olympic football tournament of 1936 hosted by Germany and in the 1938 World Cup hosted by France. The Federale 102 ball, which was manufactured in Italy, was the match ball provided for the 1934 World Cup. After a lengthy decision-making process in which FIFA's executive committee met eight times, Italy
903-453: The competition, seeding is often used to prevent this. Brackets are set up so that the top two seeds could not possibly meet until the final round (should both advance that far), none of the top four can meet prior to the semifinals, and so on. If no seeding is used, the tournament is called a random knockout tournament. Standard seeding pairs the highest and lowest, then second highest and second lowest and so on, for an 8 seed tournament this
SECTION 20
#1732790298817946-408: The field to 16. Even so, there were several notable absentees. Reigning World Cup holders Uruguay declined to participate, in protest at the refusal of several European countries to travel to South America for the previous World Cup , which Uruguay had hosted in 1930. As a result, the 1934 World Cup is the only one in which the reigning champions did not participate. The British Home Nations , in
989-528: The journey to Italy were eliminated after one match. In the quarter-finals, the first replayed match in World Cup history took place, when Italy and Spain drew 1–1 after extra time. The match was played in a highly aggressive manner with several players of both sides injured: rough play injured the Spanish goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora in the first match, leaving him unable to participate in the replay, while on
1032-448: The lead, but two goals by Sven Jonasson and a winner by Knut Kroon gave Sweden a 3–2 victory. Fellow South Americans Brazil also suffered an early exit. Spain beat them comfortably, with 3–1 as the final score. For the only time in World Cup history, the last eight consisted entirely of European teams – Austria , Czechoslovakia , Germany , Hungary , Italy , Spain , Sweden , and Switzerland . All four non-European teams who made
1075-399: The next round; or some method of ranking the four quarterfinal losers might be employed, in which case only one round of additional matches would be held among them, the two highest-ranked therein then playing for fifth and sixth places and the two lowest for seventh and eighth. The number of distinct ways of arranging a single-elimination tournament (as an abstract structure, prior to seeding
1118-414: The opportunity to face every other player/team. Also, if the competitors' performance is variable, that is, it depends on a small, varying factor in addition to the actual strength of the competitors, then not only will it become less likely that the strongest competitor actually wins the tournament, in addition the seeding done by the tournament organizers will play a major part in deciding the winner. As
1161-500: The other side rough play by Spaniards broke the leg of the Italian Mario Pizziolo who would not play in the national team again. Italy won the replay 1–0; their play so physical that at least three Spaniards had to depart the field with injuries. Italy then went on to beat Austria in the semi-finals by the same score. Meanwhile, Czechoslovakia secured their place in the final by beating Germany 3–1. The Stadium of
1204-604: The other. If a small number of teams play in a single elimination tournament, sometimes a consolation bracket is included to allow the eliminated teams to play more than once. This was the format of the Little League World Series until 1992. The format is less suited to games where draws are frequent. In chess , each fixture in a single-elimination tournament must be played over multiple matches, because draws are common , and because white has an advantage over black. In association football , games ending in
1247-587: The players into the tournament) is given by the Wedderburn–Etherington numbers . Thus, for instance, there are three different arrangements for five players: However, the number of arrangements grows quickly for larger numbers of players and not all of them are commonly used. Opponents may be allocated randomly (such as in the FA Cup); however, since the "luck of the draw" may result in the highest-rated competitors being scheduled to face each other early in
1290-1287: The quarterfinals has multiple designations. Often it is called the round of sixteen , last sixteen , or (in South Asia) pre-quarterfinals . In many other languages the term for these eight matches translates to eighth-final (e.g., in these European languages: "huitième de finale" in French , "achtste finale" in Dutch, octavos de final in Spanish , Achtelfinale in German , åttondelsfinal in Swedish , ottavi di finale in Italian , oitavos-de-final in Portuguese , optimi de finală in Romanian , osmifinále in Czech , osemfinále in Slovak , and osmina finala in Serbo-Croatian ), though this term
1333-571: The regular season (or did not take place, in some cases). In international fencing competitions, it is common to have a group stage . Participants are divided in groups of 6–7 fencers who play a round-robin tournament, and a ranking is calculated from the consolidated group results. Single elimination is seeded from this ranking. The single-elimination format enables a relatively large number of competitors to participate. There are no "dead" matches (perhaps excluding "classification" matches), and no matches where one competitor has more to play for than
The Basketball Classic - Misplaced Pages Continue
1376-446: The round at which they enter may be named the first round , with the earlier matches called a preliminary round , qualifying round , opening round , or the play-in games . Examples of the diverse names given to concurrent rounds in various select disciplines: Notes: The knockout round of the 2002 FIFA World Cup tournament: Without any additional matches, the only position a single-elimination tournament can reliably determine
1419-399: The same division, they cannot play each other; in that case, the top seed plays the worst division champion; the second-best division champion plays the wild card team. This is due to the scheduling employed for the regular season, in which a team faces any given divisional opponent more often than any given non-divisional opponent – the tournament favors match-ups that took place fewer times in
1462-586: The same time. Hosts and favourites Italy won handsomely, defeating the USA 7–1; The New York Times correspondent wrote that "only the fine goal-tending of Julius Hjulian of Chicago kept the score as low as it was". Internal disputes meant Argentina's squad for the tournament did not contain a single member of the team which had reached the final in 1930. In the end, La Albiceleste would partake with an amateur squad. Against Sweden in Bologna, Argentina twice took
1505-476: The top 32 players of 128 are seeded in Tennis Grand Slam tournaments, it can happen that the 33rd-best player in a 128-player field could end up playing the top seed in the first round. An example of this occurring was when World No. 33 Florian Mayer was drawn against, and defeated by, World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the first round of the 2013 Wimbledon Championships , in what was also a rematch of
1548-584: The tournament as a propaganda tool for fascism . According to these accusations, Mussolini personally selected referees for the matches where the Italy national team were playing, while the Italian government meddled in FIFA's organisation of events, re-organizing the logistics of the matches to further promote fascism. Nonetheless, Italy also won the following edition of the World Cup (held in France ) as well as
1591-433: The tournament without the responsibility of an additional financial commitment. Single-elimination tournament In English , the round in which only eight competitors remain is generally called (with or without hyphenation) the quarter-final round; this is followed by the semi-final round, in which only four are left, the two winners of which then meet in the final or championship round . The round before
1634-470: The tournament. In a single-elimination tournament without any seeding, awarding the second place to the loser of the final is unjustified: any of the competitors knocked out before getting to play the losing finalist might have been stronger than the actual losing finalist. In general, it is only fair to use a single-elimination tournament to determine first place. To fairly determine lower places requires some form of round-robin in which each player/team gets
1677-438: The two conferences the league has) to face the winner of the first-round series between the fourth and fifth seeds in the next round, even if one or more of the top three seeds had been upset in their first-round series; critics have claimed that this gives a team fighting for the fifth and sixth seeding positions near the end of the regular season an incentive to tank (deliberately lose) games, so as to finish sixth and thus avoid
1720-459: Was chosen as the host nation at a meeting in Stockholm on 9 October 1932. The decision was taken by the executive committee without a ballot of members. The Italian bid was chosen in preference to one from Sweden; the Italian government assigned a budget of Lire 3.5 million to the tournament. 36 countries applied to enter the tournament, so qualifying matches were required to thin
1763-419: Was marred by being a high-profile instance of a sporting event being used for overt political gain. In particular, Benito Mussolini was keen to use this World Cup as a means of promoting fascism. Although some historians and sports journalists have made accusations of corruption and meddling by Mussolini to influence the competition to the benefit of Italy, Italy has always claimed that it deserved victory in
The Basketball Classic - Misplaced Pages Continue
1806-420: Was the first in which teams had to qualify to take part. Thirty-two nations entered the competition; 16 teams would qualify for the final tournament. Reigning champions Uruguay boycotted the tournament as only four European teams had accepted their invitation to the 1930 tournament . Italy beat Czechoslovakia 2–1 to become the second World Cup champions and the first European winners. The 1934 World Cup
1849-407: Was the first team from Africa in the finals and would not qualify again until the next time the competition was held in Italy, in 1990 . The number of supporters travelling from other countries was higher than at any previous football tournament, including 7,000 from the Netherlands and 10,000 each from Austria and Switzerland. The group stage used in the first World Cup was discarded in favour of
#816183