🚀 Getting Started
My Simple Bracket Maker is free to use. The public can always browse and view brackets — no account needed. To create your own tournaments and enter results, you need a free account.
1
Register — Click Register in the top nav. Enter your email and a password (min 8 characters, must include a number).
2
Log in — You'll be signed in automatically after registering. Next time, use Login in the nav.
3
Create your first tournament — Click + New Tournament and fill in the details.
📋 Browsing Tournaments
Click Tournaments in the nav to see the tournament list. The list is split into two sections:
- Active tournaments — all tournaments that are Not Started or In Progress, plus any that completed within the last 3 days. These appear in the main table at the top.
- Historical tournaments — completed tournaments older than 3 days. They're tucked into a collapsible 📦 Historical Tournaments panel below the main table.
💡 Tip
Click the 📦 Historical Tournaments bar to expand or collapse the archive. The count badge shows how many are in there. You can still search and sort inside it just like the main table.
🗓 Creating a Tournament
Click + New Tournament from the nav or your My Tournaments page.
| Field | What to enter |
|---|
| Tournament Name | Whatever you like — "Summer Ping Pong Cup", "Office Foosball 2026", etc. |
| Game Type | The sport or game being played — Golf, Darts, Chess, Beer Pong… |
| Date | The date of the event. Used for sorting on the tournament list. |
| Player Names | One name per line. Duplicates are ignored. You need at least 2 players. |
💡 Tip
Players are seeded in the order you enter them — put your top seed first. The bracket automatically pairs seed 1 vs. last, seed 2 vs. second-to-last, and so on.
When you submit, the bracket is generated instantly and you're taken straight to it.
⚡ Entering Results
Only the tournament owner (or a SuperAdmin) can enter results. You must be logged in.
1
Open the bracket page for your tournament.
2
Find the match you want to record. Each pending match shows a small W button next to each player's name.
3
Click W next to the winner. The bracket updates instantly — the winner advances to the next round and the loser is marked out.
4
Repeat for each match. When the final match is completed, a champion celebration fires automatically! 🎉
💡 Tip
Results update live with no page refresh. Share the bracket link with spectators — they can watch the bracket fill in as you click winners.
↩ Undoing a Result
Accidentally clicked the wrong winner? No problem — every completed match has an ↩ Undo button at the bottom of the match card (visible only to the tournament owner and SuperAdmins).
1
Find the completed match you need to fix. Look for the small ↩ Undo bar at the bottom of the match card.
2
Click ↩ Undo. A confirmation dialog will appear — it warns you if the player had already advanced further in the bracket.
3
Confirm the reset. The match (and any subsequent matches that player won) are all cleared back to Pending automatically.
4
The bracket reloads and the W buttons reappear on the reset match — ready for you to enter the correct winner.
⚠️ Note
The undo cascades forward — if Ryan won Round 1, Round 2, and the Final, undoing his Round 1 match will also clear Round 2 and the Final. If the tournament was marked Completed it will roll back to In Progress as well.
🔍 Finding Your Bracket
You don't need an account to find a bracket you're playing in.
- Click Find My Bracket in the top nav.
- Type your name (or part of it) in the search box and hit Search.
- All tournaments containing a player with that name are shown, sorted newest first.
- Click any result to jump straight to that bracket.
💡 Tip
The search is case-insensitive and matches partial names, so "Ryan" will also find "Ryan Smith".
🔗 Sharing a Bracket
Every bracket has its own public URL — no login required to view it.
- Copy from the browser bar — just copy the URL from any bracket page and share it.
- Copy Link button — on your My Tournaments page (and on the SuperAdmin Dashboard), each tournament row has a Copy Link button. Click it and the full URL is copied to your clipboard. The button flashes green to confirm.
🖼 Bracket Layouts
My Simple Bracket Maker supports two display styles for brackets:
⬅️➡️
Left to Right
Classic bracket — Round 1 on the left, each round progressing right toward the Final.
↔️
Split (default)
Both sides of the bracket fan inward, meeting at the Final in the center.
A SuperAdmin can switch layouts from the SuperAdmin Dashboard — the change applies to all brackets instantly site-wide.
🛡 SuperAdmin
SuperAdmins have full control over the entire site — they can manage any tournament, enter results for any bracket, and delete anything.
- Dashboard — Click SuperAdmin in the nav when logged in as a SuperAdmin. Shows all tournaments across all users.
- Delete any tournament — Use the Delete button on the Dashboard. A confirmation page is shown before anything is removed.
- Toggle bracket layout — The Dashboard has a Switch to Split / Left to Right button that changes the display mode for all brackets.
- Copy Link — Quickly copy a shareable URL for any tournament from the Dashboard.
⚠️ Note
SuperAdmin accounts are created manually by a site administrator. Regular registration creates a standard user account only.
❓ FAQ
Why can't I see an old tournament on the main list?
Completed tournaments older than 3 days move to the Historical archive. Click the 📦 Historical Tournaments panel at the bottom of the Tournaments page to find it — the bracket link still works exactly the same.
Can I change player names after creating a tournament?
Not currently — player names are set when the tournament is created. Plan ahead and double-check spellings before submitting.
What happens with an odd number of players?
The middle-seeded player receives a bye in Round 1, advancing automatically to Round 2. For even player counts there are no byes.
Can I undo a result after clicking W?
Yes! Every completed match shows a small ↩ Undo button at the bottom of the match card for the tournament owner and SuperAdmins. It cascades automatically — so if the wrong player had already advanced further, all their subsequent matches are reset too.
Is the bracket public?
Yes — anyone with the link can view a bracket without logging in. Only the tournament owner (or a SuperAdmin) can enter results.
How many players can a tournament have?
There's no hard limit. The bracket generates dynamically for any player count — 4, 6, 13, 32, whatever you need.
Will you support double elimination?
It's on the roadmap! The bracket engine is already designed to support it — single elimination is just the starting point.