How Is Tournament Seeding Done?
What is a tournament? A tournament is an organized competition between at least two competing teams, all playing in some kind of game or sport. More specifically, the word can be used both in two overlapping senses: as in a “tournament” in professional sports, and as in the word “competition” in everyday life. In fact, tournament means “a competition” in almost every case where it appears in the English language. The word is also commonly used in mathematics and the engineering languages.
Tournament, as the name implies, is a formalized sporting activity with a defined set of rules or objectives. The word “tourney” may also be used in its singular form, without the word “competition” in it. There are a very large number of tournaments organized in different sports, such as racing, golf, tennis, table tennis, swimming, sailing, cricket, hockey and football. In addition, there are informal tournaments, like those organized by universities and schools, and sometimes even by clubs within the same sports.
So, how do we define a tournament? Well, it is usually organized by some committee, and involves a large number of teams participating in it. There is usually a winner, and sometimes only one team. The winner gets the trophy. The fixtures take place over a period of a few days or a few weeks.
In a football league tournament, for instance, there are generally 20 teams. Each one plays against every other team in its league. The fixture schedule states which team has to win and another that has to lose, so that the overall competition is even. In a baseball double header tournament, there are usually 12 teams; each team is pitted against the other in a double header, with the winners getting the bragging rights, although they are not necessarily required to win.
The most popular type of tournament, however, is the single elimination tournament. In a single elimination tournament, there are no ties: each team simply wins when one of them loses. This type of tournament can be played within a short period of time, such as one day, and there are often more than one elimination bracket.
As for the tournament’s seeding, it is important to understand that it depends on the results of the initial round of matches. The seeding is what decides who gets to stay in the tournament and who will have to go out. The first round of matches determines the seeds; the teams with the best performance in the initial round qualify automatically for the upper bracket, while the worst performing teams have to go through the lower one. The lower bracket is the one that will contain the teams with the worst records. The upper bracket is reserved for the teams that perform well in the initial rounds, so that they can continue their play until the grand final, in which there will only be the champions.