Tournament bracket placement algorithm

Question

Given a list of opponent seeds (for example seeds 1 to 16), I\'m trying to write an algorithm that will result in the top seed playing the lowest seed in that round, the 2nd

Answer 1

A C version.

int * pctournamentSeedArray(int PlayerCnt)
{
    int * Array;
    int * PrevArray;
    int i;

    Array = meAlloc(sizeof(int) * PlayerCnt);

    if (PlayerCnt == 2)
    {
        Array[0] = 0;
        Array[1] = 1;
        return Array;
    }

    PrevArray = pctournamentSeedArray(PlayerCnt / 2);
    for (i = 0; i < PlayerCnt;i += 2)
    {
        Array[i] = PrevArray[i / 2];
        Array[i + 1] = (PlayerCnt - 1) - Array[i] ;
    }
    meFree(PrevArray);
    return Array;
}

Answer 2

# Here's one in python - it uses nested list comprehension to be succinct:

from math import log, ceil

def seed( n ):
    """ returns list of n in standard tournament seed order

    Note that n need not be a power of 2 - 'byes' are returned as zero
    """

    ol = [1]

    for i in range( ceil( log(n) / log(2) ) ):

        l = 2*len(ol) + 1

        ol = [e if e <= n else 0 for s in [[el, l-el] for el in ol] for e in s]

    return ol

Answer 3

I worked on a PHP / Laravel plugin that generates brackets with / without preliminary round robin. Maybe it can be useful to you, I don't know what tech you are using. Here is the github.

https://github.com/xoco70/kendo-tournaments

Hope it helps!

Answer 4

• At each round sort teams by seeding criteria
• (If there are n teams in a round)team at ith position plays with team n-i+1

Answer 5

This JavaScript returns an array where each even index plays the next odd index

function seeding(numPlayers){
  var rounds = Math.log(numPlayers)/Math.log(2)-1;
  var pls = [1,2];
  for(var i=0;i<rounds;i++){
    pls = nextLayer(pls);
  }
  return pls;
  function nextLayer(pls){
    var out=[];
    var length = pls.length*2+1;
    pls.forEach(function(d){
      out.push(d);
      out.push(length-d);
    });
    return out;
  }
}

> seeding(2)
[1, 2]
> seeding(4)
[1, 4, 2, 3]
> seeding(8)
[1, 8, 4, 5, 2, 7, 3, 6]
> seeding(16)
[1, 16, 8, 9, 4, 13, 5, 12, 2, 15, 7, 10, 3, 14, 6, 11]

Answer 6

Since this comes up when searching on the subject, and it's hopeless to find another answer that solves the problem AND puts the seeds in a "prettier" order, I will add my version of the PHP code from darkangel. I also added the possibility to give byes to the higher seed players.

This was coded in an OO environment, so the number of participants are in $this->finalists and the number of byes are in $this->byes. I have only tested the code without byes and with two byes.

  public function getBracket() {
      $players = range(1, $this->finalists);
      for ($i = 0; $i < log($this->finalists / 2, 2); $i++) {
        $out = array();
        $reverse = false;
        foreach ($players as $player) {
          $splice = pow(2, $i);
          if ($reverse) {
            $out = array_merge($out, array_splice($players, -$splice));
            $out = array_merge($out, array_splice($players, 0, $splice));
            $reverse = false;
          } else {
            $out = array_merge($out, array_splice($players, 0, $splice));
            $out = array_merge($out, array_splice($players, -$splice));
            $reverse = true;
          }
        }
        $players = $out;
      }
      if ($this->byes) {
        for ($i = 0; $i < $this->byes; $i++ ) {
          for ($j = (($this->finalists / pow(2, $i)) - 1); $j > 0; $j--) {
            $newPlace = ($this->finalists / pow(2, $i)) - 1;
            if ($players[$j] > ($this->finalists / (pow(2 ,($i + 1))))) {
              $player = $players[$j];
              unset($players[$j]);
              array_splice($players, $newPlace, 0, $player);
            }
          }
        }
        for ($i = 0; $i < $this->finalists / (pow(2, $this->byes)); $i++ ) {
          $swap[] = $players[$i];
        }
        for ($i = 0; $i < $this->finalists /(pow(2, $this->byes)); $i++ ) {
          $players[$i] = $swap[count($swap) - 1 - $i];
        }
        return array_reverse($players);
      }
      return $players;
    }