Losers Bracket Perfected

While the old way of generating double elimination losers brackets wasn't all that bad, I finally nailed down the logic that will create ideally configured brackets for any size tournament. The placement of losers in the bottom bracket should now prevent rematches for as long as possible, giving participants a nice mix of opponents.

The updated algorithm for creating double elimination brackets will only affect new tournaments. Already published brackets will be completely untouched.

I know there were at least a few people waiting on this update, so thanks for your patience and feedback!

Introducing Challonge! Mobile

Don't get too excited! Challonge mobile doesn't let you view brackets or much else, but you can at least report scores from your phone now. The interface is dead simple, so I imagine it'll work on most mobile browsers -- I tested on a BlackBerry 8830 with the crappy BlackBerry browser and Opera Mini. Just hit Challonge.com from a mobile device and you should get redirected to the mobile site: challonge.com/mobile

Sign-ups, etc.

The tournament creation process underwent a major overhaul to make it more intuitive and add the sign-up page option. Instead of having to figure out all the participants up front, you can now opt to have Challonge host a sign-up page for you. You can then distribute a sign-up link and filter the list as you wish before kicking things in gear.











Also in this release, the arbitrary 4 person limit for tournaments has been dropped to 2, mainly for the sake of hosting finals. I can't remember what else was changed at the moment, but there were a handfull of other tweaks as well.

Coming up next! By popular demand, I'll be creating a score fixing utility so you can repair reporting mistakes and not have to start from scratch. Also, I'm working on the bracket viewer to allow for size scaling and multi-set score viewing. The viewer will eventually be modularized to allow users to embed customized brackets anywhere on the net. The core logic of double elimination losers brackets still needs some tweaking as well...

Regarding the Losers Bracket Update

While the losers bracket update was an improvement, I finally realized a few key concepts that will help me finalize the bracket. It's all figured out in my head... now for the tedious part.

Double Elimination Loser Bracket v2

While I can't claim to have addressed every losers bracket scenario perfectly, I think the latest update corrects a lot of the scenarios, especially for large brackets. There's no way to avoid rematches for some bracket sizes, but the "standard" sizes (4,8,16,32,64,...) and most variants should be smarter than before.

Existing tournaments will not be affected by this update, but all new tournaments and bracket generator output will reflect the new algorithm.

Special thanks to Pierre and Esteban for identifying some of the losers bracket seedings that didn't look quite right. I'm not 100% content with the changes this update enforces, but I think the algorithm is more reliable than the current one.

Thanks for using Challonge! There's plenty more to come, and I appreciate your support. Please feel free to contact me with your comments by following the Contact/Support link at the bottom of Challonge.com.

! Double Elimination Brackets !

I finally got around to applying the new look to double elimination brackets. There are bound to be a few flitches to work out, but I'm pleased that this feature is out the door at last.

Next, I'll be revisiting the seeding logic for losers brackets. Scenarios for large tournaments have been brought to my attention (thanks!) where rematches aren't avoided as much as is possible. Tournament open sign-ups are also near the top of the queue.

A Tweak or 2

Tournament participants can now set their names for each tournament instead of being restricted to a single name per account. This allows a participant to provide a game specific alias or team name that will show up in the brackets.