We have all seen the elimination brackets they use for the NCAA playoffs. Brackets are easy to layout for eliminations where the number of contestants is a power of 2. Is there a standard way of laying out brackets if the number of contestants is NOT a power of 2?
I’m not familiar with the NCAA custom, but tennis does have a standard way of doing it. They usually have lucky losers in larger tournaments rather than byes.
When byes are required, then they are assigned in a specific way – working from the extremes and work toward the middle so that higher seeds get the byes.
There are a bunch of websites that can help you make brackets for tournaments of just about any size.
Here’s one:
http://www.bracketmaker.com/
But you can also buy software that prints up fancy charts and such.