Running a cornhole tournament? Here's how to choose a format, size your bracket, seed teams, and get playing — the simple way.
Running an official cornhole tournament requires more than just having cornhole boards, bags, and a location for the tournament. To make the tournament run smoothly, you also need to have a bracket prepared.
Preparing a bracket is relatively simple and takes only a bit of planning. Follow the steps below to create a cornhole tournament bracket.
One loss and you're out. Fast and easy to run — ideal for large fields or events on a tight schedule. Also called knock-out or Olympic style.
Teams must lose twice to be eliminated. A secondary (loser's) bracket gives everyone a second chance — great for smaller, relaxed tournaments.
Tournaments can be either single elimination or double elimination. In a single elimination tournament, losing teams are immediately removed from the bracket and do not get a second chance.
This style is also called a knock-out or Olympic system tournament.
Double elimination eliminates teams after the second loss. To arrange a double elimination bracket, create a single elimination bracket, but include a second bracket for the losing teams below the winning team bracket.
Once teams lose in the winning (upper) bracket, they enter the losing (lower) bracket. If a team loses in the lower bracket, they are eliminated.
The elimination style you choose should reflect the number of teams involved in your tournament and the amount of time allotted for playing.
Tournaments with many teams involved or with time constraints should opt for single elimination style. Tournaments involving fewer teams or with more time for play may find that the double elimination style suits their needs better.
Once you have decided on the elimination style, you can create your bracket to reflect that elimination style. It is helpful to know how many teams will be playing while creating the bracket, but if you do not have an exact guess then estimate. A hand-drawn bracket on a sheet of paper or a whiteboard works just fine.
Count your teams and choose the next bracket size up — commonly 16, 32, or 64 teams. If you have fewer teams than slots, the empty slots simply become byes.
On the day of the tournament, it will be time to pair up the teams. If players in the tournament signed up as teams then you may skip this step.
However, if players have not yet made teams, then allow extra time for this step on the day of the tournament. You can either allow people to choose their partners or mix things up by putting every player’s name in a hat and drawing teams at random.
Now that you have a list of all of your teams, it is time to fill in the bracket.
You can repurpose the hat in step 3 by writing each of the team names down on separate pieces of paper and picking competitors at random. Place the first team’s name on the first blank line, the second team’s name on the second line, and so on until all of the lines are filled.
If you have an odd number of teams then the last team will automatically advance to the next round. This is called a bye and teams matched up with a bye will always advance to the next round.
Fewer teams than slots? Leftover spots become byes that advance a team automatically to the next round.
Make sure everyone's on the same page with the official cornhole rules and scoring. New players can brush up with our complete cornhole guide. Keep it simple, keep it fun — and may the best team win.
Cornhole is supposed to be a simple game, enjoyed by all. Don’t let your tournament bracket complicate things!
If you need any extra cornhole supplies for your tournament, let us know. We have official cornhole boards and bags that are appropriate for any sanctioned tournament. Plus, we have several cornhole sets that are available for rent.
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