A 16-player, single-elimination tournament bracket. The quarterfinals have been completed, and the semifinal games will be Lisa vs. Ernie, and Andrew vs. Robert. Then the finals will be a game between the two people who won in the semifinals.

A double elimination bracket from the 2004 national Science Bowl

A bracket is the diagrammatic representation of the series of games played during a tournament, named as such because it appears to be a large number of interconnected (punctuational) brackets.

There are several kinds of brackets, adapted to different types of tournaments. The most common are:

• Single elimination brackets (tennis, basketball)
• Double elimination brackets (9-ball)

The "art" of filling in brackets, especially in NCAA basketball, is referred to as bracketology.