In a Swiss-style chess tournament, in each round after the first you play an
opponent with the same record that you have (if one is available whom you
have not played before in the tournament; if no eligible player with the same
record is available, then you play an opponent with the record nearest
yours).
My son was on the Little League team that represented our town in the county
tournament (the first step in the ladder which reaches the Little World
Series). The county tournament had sixteen teams. Each team started out in
the winners' bracket. As soon as a team in the winners' bracket lost a game,
it went into the losers' bracket. As soon as a team lost a game in the
losers' bracket, it was dropped from the tournament. (That is, both brackets
were sudden-death elimination, but a team had to be eliminated from both
brackets before it was eliminated from the tournament.) Finally the winner
of the winners' bracket played the winner of the losers' bracket for the
county championship.
James A Landau