In the old days, any byes that appeared in a bracket went to the highest seeds (the theory, I guess, being that the top wrestlers should have the least resistant path to the second round). I have seen at least one tournament this year my son was in where the top four seeds all wrestled first round and the byes went to lower seeded wrestlers (11 wrestlers, 16-wreslter bracket).

My question is, what is the common practice for entering byes into brackets (8-wrestler, 16-wrestler brackets)? Personally, I hate it when my son gets a bye in the first round of a tournament for two reasons, 1) more matches are better, and 2) helps get the wrestler into the flow of the tournament.

That being said, when my son is one of the lower seeds, the byes should go to the higher seeds; when he is one of the higher seeds, the byes should go to the lower seeds. All of my selfishness and kidding aside, who should wrestle the byes (higher seeds or lower seeds)?

The highest seed should get the bye. The reason they don't is...Outstanding Wrestler. The tournaments give all the higher seeds a first round match to make sure they can stay in contention for OW. Bad reason but that's it.

Beeson is right, but in addition to that, some clubs will try NOT to give a Bye to a kid who is traveling a great distance so that they get more matches for their efforts. This would be secondary to Beeson's explanation.

At the high school level and a few kids tournaments,(the way brackets are filled today) there are no automatic byes!

In those cases, you select and place the seeds, you draw the byes, and then draw the remaining wrestlers!!

As well in High School as a coach you don't want the byes because you lose out on the ability to get extra team points for Pins, techs, etc from your best kids.

24/7

My son for one is a wrestler that travels 3+ hour almost every weekend. I have requested that he NEVER get a bye. Even if this means being paired against the #1 seed. Also as Beeson stated, when the OW is being awarded, it gives them a better opportunity to achieve this award, even if it is a a smaller in-state tournament. a wrestling tournament is about wrestling. i would love to see 6 man round robins that have been powerbracketed. (with the approval of all entered).
Just my opinion.

Byes (alterable)
SECTION 21. Byes shall be determined for each individual weight class.
The first round for each weight class shall be determined based on the
number of byes for that weight class. At no time shall there be equal or
more byes than the number of competitors in a weight class. When the
number of competitors is four, eight, 16, 32, 64 or another power of two,
there shall be no byes in the first round.
When the number of competitors is not equal to a power of two, the
number of byes shall be equal to the difference between the number of
competitors and the next higher power of two. This establishes the bracket
size and the bracket’s first round. The number of pairs that meet in the
first round shall be equal to the difference between the number of competitors
and the next lower power of two.
There shall be no byes after the first round, and no further drawing is
necessary for the championship or wrestle-back rounds. The byes, if even
in number, shall be divided equally between top and bottom. When byes
are required for the first round, they shall be placed by mutual consent or
drawn so that they are distributed evenly throughout the bracket. No 1/2,
1/4, 1/8, etc. bracket shall have more than one more bye than its paired
bracket. (See 5-4-b.)
Examples:
• Weight class 125 has 20 wrestlers; there shall be 12 byes and four pairings.
• Weight class 133 has eight wrestlers; there shall be no byes and four
pairings.
• Weight class 141 has 14 wrestlers; there shall be two byes and six pairings.
Contestants Eligible

Example 1 above 125lbs - 6 byes in the top half of bracket and six byes in the bottom half drawn in.
Example 3 above 141 lbs - 1 bye in the top half of bracket and 1 buy in the bottom half drawn in.

Bracketing should not have anything to do with OW under the current rules. The buys are drawn in first and then the unseeded wrestlers are drawn in for the available first round matches.

Top-ranked wrestlers get matches so they can go for OW.