Thirty-two teams make the playoffs, and the order they are seeded in surprises people every year. The short version: your record doesn't set your seed — where you finish in your own division does.
Here is the whole process, one step at a time, worked through with the real 2026 results.
Every division is scored on its own. Standings are built from individual games rather than matches — each match is three games, so a team that goes 2–1 on the night banks two wins and one loss. Every team plays the same number of matches, so their records compare directly.
| Team | W | L | PCT | PD | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Go Abocce Business | 37 | 11 | 771 | +180 | playoff spot |
| 2 | Ball Busters | 36 | 12 | 750 | +186 | playoff spot |
| 3 | Ballers Grande | 31 | 17 | 646 | +94 | playoff spot |
| 4 | Oyster Shooters | 28 | 20 | 583 | +11 | playoff spot |
| 5 | Mission Imbocceball | 26 | 22 | 542 | +25 | wild card pool |
| 6 | D'Boccery | 23 | 25 | 479 | -16 | wild card pool |
| 7 | Shake, Rattle and Roll | 13 | 35 | 271 | -123 | wild card pool |
| 8 | Pretty Ballsy | 13 | 35 | 271 | -168 | wild card pool |
| 9 | Resting Bocce Face | 9 | 39 | 188 | -189 | wild card pool |
The top four are in. Everyone below them is not out yet — they go into the wild card pool in step 4.
Each rule breaks the ties left by the one above it.
Divisions never play each other, so they are compared by how strong their playoff teams are: the average win percentage of the division's four playoff teams. The rest of the division does not count toward it.
2026 divisions, strongest first. Bars run the full 0–1000 win percentage scale used in the standings, so the gaps are as small as they look — but the order still decides a lot in the next step.
Now the seeds are dealt one row at a time. Every division winner is seeded above every runner-up, every runner-up above every third-place team, and so on down. Within a row, the stronger the division, the better the seed.
| #1 Wed. | #2 Thr. | #3 Sun. pm | #4 Sun. am | #5 Fri. | #6 Mon. | #7 Tue. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st place | 1 Go Abocce Business | 2 Bocce Hounds | 3 Benicia Smog | 4 Amore di Baci | 5 Bocheech & Chong | 6 High Rollers | 7 Bocce Up |
| 2nd place | 8 Ball Busters | 9 Bocce Questo | 10 Superfriends | 11 Bocce Buddies | 12 Bocce Banditos | 13 Pacifica Pizza | 14 Il Bocce X |
| 3rd place | 15 Ballers Grande | 16 Knights Realm | 17 Benicia Ball Breakers | 18 The OddBalls | 19 Casino Ranch | 20 Boccelicious | 21 Vets Club |
| 4th place | 22 Oyster Shooters | 23 Boccelism | 24 Son of a b'occe | 25 Unusually Underhanded | 26 California Rolls | 27 Consigliere di Bocce | 28 Dumb Luck |
Divisions run strongest to weakest, left to right. Read the seed numbers the way you read a page — left to right, then down to the next row.
This is the step that catches people out. The last division winner takes seed 7, so the best runner-up in the league can do no better than seed 8, however good its record was.
Everyone who finished fifth or lower drops into one pool, whatever division they came from. This is the one place records are compared straight across the league: the pool is ranked by win percentage, and the top 4 take the last seeds.
The top of the 34-team wild card pool in 2026, by win percentage. Everyone from the 5th line down is out.
The first round matchups are fixed long before anyone knows who the teams are. Every pairing adds up to 33 — 1 plays 32, 2 plays 31, 3 plays 30 — and the bracket is laid out so the strong seeds are spread apart. Seeds 1 and 2 can only meet in the championship.
The 2026 first round, in bracket order. Each block of eight teams produces one semifinalist. Hover a seed to see the team.
In every playoff match the higher seed is the home team, and is responsible for preparing the court.
2026 is a clean example. Bocheech & Chong finished with the best record of any playoff team at 813, won their division, and still ended up seed 5 — their division came out 5 of 7 in step 2.