Players with Fixed Resources in Elimination Tournaments

We consider two-round elimination tournaments where players have fixed resources instead of cost functions. Two approaches are suggested. If the players have the same resources and a success function is stochastic, then players always spend more resources in the first than in the second round in a symmetric equilibrium. Equal resource allocation between two rounds takes place only in the winner-take-all case. However, if the players have independent private resources and the success function is deterministic, then every player spends at least one third of his resources in the first round. The players spend exactly one third of their resources in the winner-take-all case. Applications for career paths, elections, and sports are discussed