The first World Baseball Classic featured 16 teams in a round-robin style tournament. Each team played the other three teams in their pool once. The top two teams of each letter-pool moved onto the second round, where the top two teams of Pools A and B (Pool 1) and the top two teams of Pools C and D (Pool 2) competed against each other in another round-robin. The top two teams from each pool entered a four-team single elimination bracket, with the pool champions and runners-up facing each other in the semi-finals. The winners of the semi-final games then met to determine a champion.