Tournament Scheduler

This program is an implementation of my first fit algorithm. For your convenience I have pre-generated schedules for up to 28 teams.

If you are interested in the first fit algorithm, I welcome you to download the application and try out it's various features.

The tournament schedule generator (28kb) is a Windows program that creates a table showing how N teams can be paired during N-1 meetings such that every team plays every other team. Simply enter the number of teams and click on the Determine Schedule button.

If resultant schedules are randomized row-wise (all games for a week swapped with all games of another week) and/or column-wise (swap game:i with game:j within any week) you will still have a valid tournament schedule.

If you are interested in the logic going on in the scheduler, check the Show Progress box and then check the Show Logic box that will become unhidden. To step through the logic, one decision at a time, check Show Progress, check Show Logic, select Checked and change the refresh every value from 1,000 to 1. The program limits you to 24 teams. The search space for 24 teams is 276 Games planned, 1,422,812 Games tried, 4,884,289 Games checked. (The algorithm stalls at 26 teams and claims an infeasible solution after trying over 200 million game sequences.)

The results can be saved to a text file or as an HTML page for inclusion in a web site.

The scheduler was written in Visual Basic 5 and requires MSVBVM50.DLL. This DLL should be included in Windows 98. If you have Windows 95 or Windows NT and the program will not run, you can learn more about the DLL at Microsoft's site, or just download the installer.