tournament schedule

[Steven_M]

Need help: running a tournament that follows this pattern: Total number of teams is a multiple of four (24, 28,...48). Teams play against one another in groups of four (1-4, 5-8...). I need to do 9 rounds so no team plays against one another twice. Can anyone help?

[Ian Wakeling]

Start with Ed Pegg's web page that shows solutions for 24, 28 & 32 teams, but note that you can only have 7 rounds with 24 teams.

11 rounds for 36 teams is covered here.

For 40 teams a perfect schedule in 13 rounds is possible.

44 teams is covered here (just ignore the assignment of each foursome into two pairs)

48 teams is covered here.

In all the schedules listed above no pair of teams occurs more than once in a group of 4, so if there are more than 9 rounds then simply delete any extra rounds.

Hope that helps.