Balance Pool Play With Cross Over To Another Pool

[cblaze22]

How would someone create a balance of games in each pool, when one pool has less ore more positions?  

Example below shows two pools of 3 teams, and one with 2.  I would like them to play at max 2 games each.

Pools

A1, A2, A3
B1, B2, B3
C1, C2

Games

A1 vs A2, A2 vs A3, A1 vs A3
B1 vs B2, B2 vs B3, B1 vs B3
C1 vs C2

Then C1 and C2 needs to cross play with the B pool somehow and still have all positions end up playing two games total.  Should I combine pools B and C when generating the games, but display it with B and C as the pools till?  

[Ian Wakeling]

I think the only way to keep pools is for C1 and C2 to play each other twice.  The moment there are games between Bx and Cy, you no longer have pools, and there is no sense in labelling them B and C in the combined group of 5.

[cblaze22]

I agree but this does happen where a pool has a different number then the rest in the group. This happens all the time in basketball tournaments where a team needs to do a cross pool game to cover the minimum amount of games promised for the tournament, and not play the same team twice.

[Ian Wakeling]

There is no avoiding the imbalance in the pool sizes, it makes it impossible to have a fair tournament.  

For example you could play something like:

B1 vs B2,  B1 vs B3
C1 vs C2, B2 vs C1,  B3 vs C2

here B1 has two games against B opposition, while B2 and B3 each get one game against B opposition and one game against C.

[cblaze22]

Yes that is how it is suppose to look, you go by record not who they played in the pool.  So if you go by record it doesnt matter which pool they play against as long as they get a minimum of two games in against distinct teams.  I am just trying to figure out an algorithm to get that number of games cross pool when pools are uneven because the event has one or more or one or less teams that would make the pools uneven, causing for a cross play.