5 couples, 8 month tournament

[wlpitcher]

Our 6 couple bridge group has unfortunately been reduced to 5 couples.  Each couple plays another couple once each month, at their convenience, for eight months, Sept. thru April.  Couples can be scheduled to play other couples as many times as necessary. How might we schedule this to minimize the number of times a couple has to sit out a during the season?    

[Ian Wakeling]

As you describe it, a month is essentially a round from a standard round-robin schedule.  For example you could play:

       Game1 Game2 Bye
Month1 (2 5) (3 4)  1
Month2 (4 1) (2 3)  5
Month3 (3 5) (2 1)  4
Month4 (2 4) (5 1)  3
Month5 (3 1) (4 5)  2

Then you could repeat Months 1 to 3 for the last three months, but this would mean that the three couples with a bye in months 6 to 8, namely couples 1, 5 & 4 would have one less game than the other two couples.

Could you play two complete round-robins?  So schedule months 1 to 8 as I have described above, and then slot in the remaining games (2 4) (5 1) (3 1) & (4 5) at other times.