16 person dubs tennis RR, 3 courts, maximum variability, 36 rounds

[Hooked]

Help please. This is breaking my brain!

I run a 16 person double tennis round robin. It runs for 36 weeks/rounds from Sep - May each year.

We have 3 courts so only 12 people can play each week/round, while the remaining 4 sit.

I want to have MAXIMUM variability so each person plays with and against as many others as possible. I also want to MINIMIZE repeats as much as possible, but especially with partners. Opponents too if possible, but less of a concern than partners.

I also want to avoid people sitting out more than 1 week/round at a time.

I've tried Euchre rotation charts and other tools to help but I'm still not happy with the results.

Any help and or solutions very much appreciated in advance!

[Ian Wakeling]

I don't have any software that will do 36 weeks.  My instinct is that you should aim to use a modified whist schedule for the first 20 weeks, at which point there should be balance with all pairs partnered once and opposed twice.  The schedule below does this and I believe there are only two people who get to sit out twice in a row (player 8 in rounds 8 and 9, and player 16 in rounds 12 and 13).

( 2  4 v  5  8) ( 7  9 v 10 13) (12 14 v 15  3)
(16  1 v  9 14) ( 3 10 v 12 13) ( 6 15 v  7 11)
(16  6 v 14  4) ( 8 15 v  2  3) (11  5 v 12  1)
(16 11 v  4  9) (13  5 v  7  8) ( 1 10 v  2  6)
(16  3 v 11  1) ( 5 12 v 14 15) ( 8  2 v  9 13)
(16  8 v  1  6) (10  2 v  4  5) (13  7 v 14  3)
(16 13 v  6 11) (15  7 v  9 10) ( 3 12 v  4  8)
( 4  6 v  7 10) ( 9 11 v 12 15) (14  1 v  2  5)
(16  4 v 12  2) ( 6 13 v 15  1) ( 9  3 v 10 14)
(16  9 v  2  7) (11  3 v  5  6) (14  8 v 15  4)
(16 14 v  7 12) ( 1  8 v 10 11) ( 4 13 v  5  9)
( 5  7 v  8 11) (10 12 v 13  1) (15  2 v  3  6)
( 3  5 v  6  9) ( 8 10 v 11 14) (13 15 v  1  4)
(16  2 v 10 15) ( 4 11 v 13 14) ( 7  1 v  8 12)
(16  7 v 15  5) ( 9  1 v  3  4) (12  6 v 13  2)
(16 12 v  5 10) (14  6 v  8  9) ( 2 11 v  3  7)
(16  5 v 13  3) ( 7 14 v  1  2) (10  4 v 11 15)
(16 10 v  3  8) (12  4 v  6  7) (15  9 v  1  5)
(16 15 v  8 13) ( 2  9 v 11 12) ( 5 14 v  6 10)
( 6  8 v  9 12) (11 13 v 14  2) ( 1  3 v  4  7)

That's not a complete solution I know, but perhaps you can throw away 4 rows above and use it again for rounds 21 to 36. If you do this reassign player names to the numbers so you don't repeat exactly the same rounds.

[Hooked]

Thank you for this. Had never heard of a whist schedule so I've still a lot to learn. Appreciate the suggested rotation chart too! Much appreciated!