Round Robin Tournament Scheduling

Round Robin- Teams Play Everyone But Each Field 2x

vertical23 · 3 · 4926

vertical23

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on: August 28, 2017, 12:14:25 PM
I have a round robin tournament coming up with somewhere between 8 and 16 teams.  Everyday, all teams play at the same time.  If we have 8 teams, 4 fields will be used.  If we have 10 teams, 5 fields will be used, etc.  The goal is for each team to play every other team over as many rounds as necessary.  Naturally, the more teams there are, the more rounds there will be (8 teams will lead to 7 rounds, 10 teams will lead to 9 rounds, etc).  We don't want any teams to play each other twice and we don't want them to play on the same field MORE than twice.  Is this feasible?

Good morning btw!  Glad to be back since my last request on here went so well!  I know this answer may be on here already but I haven't found it yet.  

Thank you for your help with this! ;D
« Last Edit: August 29, 2017, 12:35:13 AM by vertical23 »


Ian Wakeling

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Reply #1 on: August 29, 2017, 04:39:39 AM
Good to have you back.  This is all feasible, and is known as a balanced tournament design by mathematicians.   You can click on the schedules link near the top of this page and then click on 'balanced' and enter the number of items/teams; however the on-line generator will not give a balanced solution for 10 or 16 teams.  I have an Excel file which will generate all of them, it can be found here, but make sure to get the latest version 5.1 linked to at the top of the thread.

Finally, and just like last time, I offer something you may not have thought about yet!   It may also be possible to arrange that each team plays on each field exactly once in the first n/2 rounds and exactly once in the last n/2 rounds (the middle round is counted twice here).  This is not possible for 8 teams, but is for 10, 12, 14, & 16 teams.  These are much harder to make and you can find some example schedules here.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2017, 04:40:00 AM by Ian »


vertical23

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Reply #2 on: August 29, 2017, 06:30:23 PM
Holy heck this is good info!  I tell everyone who needs scheduling tips about this site and this is why!!

Just like last time, you are correct, I hadn't thought of that as a scheduling possibility.  It actually works out perfectly for what we're looking to do so we'll definitely use that model.  

Thank you for your amazing help!!