Tenpin bowling leauge

[ChrisRicher]

Hi can anybody help please

We run a ten pin bowling leauge for fun which has grown to 12 bowlers and we use 4 lanes (ie 3 bowlers per lane) we bowl as individuals and not in teams. im trying to sort out a round robin system but soon realised it was almost impossible to work, so have searched you outfor any help possible, thanks for any help you can offer

[Ian Wakeling]

Hi Chris,

The most balanced way of doing this is to have an 11 round league, where every bowler gets to play against every other bowler exactly twice.  For example:

 (8  5  1) (12  3  4) (10 11  2) ( 7  9  6)
 (8  4  9) ( 6 12 10) (11  1  7) ( 2  5  3)
 (4 10  5) ( 9 11  3) ( 1  2 12) ( 7  8  6)
 (1  6 10) ( 9  5  7) ( 3  8 12) ( 2  4 11)
 (6 12 11) (10  7  4) ( 3  1  5) ( 9  2  8)
 (4  6  2) ( 5 10  8) ( 3 11  7) (12  9  1)
 (2 10  9) ( 3  6  8) (11  4  1) ( 5  7 12)
 (1 10  3) ( 8  2  7) (12  9  4) ( 5 11  6)
 (4  7  3) (11  8 10) ( 1  6  9) (12  2  5)
 (2  3  6) ( 5  9 11) ( 4  8  1) (10  7 12)
 (9  3 10) ( 6  5  4) (11 12  8) ( 7  1  2)

For a shorter alternative with a mixed format, you could try the schedule in reply #1 here. This involves 4 rounds in the format above, and then a final round where you would have 3 lanes, and 4 bowlers per lane.