Volleyball Tournament - Variation of Round Robin

[Gerald]

Most schedule formats I've seen assume round robin formats.
I was wondering if there is something where the teams playing play a set number of games ie. not complete round robin with set # of vollyball courts

Scenario for upcoming volleyball tournament I need help with a schedule.

-14 teams play 10 games each (ie. won't play against 3 teams)
- there are 4 courts to play on
- games are 20 minutes ea ie. 3 games played per court per hour
- doesn't matter which teams play against each other
- would like schedule if same scenario if 16 teams play 10 games each

If you can help that would be much appreciated

Thanks
Gerald

[Ian Wakeling]

If you start with a complete round-robin schedule I think you will often be able to slice it up so that it matches one of the scenarios you describe.  Your example with 16 teams and 10 games each equates to 20 rounds of play on the 4 courts and is the easiest to solve.  For example if you dowload the Excel generator worksheet here and use the full schedule for 16 teams as the starting point.  Now discard the last 5 rounds of play to leave a schedule of 10 rounds, finally take each round of 8 matches and convert it into two rounds of 4 matches each and you should have a workable schedule.  The 14 team example will be harder but should still be possible, you will have to break each round of 7 matches into a round of 4 matches and a round of 3 matches and then "complete" the latter by adding back some of the discarded matches.