Round Robin Tournament Scheduling

schedule for 20 teams, 10 games, 10 time slots

fudbaler387 · 5 · 5654

fudbaler387

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on: May 02, 2008, 05:40:34 PM
I need help figuring out a schedule where there is 20 teams and 10 games and 10 time slots. I need to have each team play the 10 different games but verse other teams. obviously with each team playing once per a time slot.

I have tried to figure this out but had no luck...if anyone can help me, that would be well appreciated. thank you!


Ian Wakeling

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Reply #1 on: May 03, 2008, 02:38:15 AM
You could use these two Latin squares for your schedule.  Rename the symbols of the first square A0 to A9, rename the symbols of the second square B0 to B9, then superimpose the two squares to find the matches in your 10x10 schedule.

More about these two squares can be found here.


fudbaler387

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Reply #2 on: May 03, 2008, 10:23:39 PM
thank you for the suggestion but would you be able to show me what you mean because it's not making sense to me.
If you could help me and even make the grid for me because obviously you understand what you are talking about, I would be more than pleased.

thank you very much.


Ian Wakeling

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Reply #3 on: May 04, 2008, 02:33:08 AM
Here is an alternative schedule, where the 20 teams are represented by the 20 symbols A to T, which I made using a different method. Each team appears once at each time slot (T1 to T10) and also once in each column (G1 to G10).  All the 100 pairings are different.

     G1    G2    G3    G4    G5    G6    G7    G8    G9    G10
 T1 (E G) (S M) (Q B) (N J) (D C) (O H) (L T) (F I) (R A) (K P)
 T2 (K H) (T A) (I G) (C O) (B S) (P L) (E F) (J Q) (D N) (M R)
 T3 (S L) (F P) (J M) (D A) (I K) (E Q) (C B) (N R) (H G) (O T)
 T4 (T P) (J I) (N C) (H R) (O L) (F A) (M K) (S G) (B E) (Q D)
 T5 (I C) (B G) (R D) (L K) (E P) (J T) (N Q) (A H) (M O) (S F)
 T6 (J A) (O Q) (E K) (B I) (F T) (N M) (R G) (D L) (S P) (C H)
 T7 (N F) (C R) (A L) (Q S) (M G) (B K) (D H) (O P) (I T) (E J)
 T8 (R Q) (K D) (H P) (E T) (N A) (S C) (I O) (M B) (J F) (G L)
 T9 (B O) (L H) (S T) (M F) (R J) (G D) (A P) (E C) (Q K) (I N)
T10 (M D) (E N) (O F) (P G) (H Q) (R I) (J S) (T K) (L C) (A B)


If you look again at my first suggestion.  Simply prefix every entry in the first 10*10 square with A, prefix every entry in the second square by B and then superimpose the two.  As above you should end up with a 10*10 grid where every cell has an entry indicating the match pairing, for example if you follow the first link above again, then you should see that Time 1, Game 2 would be (A8 vs B7).  This alternative schedule is a special case of the one above since it allows you to divide your 20 teams into two groups of 10 teams each (A0 to A9) & (B0 to B9), then every match is of the form A<x> vs B<y>, in other words all matches are between a group A team and a group B team.  So this special property lends itself to running a competition between group A and group B, as every group A team will be paired against every group B team, and vice-versa.

Hope that helps.


fudbaler387

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Reply #4 on: May 04, 2008, 09:29:54 PM
Thanks a lot! You were a great help and the chart you provided me with was just what I was looking for. Everything turned out great!

Thank you once more for all your help!