Round Robin Generator

[Pickleballer]

I manage a doubles pickleball round robin that could have between 6 and 27 players.  There are 6 games in the round robin.  Players should partner with another player no more than once and should play against as many other players as possible.  It would be preferable, but not required to play on both sides of the net 3 times.  How do I go about setting this up?  Thanks.

[Ian Wakeling]

I am not aware of any generator that will help you with this.  There is also a problem, as when there is an odd number of players, exactly 6 games per player will not be possible as some people must have more or less than 6 games.  I might be able to offer solutions for a few scenarios, but can you say a little more about the format of play, in particular is there only one court to play on? Or do you have as many as 6 courts, in which case you could have rounds where 24 people play simultaneously.

[Pickleballer]

The reason for 6 games is that we're limited to a 2 hour block of time.  I have up to 6 courts available based on how many players sign up.  For example, if I have 23 players, we'll use 5 courts and have 3 byes for each game.  I realize that not all players will play 6 games.  This is not a tournament.  This is for daily play in an active adult community.  The idea is to play with and against as many players as possible within the 6 games.

[Ian Wakeling]

Here are some 6 round & 4 court schedules that may be of use for between 16 and 19 players - byes are shown inside square brackets. I am sorry that I have no way of getting balance for court or side of the net, but within a round you can consider swapping games between courts, and swapping sides of the net for a game to try to improve matters.

16 players

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

17 players (players 1 to 11 have 6 games, the rest 5 games)

(11 16 v 13  9)  (15  8 v 12  4)  ( 3  7 v  6 14)  ( 5  1 v  2 10) [17]
( 1  4 v 11 14)  ( 8  7 v  9 10)  (15 13 v  2  6)  ( 5  3 v 17 12) [16]
( 7 13 v 12  1)  (16 14 v  5  2)  ( 8  6 v 11 17)  ( 9  4 v  3 10) [15]
( 5 13 v  4  8)  ( 1  9 v 15 17)  (12 10 v  6 16)  (11  7 v  3  2) [14]
( 6  1 v  5  9)  ( 3 11 v 10 15)  ( 4 17 v  7 16)  (14  2 v 12  8) [13]
( 1  3 v  8 16)  ( 4  2 v  6  9)  (15 11 v  7  5)  (14 10 v 17 13) [12]

18 players (players 1 to 6 have 6 games, the rest 5 games)

( 4 15 v  8  7)  (14 13 v  3  5)  (12 10 v 16  1)  (11  6 v  2  9) [17 18]
( 6  8 v 13  3)  (11  1 v  5 17)  (10  4 v  9 18)  (14  7 v 12  2) [15 16]
(16  5 v  4  2)  ( 6 12 v 18 17)  (15  8 v 10 11)  ( 7  1 v  9  3) [13 14]
( 2  3 v 15 18)  ( 6  7 v  5 10)  (16  8 v  9 17)  (14  4 v  1 13) [11 12]
( 8 18 v  1  5)  (11  4 v 12  3)  ( 7  2 v 13 17)  (16 14 v  6 15) [ 9 10]
(14  3 v 10 17)  ( 1  4 v  6  2)  (11 16 v 18 13)  (15  9 v  5 12) [ 7  8]

18 players (only player 1 has 6 games)

( 3 10 v 11 15)  ( 2  6 v  8 12)  (13  1 v  5 16)  ( 9  4 v 14  7) [17 18 19]
( 7  8 v 10 13)  ( 4 17 v  5 12)  ( 3  6 v 18  1)  (11  2 v  9 19) [14 15 16]
(17 10 v  6 14)  (16 19 v  3  4)  (18  5 v  8  9)  (15  2 v  7  1) [11 12 13]
( 5  2 v 14  3)  ( 7 16 v 12 11)  ( 6 13 v  4 15)  (17 18 v  1 19) [ 8  9 10]
( 8 11 v  1  4)  (14 15 v 19 12)  ( 9 17 v 13  3)  (10  2 v 18 16) [ 5  6  7]
( 5 19 v  7  6)  (17 15 v 16  8)  (14 18 v 11 13)  (12  9 v 10  1) [ 2  3  4]