How a round robin schedule works
A round robin is a format where every entrant plays every other entrant. The hard part is not the list of pairings but the order: nobody may play twice in one round, rest has to be shared fairly, and home and away games should alternate. Here is how it is done by hand and by the generator.
Games and rounds at a glance
| Teams | Games | Rounds | Games per round | Byes per round |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| 5 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 1 |
| 6 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| 7 | 21 | 7 | 3 | 1 |
| 8 | 28 | 7 | 4 | 0 |
| 9 | 36 | 9 | 4 | 1 |
| 10 | 45 | 9 | 5 | 0 |
| 11 | 55 | 11 | 5 | 1 |
| 12 | 66 | 11 | 6 | 0 |
| 14 | 91 | 13 | 7 | 0 |
| 16 | 120 | 15 | 8 | 0 |
The formulas: n teams play n(n−1)/2 games. With an even n there are n−1 rounds and nobody rests. With an odd n you add a placeholder "bye" so the count becomes even. That gives n rounds, and in each one the team drawn against the bye rests.
The circle method, step by step
- Write the teams around a circle (or in two rows). Team 1 is pinned in place.
- Pair the teams straight across: in the picture, 1 plays 4, 2 plays 6 and 3 plays 5. That is round 1.
- Keep team 1 where it is and rotate everyone else one place clockwise.
- Pair straight across again. That is round 2. Repeat until the teams are back where they started.
Because each rotation moves every team past every other team once, no pairing repeats and nobody is missed. The method has been used for well over a century in chess and other club play and is also known as the Berger table.
The result for 6 teams
| Round | Games (home v away) | Bye |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 v 6, 5 v 2, 3 v 4 | – |
| 2 | 2 v 3, 5 v 1, 6 v 4 | – |
| 3 | 3 v 5, 4 v 1, 6 v 2 | – |
| 4 | 2 v 4, 5 v 6, 1 v 3 | – |
| 5 | 4 v 5, 6 v 3, 1 v 2 | – |
Every team plays once per round and meets each of the other five teams exactly once. See the full layout with times and courts on the 6-team schedule page.
Balancing home and away
The plain circle method tends to give the pinned team the same side again and again. The generator decides home and away game by game: the team with fewer home games so far is at home, and on a tie the team that was away last time gets the home game. In a single round robin home counts differ by at most one. In a double round robin the second half mirrors the first, so each team is at home exactly once against every opponent.
"Home" may mean the home venue, first serve, light or dark shirts, or white pieces in chess. Use whichever matters in your game.
Turning rounds into a timetable
A round is a list of games that can all happen at the same time. If you have fewer courts than games, the round is split into time slots. The generator fills the slots so that teams who played late last round play early in the next one, and it rotates courts so everyone plays on each court about equally. More on that in scheduling across several courts.
Round robin versus other formats
A round robin gives every team the same number of games and the most reliable ranking, which is why leagues and pool stages use it. Its cost is time: 16 teams need 120 games. For large fields, split teams into pools of 4 to 6, play a round robin in each pool, then use a knockout bracket for the top finishers.