Round robin with an odd number of teams

With an odd number of teams, one team has no opponent in every round. That team has a bye, a planned rest. Handled well, every team gets exactly one bye per cycle and nobody waits twice in a row.

The trick: add a placeholder team

Add a pretend team called "Bye" to make the number even, then build a normal round robin. Whoever is drawn against "Bye" rests that round. With 7 teams you schedule 8, which gives 7 rounds. Each round has 3 real games and one team resting, and each team rests exactly once.

Example: 5 teams

That is 10 games over 5 rounds, two games per round. Each team plays 4 games and rests once. The 5-team schedule page shows how long this takes with one or two courts.

Byes at a glance

Making byes work on the day

• Use the bye. The resting team can referee, keep score or run the scoreboard for the next game. This also solves the "who refs?" question.
• Plan the court count. With 7 teams there are 3 games per round. Three courts play a round at once; two courts need two slots, with one court idle in the second slot.
• Late withdrawals. If a team drops out before the event, regenerate. If a team drops out midway, its remaining opponents simply get a bye in those rounds.
• Late arrivals. Put a team you expect to be late first in the list and swap names so it has its bye in round 1. Byes move with the names.

Is a bye a win?

Usually not. In a full round robin every team gets the same number of byes, so a bye should score nothing. It only becomes a scoring question when a team withdraws partway through. Common choices are to void all games against that team, or to keep played results and award the rest as forfeits. Decide before the first game and write the rule on the schedule.

Generate an odd-number schedule with your own names in the free round robin generator.