How to Construct a Round Robin Tournament

A round robin format gives every team a chance to play every other team (or individual player) at some point during the tournament. The format takes some of the luck factor out of a competition since every competitor has that one chance to beat a foe. Setting up a round robin tournament is a matter of setting up a grid and working out the math.

Instructions

    • 1

      Use the formula n(n-1)/2 to determine the games to be scheduled. For example if you had six teams it would be six times five equals 30, divided by two for 15 games. Ten teams would be 10 times nine for 90, divided by two for 45 games.

    • 2

      Give each team a number. If you have an odd number of teams you will add a number for a "ghost" team. An actual team matched against the ghost team automatically wins this "bye" game.

    • 3

      Create a grid with a number of rows determined by the number of teams divided by two. (six teams would mean three rows). The number of columns would be the number of games divided by the number of rows.

    • 4

      Keep team 1 in the same position when scheduling match rotations week to week and rotate the other teams in a counterclockwise position. For example, week No. 1 would have matches of 1 vs. 2, 3 vs. 4 and 5 vs. 6. Week No. 2 would have 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 6 and 3 vs. 5. Week No. 3 is 1 vs. 6, 4 vs. 5, 2 vs. 3. Week 4 is 1 vs. 5, 6 vs. 3 and 4 vs. 2 and week 5 is 1 vs. 3, 5 vs. 2 and 6 vs. 4.