Round Robin Tournament Scheduling

24 person Free-For-All Tournament

BobbyD · 2 · 6129

BobbyD

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on: February 21, 2011, 09:43:31 PM
I'm looking for a volleyball schedule where everyone plays with and against everyone else at least once in teams of 4 on 4 with 24 people.  Based on everything I've found on this site, I can't tell if it is a social rectangle or a Whist tournament.

If it is a social rectangle, I think I'm looking for:
 n=24
 g=6
 p=4

I want to reduce the number of times two players play with and against the same player.  There was a post similar about a "Social Tournament for 12 players" but was 2's based.  I only wanted around 5 rounds but that is optional at this point.

Thanks


Ian Wakeling

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Reply #1 on: February 24, 2011, 04:37:24 AM
There is bad news, as I don't believe that that there will be any good solutions to your scheduling problem if you can only play about 5 rounds.  Simply counting the number of other players that a particular player will encounter, means that the with-everyone-else-once criterion can only be met with at least 8 rounds, while the against-everyone-else-once criterion needs at least 6 rounds.  In reality the constraint of having everyone play exactly once per round will mean that you need much more than 8 rounds to achieve your aim.  The 6 round schedule below may be an acceptable (poor) compromise:

(22 2 3 10 v 4 16 11 6) (8 13 9 17 v 12 18 24 1) (15 19 20 14 v 23 21 7 5)
(23 3 4 11 v 5 17 12 1) (9 14 10 18 v 7 13 19 2) (16 20 21 15 v 24 22 8 6)
(24 4 5 12 v 6 18 7 2) (10 15 11 13 v 8 14 20 3) (17 21 22 16 v 19 23 9 1)
(19 5 6 7 v 1 13 8 3) (11 16 12 14 v 9 15 21 4) (18 22 23 17 v 20 24 10 2)
(20 6 1 8 v 2 14 9 4) (12 17 7 15 v 10 16 22 5) (13 23 24 18 v 21 19 11 3)
(21 1 2 9 v 3 15 10 5) (7 18 8 16 v 11 17 23 6) (14 24 19 13 v 22 20 12 4)

no pair of players is on the same team together more than twice, no pair of players opposes more than twice.  The three pairs (13 16) (14 17) & (15 18) never meet either on the same team or as opponents.  There are 12 pairs such as (1 9) who play together twice and oppose twice.

I think you would need 23 rounds to have any chance of finding a completely balanced solution.