Improved Home/Away balancing

[WillJonesUK]

Hi. Not sure if it's intentional, but I thought it odd that (just as an example) if you go to Rounds Viewer, 12 Player Schedule, Format=Table, Algorithm=Balanced, then if you are player 4 in a double round-robin, you are Away (or whatever on the right is designated as) in rounds 9, 10, 11 and (assuming the second half of the season is flipped), round 12 too. That's four rounds in a row!

I have looked at various online tools to to construct fixture schedules, and I think I am right in saying that when there are more than 4 participants, it is never necessary to be home or away more than two rounds in a row, even with return fixture flipping (a consideration which tools often miss).

I wrote my own implementation because I couldn't find something that prevented these long home/away sequences. I also made it output data in a way I could easily copy and paste.

https://quizcentral.net/berger_tables.html

[Ian Wakeling]

Hi Will,

Thanks for posting the link. In the 12 player schedule that you have commented on the intention is principally to balance the columns which might be different courts or fields at some central location, so we are not really intending it for the scenario where each team has their own home ground.

Have you looked at my Excel spreadsheet that you can dowload here.  You need to be logged into the site to see the download link.  If you use this in home/away mode then it will generate optimal schedules for single or double round-robins which alternate home and away games as much as possible.  When I look at the 6 player schedule on your page, then I see it has 6 breaks, where a break is defined as any departure from a strictly alternating pattern of AHAHA or HAHAH, i.e. HHAAH counts as two breaks.  The optimal schedule has 4 breaks, and the Excel file will make it for you.  I can find the references in the mathematics literature if you are interested in the method.