16 player doubles round robin, 12 at once

[zooey123]

Please help with a schedule for a 15 week round robin.  There are 16 participants with 12 playing at once, on 3 courts.  4 players will have a bye each week.  I would like equal playing time and no more than one bye in a row.  Partners and opponents should change as well.  Thanks!

[Ian Wakeling]

I have no way of generating this automatically.  Whatever schedule you might use will not have balanced playing time, since the best possible is to have 12 players with 11 games each and 4 players with 12 games each.  My only suggestion here would be to follow the schedules link above, and enter 'Whist' for 16 teams,  you need to remove 15 of the games and preferably do this so no two of the 15 games repeat an opposition pair.

For a more balanced option I suggest dropping one player, then use the schedule below.

      Court 1         Court 2         Court 3          Byes
  ( 8  5 v  9 15) ( 2  3 v 11  6) (14  7 v  1 12)   (10 13  4)
  ( 9  6 v 10  1) ( 3  4 v 12  7) (15  8 v  2 13)   (11 14  5)
  (10  7 v 11  2) ( 4  5 v 13  8) ( 1  9 v  3 14)   (12 15  6)
  (11  8 v 12  3) ( 5  6 v 14  9) ( 2 10 v  4 15)   (13  1  7)
  (12  9 v 13  4) ( 6  7 v 15 10) ( 3 11 v  5  1)   (14  2  8)
  (13 10 v 14  5) ( 7  8 v  1 11) ( 4 12 v  6  2)   (15  3  9)
  (14 11 v 15  6) ( 8  9 v  2 12) ( 5 13 v  7  3)   ( 1  4 10)
  (15 12 v  1  7) ( 9 10 v  3 13) ( 6 14 v  8  4)   ( 2  5 11)
  ( 1 13 v  2  8) (10 11 v  4 14) ( 7 15 v  9  5)   ( 3  6 12)
  ( 2 14 v  3  9) (11 12 v  5 15) ( 8  1 v 10  6)   ( 4  7 13)
  ( 3 15 v  4 10) (12 13 v  6  1) ( 9  2 v 11  7)   ( 5  8 14)
  ( 4  1 v  5 11) (13 14 v  7  2) (10  3 v 12  8)   ( 6  9 15)
  ( 5  2 v  6 12) (14 15 v  8  3) (11  4 v 13  9)   ( 7 10  1)
  ( 6  3 v  7 13) (15  1 v  9  4) (12  5 v 14 10)   ( 8 11  2)
  ( 7  4 v  8 14) ( 1  2 v 10  5) (13  6 v 15 11)   ( 9 12  3)

[Ian Wakeling]

Had another thought on this,  I can do 16 players, but I have no control at all over the byes-in-a-row issue.  You could perhaps try to reorder the rounds to improve the byes.

      Court 1         Court 2         Court 3          Byes
  ( 5  6 v 10 11) (13 16 v  3 12) ( 8  2 v 15  1)   ( 4 14  9  7)
  ( 2 11 v 16 10) ( 9  1 v  5 15) ( 8  6 v 12 14)   ( 7  3 13  4)
  ( 9  6 v  4 16) ( 1 11 v 15 12) ( 7  8 v  2 13)   (14  5  3 10)
  ( 4  9 v  1 12) (16  7 v 15  8) ( 6 14 v  3 11)   ( 5  2 10 13)
  (14 16 v  1 13) ( 3  8 v 12  5) ( 7  2 v  6  4)   (15  9 10 11)
  ( 9 11 v  8 14) ( 5  4 v  1 10) ( 7 15 v 16  3)   ( 2 13  6 12)
  ( 9 10 v 13 11) (15  2 v 14  4) ( 7  3 v  1  5)   (16 12  6  8)
  ( 9 12 v  3  2) (13  4 v  5  7) (16  8 v 10  6)   (14  1 15 11)
  ( 9  5 v 16  2) ( 1  8 v 11  7) (15  4 v 14 10)   (13  6 12  3)
  ( 1 16 v 14  3) (10  4 v  8 12) (13  5 v 15  6)   ( 9  2  7 11)
  ( 3  9 v  4  8) (10 12 v 14  7) ( 6 13 v  1  2)   (11 16  5 15)
  (11 16 v  7  4) ( 8 13 v  5 14) ( 3  6 v 10 15)   ( 1  9 12  2)
  (12  6 v  1  7) (16  9 v 13 10) ( 5  2 v 14 11)   ( 4  8 15  3)
  (12  2 v 16  5) (15  9 v  7 10) (11  4 v 13  3)   ( 6 14  8  1)
  ( 7  6 v 14  9) (12 11 v 15 13) ( 1  3 v  2 10)   ( 4  8  5 16)

The four players who play 12 times are 1, 7, 10 & 16.

Hope that helps.

[zooey123]

Yes, great, thank you!