Where can I get some assistance with creating a schedule?

Question

I'm going to be making a schedule for our Pool league.We'll have anywhere from 9-13 teams, and 2-4 rounds.Is there any free help? All I could find online was software for purchase. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

There's an easy way to create a round-robin schedule for any number of teams.  I'll give exmaple for 10 teams (if you have 9 teams, just give byes to teams playing #10)

1-2, 3-9, 4-8, 5-7, 6-10

1-3, 2-10, 4-9, 5-8, 6-7

1-4, 2-3, 5-9, 6-8, 7-10

1-5, 2-4, 3-10, 6-9, 7-8

1-6, 2-5, 3-4, 7-9, 8-10

1-7, 2-6, 3-5, 4-10, 8-9

1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5, 9-10

1-9, 2-8, 3-7, 4-6, 5-10

1-10, 2-9, 3-8, 4-7, 5-6

Bascially, start with 1 vs 2, and 3 vs the last odd number, x, and 4 vs (x-1) and so on.  Then, for each team, the next opponent is one up, looping back from the last odd number.  If it comes to itself, then it gets bye (if total is odd) or plays the last team (if total is even).

You may mix up the rounds so that the order is not as fixed.

Answer 2

Easy.

You don't need all of that c**p.  Although, it can take care of a great deal of the work if you are starting from scratch.  If you want to it yourself, you can just use Excel.  I hope you realize that this is a difficult and thankless job.  If you have come to terms with that, I'll continue.

Basically, all you are doing is Round Robin scheduling.  Here's a link that explains it pretty well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-robin...

Their example illustrates the scheduling for 13 or 14 teams.  If you have an odd number of teams, one of the teams will be a "bye" team.  The team assigned to play them will have the week off, no scores are recorded, and so forth.  Typically, every team plays every other team once (or twice for long season or fewer teams).

So, in their example you would have 13 weeks.  It's always number of teams (including the "bye" team) minus one.  So, you should always have an odd number of weeks, initially.  I say that because different leagues have different systems.

Some leagues, in order to extend the season just a bit, will have position weeks or play-offs.  That gets a bit more complicated.  But, the most basic version would be a week at the end of the season where the first place team would play the second place team, third versus fourth, fifth versus sixth, and so on.  Obviously, with an odd number of teams, the last place team is stuck with no opportunity to improve their position.  That is, unless you go by winning percentages which is a bit unfair.  Frankly, the team in last, after playing everyone else, doesn't deserve to move up.  But, I digress...

At any rate, the scheduling is rather simple.

As they say, you start with this:

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  

14 13 12 11 10 9  8

Where every team plays the team listed below them.  So, 1 vs 14, 2 vs 13, 3 vs 12 and so on.

Then, shift the number below the 1 up and to the right so it is next in the sequence after the 1.  Everything else rotates clockwise in the same manner.

1  14 2  3  4  5  6

13 12 11 10 9  8  7

and continue that pattern...

1  13 14 2  3  4  5

12 11 10 9  8  7  6

1  12 13 14 2  3  4  

11 10 9  8  7  6 5

1  11 12 13 14 2  3  

10 9  8  7  6 5 4

1  10 11 12  13  14  2

9  8  7  6 5 4 3

1  9 10 11 12  13  14

8  7  6 5 4 3 2

1 8 9 10 11 12  13  

7  6 5 4 3 2 14

1 7 8 9 10 11 12  

6 5 4 3 2 14 13

1 6 7 8 9 10 11  

5 4 3 2 14 13 12

1 5 6 7 8 9 10  

4 3 2 14 13 12 11

1 4 5 6 7 8 9

3 2 14 13 12 11 10

1 3 4 5 6 7 8

2 14 13 12 11 10 9

When 1 plays 2, you are done.

The team numbers are assigned by random draw.  You can do it yourself or have the team captains physically draw the numbers out of a hat or whatever.  That is, if you are having a captains meeting the week before you begin.

As for the 2-4 rounds, I'm afraid you lost me on that one.

I will add that you really don't want a league to go over 16 weeks.  Most people just want to get it over with at about the 12th week and move on to the next season.