Round robin tournament generator

What a round robin is

In a round robin tournament each team plays every other team once. Nobody is knocked out, so every team gets the same number of games, and the ranking comes from a table instead of a bracket. This format is common in leagues, school sports and small events where it would be a pity to send teams home after one game.

The price is the number of games. With n teams, the number of games is n × (n − 1) / 2. Six teams need 15 games, ten teams need 45, twenty teams need 190. Round robin is a good choice up to about eight or ten teams. The generator supports up to 64 teams. For larger fields, use Groups + knockout, described below.

How the schedule is built

The schedule uses the circle method. One team stays fixed, the others rotate around it by one position per round. In every round all teams are paired, and after n − 1 rounds each pair has met exactly once.

With an even number of teams there are n − 1 rounds, with an odd number there are n rounds. Example with 6 teams: there are 5 rounds with 3 games each, so 15 games in total.

With an odd number of teams, one team has to sit out each round. That team has a bye. Example with 7 teams: there are 7 rounds, each with 3 games and one team that has a bye, so 21 games in total. Every team has exactly one free round.

Home and away

Switch on the double round robin to play each pairing twice, with a first leg and a return leg. The second half of the schedule repeats the first with home and away swapped. With 6 teams that gives 10 rounds and 30 games.

Standings and tiebreakers

The table is calculated from your results. You set the points for a win, a draw and a loss. A common setting is 3, 1 and 0. Example: a team with two wins, one draw and one loss has 2 × 3 + 1 + 0 = 7 points after four games.

When teams have the same number of points, the tiebreaker decides. Four fixed orders are available:

1. head-to-head, goal difference, goals scored
2. goal difference, goals scored, head-to-head
3. goal difference, goals scored
4. wins, goal difference, goals scored

Pick the order your league uses and announce it before the first game so that nobody argues afterward. The orders cannot be rearranged freely.

The table only counts games that have a result. You can enter results in any order, and a changed result updates the table straight away.

Groups plus knockout

For larger fields, you can combine both ideas the way many world championships do. The teams are split into groups, each group plays a round robin, and the best teams of every group advance to a knockout bracket.

You can draw the groups at random, fill them in the order of your list, or type in your own groups. Example: 16 teams in 4 groups of 4. Each group has 6 games, so the group stage takes 24 games. If the top two of every group advance, 8 teams enter a single elimination bracket with 7 games. The total is 31 games.

The knockout pairings are crossed: the winner of one group plays the runner-up of another group. When the knockout field is a power of two, teams from the same group cannot meet in the first knockout round. Choose Groups + knockout as the format in the tool above.

Sharing the table

Press "Share live" to get a link for your players. Once you enter a result, the table and the schedule update in all open views. If you only want a knockout format, try the bracket maker. For a second chance after a loss, see the double elimination bracket.