Constructing fair round robin tournaments with a minimum number of breaks

Given n clubs with two teams each, we show that, if n is even, it is possible to construct a schedule for a single round robin tournament satisfying the following properties: the number of breaks is 2n - 2, teams of the same club never play at home simultaneously, and they play against each other in the first round. We also consider a fairness constraint related to different playing strengths of teams competing in the tournament.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: ORL
• Authors: Pim van 't Hof, Gerhard F. Post, Dirk Briskorn
• Keywords: Club, Operations Research, ORL 2010, Robin Tournament, Teams