A challenging league schedule to create

JC

JC

Coos Cues
Could use some help with this one. It sounded like a good idea until it was time to write the schedule. This is a riddle not for the faint of heart.

We have 14 teams and 8 venues to play in. 6 of the venues have two teams playing out of them so one must be home and one away each week. The other two venues have only one team.

We decided that rather than run a complete double round robin that would take 26 weeks we would like to shorten the session.

So we decided to have two divisions. North and South. Two pairs of teams from two of the locations are at extremes of the county so they will be in opposite divisions. The other 10 teams are bunched together geographically and will be split in half. One group north and the other south. These ten teams contain 8 teams sharing a venue, so they cannot be home at the same time. And two teams who are the only team at their location.

We need to create a schedule where each of the 7 teams in the two divisions play each other team in their division twice. Once at home and once away for a total of 12 weeks. And each team will play once against each team from the opposite division for an additional 7 weeks. This will shorten the session to 19 weeks from the 26 required for a complete double round robin.

Writing a schedule where each team plays each week and there are not too many teams at one place is the goal. But how to get it done? Anyone with a strategy for figuring this out please help!

The teams look like this:

South1 South2 same venue. Will be in the south division.

T3 T4 same venue

T5 T6 same venue

T7 their own venue

T8 their own venue

T9 T10 same venue

T11 T12 same venue

North 13 North 14 same venue. Will be in the north division.

Each team will have a match every week.

I have a few days to figure this out. It may be beyond my capability to do so. In fact it may be too complicated for anyone to figure out.

Merry Christmas to all!!

JC
 
JC said:
Could use some help with this one. [...]
Click to expand...

If each of North and South have 7 teams, doesn't a round-robin within a group take 7 weeks (as opposed to 6) with a bye in each group?

One way to do this is round-robins like you suggest where the north bye team plays the south bye team. So nobody actually has a bye.
 
mikepage said:
If each of North and South have 7 teams, doesn't a round-robin within a group take 7 weeks (as opposed to 6) with a bye in each group?

One way to do this is round-robins like you suggest where the north bye team plays the south bye team. So nobody actually has a bye.
Click to expand...

If I am understanding, one strategy is as follows

(1) label north and south teams and venues so there is a one-to-one correspondence, i.e, ones on left are south; corresponding ones on right are north.

(Venue1 team1 team2) (Venue2 team3 team4)
(Venue3 team5 team6) (Venue4 team9 team10)
(Venue5 team11 team12) (Venue6 team13 team14)
(Venue7 team7) (Venue8 team8)

(2) Generate a round-robin schedule with LMS for the south group and export it.

(3) Clone that south schedule for the north teams, switching home and away. This switch insures that one of the bye teams that you are going to match up has unscheduled tables to play on.

(4) add second group of teams into LMS

(5) import the schedule.
 
mikepage said:
If each of North and South have 7 teams, doesn't a round-robin within a group take 7 weeks (as opposed to 6) with a bye in each group?

One way to do this is round-robins like you suggest where the north bye team plays the south bye team. So nobody actually has a bye.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike I see your point. This would take care of exactly what I'm trying to accomplish I think. The league session would then take 14 weeks if i'm thinking correctly about it?

JC
 
John,

Sorry, but it would take me too long to come up with a schedule as you originally described. Definitely not impossible, though.

However, here is a schedule along the lines with what Mike Page was talking about whereby you have two seven-team divisions, and each week there is exactly one inter-divisional match so that there are no byes. The schedule is 14 weeks long. Venues that have two teams will have exactly one home match every week. Every team has exactly seven home matches.

--Chris

INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO FILL IN THE SCHEDULE
South 1&2 and North 1&2 teams have already been placed into the schedule.
Once you have drawn the divisions, fill the rest of the teams into the schedule as follows:
Start with the pairs of teams that share a venue (T3/T4, T5/T6, T9/T10, T11/T12).
If two teams that share a venue are in the SAME division, assign them to the same DIV and NUMBER codes
For example: teams T3 and T4 play at the same bar and are both in the South division. Assign S1A=T3 and S1B=T4
If two teams that share a venue are in DIFFERENT divisions, assign them the same NUMBER and LETTER codes
For example: teams T3 and T4 play at the same bar, T3 is South and T4 is North. Assign S2A=T3 and N2A=T4
Assign the remaining codes to the two teams that play alone in their venue.
Email me at sbpoolleague@gmail.com if you have any other questions.

WEEK 1 MATCH 1: S1A at S1B
WEEK 1 MATCH 2: S2B at S2A
WEEK 1 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S3
WEEK 1 MATCH 4: N1B at N1A
WEEK 1 MATCH 5: N2A at N2B
WEEK 1 MATCH 6: NORTH-1 at SOUTH-1
WEEK 1 MATCH 7: N3 at NORTH-2

WEEK 2 MATCH 1: S1B at S2B
WEEK 2 MATCH 2: S2A at S1A
WEEK 2 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at SOUTH-2
WEEK 2 MATCH 4: S3 at N3
WEEK 2 MATCH 5: N1A at N2A
WEEK 2 MATCH 6: N2B at N1B
WEEK 2 MATCH 7: NORTH-2 at NORTH-1

WEEK 3 MATCH 1: S1A at S2B
WEEK 3 MATCH 2: S2A at S1B
WEEK 3 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at NORTH-2
WEEK 3 MATCH 4: S3 at SOUTH-1
WEEK 3 MATCH 5: N1B at N2A
WEEK 3 MATCH 6: N2B at N1A
WEEK 3 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N3

WEEK 4 MATCH 1: S1B at SOUTH-2
WEEK 4 MATCH 2: S2B at S3
WEEK 4 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S1A
WEEK 4 MATCH 4: N1A at NORTH-1
WEEK 4 MATCH 5: N2A at S2A
WEEK 4 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at N1B
WEEK 4 MATCH 7: N3 at N2B

WEEK 5 MATCH 1: S1A at N1A
WEEK 5 MATCH 2: S2A at SOUTH-1
WEEK 5 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S2B
WEEK 5 MATCH 4: S3 at S1B
WEEK 5 MATCH 5: N1B at N3
WEEK 5 MATCH 6: N2B at NORTH-2
WEEK 5 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N2A

WEEK 6 MATCH 1: S1B at SOUTH-1
WEEK 6 MATCH 2: S2B at N2B
WEEK 6 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S1A
WEEK 6 MATCH 4: S3 at S2A
WEEK 6 MATCH 5: N1A at NORTH-2
WEEK 6 MATCH 6: N2A at N3
WEEK 6 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N1B

WEEK 7 MATCH 1: S1A at S3
WEEK 7 MATCH 2: S2A at SOUTH-2
WEEK 7 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S2B
WEEK 7 MATCH 4: N1B at S1B
WEEK 7 MATCH 5: N2B at NORTH-1
WEEK 7 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at N2A
WEEK 7 MATCH 7: N3 at N1A

WEEK 8 MATCH 1: S1B at S1A
WEEK 8 MATCH 2: S2A at S2B
WEEK 8 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at NORTH-1
WEEK 8 MATCH 4: S3 at SOUTH-2
WEEK 8 MATCH 5: N1A at N1B
WEEK 8 MATCH 6: N2B at N2A
WEEK 8 MATCH 7: NORTH-2 at N3

WEEK 9 MATCH 1: S1A at S2A
WEEK 9 MATCH 2: S2B at S1B
WEEK 9 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at SOUTH-1
WEEK 9 MATCH 4: N1B at N2B
WEEK 9 MATCH 5: N2A at N1A
WEEK 9 MATCH 6: NORTH-1 at NORTH-2
WEEK 9 MATCH 7: N3 at S3

WEEK 10 MATCH 1: S1B at S2A
WEEK 10 MATCH 2: S2B at S1A
WEEK 10 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S3
WEEK 10 MATCH 4: N1A at N2B
WEEK 10 MATCH 5: N2A at N1B
WEEK 10 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at SOUTH-2
WEEK 10 MATCH 7: N3 at NORTH-1

WEEK 11 MATCH 1: S1A at SOUTH-1
WEEK 11 MATCH 2: S2A at N2A
WEEK 11 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S1B
WEEK 11 MATCH 4: S3 at S2B
WEEK 11 MATCH 5: N1B at NORTH-2
WEEK 11 MATCH 6: N2B at N3
WEEK 11 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N1A

WEEK 12 MATCH 1: S1B at S3
WEEK 12 MATCH 2: S2B at SOUTH-2
WEEK 12 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S2A
WEEK 12 MATCH 4: N1A at S1A
WEEK 12 MATCH 5: N2A at NORTH-1
WEEK 12 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at N2B
WEEK 12 MATCH 7: N3 at N1B

WEEK 13 MATCH 1: S1A at SOUTH-2
WEEK 13 MATCH 2: S2A at S3
WEEK 13 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S1B
WEEK 13 MATCH 4: N1B at NORTH-1
WEEK 13 MATCH 5: N2B at S2B
WEEK 13 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at N1A
WEEK 13 MATCH 7: N3 at N2A

WEEK 14 MATCH 1: S1B at N1B
WEEK 14 MATCH 2: S2B at SOUTH-1
WEEK 14 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S2A
WEEK 14 MATCH 4: S3 at S1A
WEEK 14 MATCH 5: N1A at N3
WEEK 14 MATCH 6: N2A at NORTH-2
WEEK 14 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N2B
 
sbpoolleague said:
John,

Sorry, but it would take me too long to come up with a schedule as you originally described. Definitely not impossible, though.

However, here is a schedule along the lines with what Mike Page was talking about whereby you have two seven-team divisions, and each week there is exactly one inter-divisional match so that there are no byes. The schedule is 14 weeks long. Venues that have two teams will have exactly one home match every week. Every team has exactly seven home matches.

--Chris

INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO FILL IN THE SCHEDULE
South 1&2 and North 1&2 teams have already been placed into the schedule.
Once you have drawn the divisions, fill the rest of the teams into the schedule as follows:
Start with the pairs of teams that share a venue (T3/T4, T5/T6, T9/T10, T11/T12).
If two teams that share a venue are in the SAME division, assign them to the same DIV and NUMBER codes
For example: teams T3 and T4 play at the same bar and are both in the South division. Assign S1A=T3 and S1B=T4
If two teams that share a venue are in DIFFERENT divisions, assign them the same NUMBER and LETTER codes
For example: teams T3 and T4 play at the same bar, T3 is South and T4 is North. Assign S2A=T3 and N2A=T4
Assign the remaining codes to the two teams that play alone in their venue.
Email me at sbpoolleague@gmail.com if you have any other questions.

WEEK 1 MATCH 1: S1A at S1B
WEEK 1 MATCH 2: S2B at S2A
WEEK 1 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S3
WEEK 1 MATCH 4: N1B at N1A
WEEK 1 MATCH 5: N2A at N2B
WEEK 1 MATCH 6: NORTH-1 at SOUTH-1
WEEK 1 MATCH 7: N3 at NORTH-2

WEEK 2 MATCH 1: S1B at S2B
WEEK 2 MATCH 2: S2A at S1A
WEEK 2 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at SOUTH-2
WEEK 2 MATCH 4: S3 at N3
WEEK 2 MATCH 5: N1A at N2A
WEEK 2 MATCH 6: N2B at N1B
WEEK 2 MATCH 7: NORTH-2 at NORTH-1

WEEK 3 MATCH 1: S1A at S2B
WEEK 3 MATCH 2: S2A at S1B
WEEK 3 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at NORTH-2
WEEK 3 MATCH 4: S3 at SOUTH-1
WEEK 3 MATCH 5: N1B at N2A
WEEK 3 MATCH 6: N2B at N1A
WEEK 3 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N3

WEEK 4 MATCH 1: S1B at SOUTH-2
WEEK 4 MATCH 2: S2B at S3
WEEK 4 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S1A
WEEK 4 MATCH 4: N1A at NORTH-1
WEEK 4 MATCH 5: N2A at S2A
WEEK 4 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at N1B
WEEK 4 MATCH 7: N3 at N2B

WEEK 5 MATCH 1: S1A at N1A
WEEK 5 MATCH 2: S2A at SOUTH-1
WEEK 5 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S2B
WEEK 5 MATCH 4: S3 at S1B
WEEK 5 MATCH 5: N1B at N3
WEEK 5 MATCH 6: N2B at NORTH-2
WEEK 5 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N2A

WEEK 6 MATCH 1: S1B at SOUTH-1
WEEK 6 MATCH 2: S2B at N2B
WEEK 6 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S1A
WEEK 6 MATCH 4: S3 at S2A
WEEK 6 MATCH 5: N1A at NORTH-2
WEEK 6 MATCH 6: N2A at N3
WEEK 6 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N1B

WEEK 7 MATCH 1: S1A at S3
WEEK 7 MATCH 2: S2A at SOUTH-2
WEEK 7 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S2B
WEEK 7 MATCH 4: N1B at S1B
WEEK 7 MATCH 5: N2B at NORTH-1
WEEK 7 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at N2A
WEEK 7 MATCH 7: N3 at N1A

WEEK 8 MATCH 1: S1B at S1A
WEEK 8 MATCH 2: S2A at S2B
WEEK 8 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at NORTH-1
WEEK 8 MATCH 4: S3 at SOUTH-2
WEEK 8 MATCH 5: N1A at N1B
WEEK 8 MATCH 6: N2B at N2A
WEEK 8 MATCH 7: NORTH-2 at N3

WEEK 9 MATCH 1: S1A at S2A
WEEK 9 MATCH 2: S2B at S1B
WEEK 9 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at SOUTH-1
WEEK 9 MATCH 4: N1B at N2B
WEEK 9 MATCH 5: N2A at N1A
WEEK 9 MATCH 6: NORTH-1 at NORTH-2
WEEK 9 MATCH 7: N3 at S3

WEEK 10 MATCH 1: S1B at S2A
WEEK 10 MATCH 2: S2B at S1A
WEEK 10 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S3
WEEK 10 MATCH 4: N1A at N2B
WEEK 10 MATCH 5: N2A at N1B
WEEK 10 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at SOUTH-2
WEEK 10 MATCH 7: N3 at NORTH-1

WEEK 11 MATCH 1: S1A at SOUTH-1
WEEK 11 MATCH 2: S2A at N2A
WEEK 11 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S1B
WEEK 11 MATCH 4: S3 at S2B
WEEK 11 MATCH 5: N1B at NORTH-2
WEEK 11 MATCH 6: N2B at N3
WEEK 11 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N1A

WEEK 12 MATCH 1: S1B at S3
WEEK 12 MATCH 2: S2B at SOUTH-2
WEEK 12 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S2A
WEEK 12 MATCH 4: N1A at S1A
WEEK 12 MATCH 5: N2A at NORTH-1
WEEK 12 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at N2B
WEEK 12 MATCH 7: N3 at N1B

WEEK 13 MATCH 1: S1A at SOUTH-2
WEEK 13 MATCH 2: S2A at S3
WEEK 13 MATCH 3: SOUTH-1 at S1B
WEEK 13 MATCH 4: N1B at NORTH-1
WEEK 13 MATCH 5: N2B at S2B
WEEK 13 MATCH 6: NORTH-2 at N1A
WEEK 13 MATCH 7: N3 at N2A

WEEK 14 MATCH 1: S1B at N1B
WEEK 14 MATCH 2: S2B at SOUTH-1
WEEK 14 MATCH 3: SOUTH-2 at S2A
WEEK 14 MATCH 4: S3 at S1A
WEEK 14 MATCH 5: N1A at N3
WEEK 14 MATCH 6: N2A at NORTH-2
WEEK 14 MATCH 7: NORTH-1 at N2B
Click to expand...

Thank you very much Chris!

John
 
mikepage said:
If I am understanding, one strategy is as follows

(1) label north and south teams and venues so there is a one-to-one correspondence, i.e, ones on left are south; corresponding ones on right are north.

(Venue1 team1 team2) (Venue2 team3 team4)
(Venue3 team5 team6) (Venue4 team9 team10)
(Venue5 team11 team12) (Venue6 team13 team14)
(Venue7 team7) (Venue8 team8)

(2) Generate a round-robin schedule with LMS for the south group and export it.

(3) Clone that south schedule for the north teams, switching home and away. This switch insures that one of the bye teams that you are going to match up has unscheduled tables to play on.

(4) add second group of teams into LMS

(5) import the schedule.
Click to expand...

I know this is a different discussion Mike but I have imported schedules into LMS before and I wasn't able to arrange the teams in LMS as they were arranged on the schedule as LMS wanted to alphabetize the teams when importing and translating the schedule and they were not laying that way on my schedule so it didn't work having multiple teams at single locations. I had to rename each team with a letter before their name in order to arrange them as I desired when importing the schedule. That was last year and I haven't tried it since. There may be an order in which to do things that I was not seeing.

Also LMS is still not capable of generating a schedule that is exactly balanced double round robin one home and one away for each opponent. I was working with Gary on this the other day and if you don't believe me ask him.

JC
 
Last edited:
JC said:
Thanks Mike I see your point. This would take care of exactly what I'm trying to accomplish I think. The league session would then take 14 weeks if i'm thinking correctly about it?

JC
Click to expand...

Why not just do a double round-robin and remove the last seven weeks? I realize that won't give you two divisions, but even with two divisions and inter-division play your schedules aren't going to be "equal" because each team in one division plays a different team in the other division twice.

What you COULD do is a single round-robin schedule with 14 teams (13 weeks), then a single round-robin schedule within each division (7 weeks). 20 weeks total. Each team plays every team in their division twice, every team in the other division once, and has one bye. It might be a little tricky getting the home/away right, though. You might be better off with a double round-robin in each division with inter-division play during one of the cycles, then a single round-robin of inter-division play, where each team plays the teams in the other division that they haven't already played. Still 20 weeks, but the home/away is probably easier.
 
Last edited:
APA Operator said:
Why not just do a double round-robin and remove the last seven weeks? I realize that won't give you two divisions, but even with two divisions and inter-division play your schedules aren't going to be "equal" because each team in one division plays a different team in the other division twice.

What you COULD do is a single round-robin schedule with 14 teams (13 weeks), then a single round-robin schedule within each division (7 weeks). 20 weeks total. Each team plays every team in their division twice, every team in the other division once, and has one bye. It might be a little tricky getting the home/away right, though. You might be better off with a double round-robin in each division with inter-division play during one of the cycles, then a single round-robin of inter-division play, where each team plays the teams in the other division that they haven't already played. Still 20 weeks, but the home/away is probably easier.
Click to expand...

We decided to go north and south with a double round robin with two teams having a bye each week using Chris' schedule. These bye teams can play each other or not though, leaving it up to the team captains. The lower south teams are 75 miles away from the upper north teams so if they decide not to play during winter weather that's ok too.

Then after that round is done it will be spring and we are going to draw a new single round robin schedule dividing teams by average fargo rating to hopefully make the second half more competitive. This will bring us to the end of May with 21 weeks instead of the middle of July like a full double round robin for the whole league would. Will see how it all goes but as long as we play pool and have fun that's the main thing.

JC
 
JC said:
We decided to go north and south with a double round robin with two teams having a bye each week using Chris' schedule. These bye teams can play each other or not though, leaving it up to the team captains. The lower south teams are 75 miles away from the upper north teams so if they decide not to play during winter weather that's ok too.

Then after that round is done it will be spring and we are going to draw a new single round robin schedule dividing teams by average fargo rating to hopefully make the second half more competitive. This will bring us to the end of May with 21 weeks instead of the middle of July like a full double round robin for the whole league would. Will see how it all goes but as long as we play pool and have fun that's the main thing.

JC
Click to expand...

FYI - In my schedule I assigned the North and South teams for you, but that pitted them against each other in the bye matchups. I understand that these teams are quite a distance apart. These assignments can easily be changed after the division draw is made so that teams from different divisions that get matched up during their bye week are physically closer together. That way you could change it from being an optional week to a mandatory one. If you want to do this and need help email me at sbpoolleague@gmail.com
 
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