How to Organize a Round Robin

Derived from the corrupted form of the French "ruban" meaning "ribbon," a round robin is an orderly way to select the elements for a group in which each element gets an equal opportunity at something. The goal of the round robin algorithm is to eliminate the element of luck.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Computer Operations & Story Telling

1. Assign a number to each element in the list. Do this assignment in an arbitrary fashion. Remember, "round robin" is an algorithm ensuring fairness.
2. Let each element take a turn at something, starting from the beginning and proceeding towards the end. In computer science where each element is a process, an equal time slice must be spent.
3. Repeat Step 2 no more than twice.

Competitive Sports

4. Assign a number to each competitor and put them in pairs for the first round. For "n" number of competitors in which "n" is an even number, 1 would play n, 2 would play n-1, 3 would play n-2 and so on.
5. Fix a competitor and rotate the others in a clockwise direction. In this case 1 would play n-1, n would play n-2, 2 would play n-3, 3 would play n-4 and so on for successive rounds.
6. Repeat the Step 2 algorithm until you end up back in the initial state of Step 1.
7. Use a dummy competitor if the number of competitors is odd. Its scheduled opponent would not play in a given round. This is called "receiving a bye."

Tips & Warnings

• When competitors play each other more than twice the term "round robin" is not used.
• If one competitor plays others an unequal number of times, the term "round robin" is not used.
• When the round robin format is used for competition several disadvantages arise. At the end of the series tournament, certain competitors, who are required to play may have no chance of success. A competitor who has something to play for may compete against a competitor who does not. A competitor that has qualified for the next series may not try hard enough or even decide to lose.

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