In a round robin, every team plays every other team. There is no knockout — the standings table decides the winner. It rewards consistency over a single hot or cold game, which is why leagues love it.
A round robin is a format where each team faces every other team the same number of times. Nobody is eliminated mid-event. Instead you log results into a standings table, and whoever finishes with the most points wins.
Because everyone plays a full slate, a round robin is the fairest common format. The trade-off is time: it takes the most games of any format on this list.
A single round robin with N teams plays:
games = N × (N − 1) ÷ 2
Every team plays N − 1 opponents, and dividing by two avoids counting each game twice. A double round robin, where every pair meets twice (think home and away), plays exactly double.
| Teams | Rounds | Games (single) | Games (double) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 3 | 6 | 12 |
| 5 | 5 | 10 | 20 |
| 6 | 5 | 15 | 30 |
| 8 | 7 | 28 | 56 |
| 10 | 9 | 45 | 90 |
With an even number of teams, a round robin runs in N − 1 rounds, and every team plays in every round. With an odd number of teams, it runs in N rounds, and one team sits out each round on a bye. Over the full schedule, every team gets the same number of byes.
The standard way to build the schedule is the "circle method," which rotates teams around a fixed point so the fixtures stay balanced and no team plays twice in one round.
Most round robins score a win as 1 point and a tie as half a point, then rank teams by total points. Many leagues use 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw to reward winning more heavily. Decide your point system up front, and have a tiebreaker ready (head-to-head result or point differential are common) in case two teams finish level.
A round robin runs across many games, so a scorebook and a dry-erase standings board keep the day organized.
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A single round robin with N teams plays N × (N − 1) ÷ 2 games. For example, 6 teams play 15 games and 8 teams play 28. A double round robin plays twice that number.
With an even number of teams there are N − 1 rounds. With an odd number there are N rounds, because one team sits out each round on a bye.
Add a bye. In each round one team rests while the others play, and over the full schedule every team gets the same number of byes.
Enter your teams and get a balanced fixture list plus a live standings table you can update as results come in.
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