Round Robin Tournament Guide: Format, Scheduling & Best Practices

A round robin tournament is one of the fairest ways to run a competition. Everyone plays everyone else at least once, which makes it perfect for club nights, leagues, and smaller events. Nobody gets knocked out after one bad game, and the final standings show who performed best overall—not who got lucky with their bracket.

This guide walks you through everything: how to calculate match counts, build schedules, handle ties, and figure out when round robin is the right choice (and when it isn’t).

What is a round robin tournament?

In a round robin, every player or team faces every other player or team exactly once. With 8 players, that means everyone plays 7 matches. The winner is whoever earns the most points across all their games—not whoever survives an elimination bracket.

The name comes from a French term ruban rond (“round ribbon”). It originally described petitions where people signed in a circle so no one could tell who signed first. In sports, it captures the idea that everyone plays everyone in a kind of loop.

You’ve probably seen round robin in action. The FIFA World Cup group stage works this way, and so do most badminton club nights, table tennis leagues, and esports group stages.

How scoring works

Scoring varies by sport, but most round robin tournaments use one of these systems:

Most common (3-1-0):

• Win: 3 points
• Draw: 1 point
• Loss: 0 points

Other options:

• Win: 2 points / Draw: 1 point / Loss: 0 points (popular in chess)
• Win: 1 point / Loss: 0 points (for sports without draws, like badminton)

After all matches are done, players are ranked by total points. If players are tied, you use tiebreakers to sort them out.

Here’s a useful trick for badminton clubs: instead of just counting match wins, award 1 point for each game won. So if someone wins a best-of-three match 2-1, they get 2 points and the loser gets 1. This spreads out the scores and makes ties less common.

How many matches will you need?

Before you commit to round robin, figure out how many matches you’re signing up for. The formula is simple:

Total matches = n × (n – 1) ÷ 2

Here, n is your number of players. Each person plays (n – 1) matches, but you divide by 2 because every match involves two people.

Notice how fast this grows. Going from 8 to 16 players doesn’t just double your matches—it more than quadruples them (28 to 120). That’s why round robin works best for smaller groups, usually 4 to 10 players.

Quick note on rounds: With an even number of players, you need (n – 1) rounds if matches run at the same time. With an odd number, you need n rounds because someone has to sit out each round (that’s called a “bye”).

How to build a schedule

Getting everyone to play everyone exactly once takes some planning. There are two tried-and-true methods: the circle method and Berger tables.

The Circle method

This one is easy to understand and works for any group size:

1. Keep one player in a fixed spot (Player 1 stays put)
2. Rotate everyone else clockwise after each round
3. Match up players who are across from each other

Picture 6 players sitting around a table. Player 1 stays at the “top,” while players 2-6 shift one seat clockwise after each round. Whoever’s sitting across from each other plays that round.

Round 1: 1v6, 2v5, 3v4
Round 2: 1v5, 6v4, 2v3
Round 3: 1v4, 5v3, 6v2
Round 4: 1v3, 4v2, 5v6
Round 5: 1v2, 3v6, 4v5

Got an odd number? Just add a “ghost” player. Whoever gets paired with the ghost sits out that round.

Berger tables

Named after Austrian chess organizer Johann Berger, these are ready-made schedules that balance things like home/away games, rest time between matches, and avoiding back-to-back tough opponents.

You can find Berger tables for most group sizes online, or let tournament software generate them for you.

For a 4-team esports group stage, a Berger schedule looks like this:

When round robin works best

Round robin shines in certain situations:

Club nights and leagues: When your group meets regularly and everyone wants to play everyone. An 8-member badminton club can run a round robin over a few weeks so all members face each other.

Group stages: Many tournaments use round robin pools to rank players before moving to elimination brackets. The Swiss system takes a similar approach but matches players by current score instead of having everyone play everyone.

Figuring out skill levels: When you don’t know how good players are, round robin prevents strong players from getting knocked out early just because they drew a tough first-round opponent.

Getting everyone lots of games: In elimination, half the players go home after round one. In round robin, everyone plays multiple matches no matter what.

Small high-stakes playoffs: When 4-6 teams are competing for a title, round robin ensures the winner actually beat everyone who mattered.

When to avoid round robin

Round robin isn’t always the answer. Skip it when:

You have too many players: With 20+ people, you’re looking at 190+ matches. Unless your event runs over weeks or months, that’s not realistic. For bigger groups, try a Swiss system tournament or split players into round robin pools that feed into a playoff bracket.

Time is tight: A one-day tournament with 12 players needs 66 matches. At 15 minutes each, that’s over 16 hours of play. Elimination formats finish much faster.

You need a dramatic finish: Round robin doesn’t have a final match. You won’t know the winner until every game is done. If sponsors or spectators want that climactic showdown moment, this format won’t deliver it.

The skill gap is huge: If everyone already knows who’s going to win most matches, round robin just drags out the obvious. A seeded bracket might be more interesting.

Pros and cons

Here’s the quick comparison:

Want to see how round robin stacks up against Swiss and elimination? Check out our tournament formats comparison guide.

How to handle ties

Ties come up a lot in round robin. When two or more players end up with the same points, you need tiebreaker rules. Set these before the tournament starts—not after.

Here’s the usual order:

1. Head-to-head: Who won when these players played each other? If Player A and Player B both have 9 points but A beat B directly, A gets the higher rank. Simple and fair.
2. Point difference: Points scored minus points allowed. A player who won 21-15, 21-18, 21-10 has a better margin than someone who won 21-19, 22-20, 21-19.
3. Total points scored: If point difference is the same, whoever scored more wins. This rewards attacking play.
4. Buchholz score: Popular in chess. Add up the final scores of everyone you played. Beating strong opponents counts more than beating weak ones.
5. Mini-table: For three-way ties where head-to-head doesn’t help (A beat B, B beat C, C beat A), make a mini standings table using just those players’ results against each other.
6. Playoff match: When nothing else works, play one more game to decide. Dramatic, but adds time.

Real example: In a 6-player CS2 group stage, three players finish with 9 points each. A beat B, B beat C, C beat A—a rock-paper-scissors situation. The mini-table still shows a tie. So you check point difference (maybe map wins minus map losses), then total rounds won, and if needed, play a tiebreaker match.

Tips for running a smooth event

Once you’ve got your schedule, here’s how to keep things running well:

Post the schedule where everyone can see it: Include match times, court or station assignments, and the scoring system. When people know what’s happening, things move faster.

Add buffer time: Build in 10-15% extra time between rounds. Matches run long, players need water breaks, equipment breaks. A too-tight schedule always falls behind.

Rotate courts fairly: If some courts or gaming stations are better than others, don’t stick the same player on the bad one every time.

Show live standings: People stay interested when they can see updated results. A whiteboard, shared Google Sheet, or tournament app keeps everyone engaged even when they’re not playing.

Decide what happens with no-shows: Does someone who doesn’t show up forfeit all their matches (scored as 0-21 losses, for example)? Or do you just remove those games from the standings? Pick one approach and stick with it.

Tell everyone the tiebreaker rules upfront: Don’t wait until there’s a tie to figure this out. Players should know from the start.

Run matches at the same time: If you’ve got multiple courts or stations, use them. A 6-player round robin has 15 matches, but with 3 courts going at once, you only need 5 rounds.

Incomplete round robin: A middle ground

What if you like the round robin idea but have too many players? Try an incomplete round robin, where everyone plays a set number of opponents—just not everyone.

Say you have 12 players for a badminton club night. Full round robin would need 66 matches. Instead, you could have everyone play 5-6 matches, with opponents assigned to balance skill levels and give variety.

You keep most of round robin’s fairness without the time problem. The Swiss system takes this further by pairing players based on their current scores, so by round 5 or 6, similarly-skilled players have usually faced each other even without complete pairings. Our Swiss system guide covers this in detail.

Examples in practice

Badminton club night:
Eight players show up on Thursday evening. You’ve got four courts, so you run a round robin—everyone plays 7 matches. Using the circle method, each round takes about 15-20 minutes with games running side by side. Total time: around 2 hours including breaks. Everyone gets plenty of play, the standings show who performed best that night, and newer players still get a full experience.

Esports group stage:
Your CS2 community tournament has 16 teams. Full round robin (120 matches) would take forever. Instead, split into 4 groups of 4 teams. Each group plays round robin (6 matches per group, 24 total), and the top 2 from each group move to an 8-team elimination bracket. Every team plays at least 3 matches, and bracket seeding is earned.

Quick checklist

Before your next round robin:

• Count your players and calculate total matches
• Make sure you have enough time (matches × average length + buffer)
• Create the schedule (circle method or tournament software)
• Pick and announce your point system (3-1-0, 2-1-0, etc.)
• Pick and announce your tiebreaker rules
• Set up a way to display live standings
• Plan court or station rotation
• Decide how to handle no-shows

Round robin is hard to beat when fairness and playing time matter more than knockout drama. If you’re running club events regularly, it’s worth getting good at.

Running round robin tournaments often? Software can handle the scheduling, live standings, and tiebreaker math for you—no more spreadsheet headaches. Turnio supports round robin along with Swiss and elimination formats, so you can spend your energy on the event itself instead of the logistics.