Round robin schedule for 8 teams — and for every number from 5 to 12
You have said yes to “you'll sort out the tournament, won't you”. Then the whole job turns out to hang on a single sheet of paper: who plays who, in what order, and on which court. This article is that sheet of paper. The schedules below work just as well on a notepad as in an app — they belong to nobody, and you are welcome to scribble over them.
The arithmetic first, the schedule second
Everybody playing everybody is called a round robin. That fixes the number of matches: the number of teams, times that number minus one, divided by two. With eight teams that is 8 × 7 ÷ 2 = 28 matches, and there is no negotiating with it.
More important than the total is the round. A round is a block in which every team plays exactly once. With an even number of teams there is one round fewer than there are teams: eight teams play seven rounds of four matches. With an odd number, one team sits out each time and you get as many rounds as there are teams. That round count is what decides how long your day is — not the total.
- 5 teams: 10 matches, 5 rounds of 2, each team plays 4, one team sits out every round.
- 6 teams: 15 matches, 5 rounds of 3, each team plays 5.
- 7 teams: 21 matches, 7 rounds of 3, each team plays 6, one team sits out every round.
- 8 teams: 28 matches, 7 rounds of 4, each team plays 7.
- 9 teams: 36 matches, 9 rounds of 4, each team plays 8, one team sits out every round.
- 10 teams: 45 matches, 9 rounds of 5, each team plays 9.
- 11 teams: 55 matches, 11 rounds of 5, each team plays 10, one team sits out every round.
- 12 teams: 66 matches, 11 rounds of 6, each team plays 11.
Look above all at what each team plays itself: nobody plays eleven matches in one day. That is where a full round robin with twelve teams falls apart.
The schedules for 5 up to 8 teams
Give your teams a number, fill in the names on the morning itself, and play the rounds in the order they are listed.
5 teams — 5 rounds, 2 matches per round
- Round 1: 2–5, 3–4 · sitting out: 1
- Round 2: 1–5, 2–3 · sitting out: 4
- Round 3: 1–4, 3–5 · sitting out: 2
- Round 4: 1–3, 2–4 · sitting out: 5
- Round 5: 1–2, 4–5 · sitting out: 3
6 teams — 5 rounds, 3 matches per round
- Round 1: 1–6, 2–5, 3–4
- Round 2: 1–5, 4–6, 2–3
- Round 3: 1–4, 3–5, 2–6
- Round 4: 1–3, 2–4, 5–6
- Round 5: 1–2, 3–6, 4–5
7 teams — 7 rounds, 3 matches per round
- Round 1: 2–7, 3–6, 4–5 · sitting out: 1
- Round 2: 1–7, 2–5, 3–4 · sitting out: 6
- Round 3: 1–6, 5–7, 2–3 · sitting out: 4
- Round 4: 1–5, 4–6, 3–7 · sitting out: 2
- Round 5: 1–4, 3–5, 2–6 · sitting out: 7
- Round 6: 1–3, 2–4, 6–7 · sitting out: 5
- Round 7: 1–2, 4–7, 5–6 · sitting out: 3
8 teams — 7 rounds, 4 matches per round
- Round 1: 1–8, 2–7, 3–6, 4–5
- Round 2: 1–7, 6–8, 2–5, 3–4
- Round 3: 1–6, 5–7, 4–8, 2–3
- Round 4: 1–5, 4–6, 3–7, 2–8
- Round 5: 1–4, 3–5, 2–6, 7–8
- Round 6: 1–3, 2–4, 5–8, 6–7
- Round 7: 1–2, 3–8, 4–7, 5–6
Building your own schedule for 9 to 12 teams
Larger fields you build yourself with the rotation method, on any notepad:
- Write the numbers in two rows, one under the other: with ten teams, 1 2 3 4 5 along the top and 10 9 8 7 6 underneath. With an odd number, add a box marked "bye" so that the number of boxes is even.
- Top and bottom make a match. Round 1 is therefore 1–10, 2–9, 3–8, 4–7, 5–6.
- Number 1 stays where it is, everybody else shifts one place, clockwise around the rectangle: the top right drops to the bottom right, the bottom row shifts left, and the bottom left comes up alongside the 1. The new columns are round 2. Repeat until you are back where you started.
Check it before you hand it out: the number of matches must be exactly the figure from the list above, and no team may ever appear twice in the same round.
Numbers, not names. Build the schedule with digits and stick the names on in the morning. If a team drops out, you simply take the schedule for one team fewer.
From rounds to the clock: courts, slots and the length of the day
Only now does the hall come into it. A slot is what gets played on every court at the same time: divide the matches per round by your number of courts, round up, multiply by the number of rounds. If you want nobody to wait, you need half as many courts as you have teams — eight teams therefore need four courts. Almost nobody has that:
- 8 teams on 4 courts: 7 rounds of 1 slot = 7 slots. Nobody ever waits.
- 8 teams on 2 courts: every round splits into two slots, so 7 × 2 = 14 slots. Half the teams are standing still at any moment.
- 6 teams on 2 courts: three matches per round do not fit on two courts, so 5 × 2 = 10 slots, five of them half empty. With three courts: 5.
- One court: every slot is a single match, so eight teams comes to 28 slots — no longer a tournament but a weekend.
The length is then number of slots × (playing time + changeover time). For the playing time you make an assumption, because that depends on your format. Take a single set to 25: reckon on roughly 22 minutes of play, plus 8 minutes for finishing off, clearing the court, changing over and writing down the result. Together, a 30-minute slot. If your changeover runs longer or you play shorter sets, put your own figure in — the method stays the same.
Eight teams on four courts is then 7 × 30 = 210 minutes, or three and a half hours of play. The same eight teams on two courts: 14 × 30 = 420 minutes, or seven hours.
Those seven hours are the honest answer, and they do not fit into a Saturday. You then have three levers: more courts, a shorter format (sets to 21, or timed matches with one horn for the whole hall), or fewer matches — two pools and a crossover. And these are only the playing minutes: setting up, warming up and breaks come on top, and how much that adds is in how long a volleyball match lasts. The day around it — hall, referees, entries, catering — is a job of its own, described in planning a volleyball tournament.
Rest, court rotation and the team sitting out
This is where a schedule built in rounds pays off. Because every team plays exactly once within a round, a team can at worst play twice back to back: the last match of one round and the first of the next. Three in a row is impossible — as long as you work through the rounds in order and do not shuffle matches between them. If you want to avoid even those two in a row, reverse the order within the following round.
Watch out too for a hidden unfairness. Number 1 stays put in the rotation method, so its match sits at the top of every round. If you always put the top match on court 1, that team plays all day on the same court — the best one, or the one stuck in the corner. So shift the courts down one place each round.
If you are playing with an odd number, the team sitting out is not a problem but a solution: let them referee and score. That covers you for the whole day without asking a single extra volunteer, and every team takes exactly one turn. With an even number everybody plays every round and you have to arrange officials separately — the hidden price of an even number of teams. Unless you have fewer courts than half your teams: the teams standing still that slot divide it between them.
Two pools and a crossover
From around eight teams, or whenever you do not have seven hours, you split the field. Eight teams become two pools of four: each pool plays 6 matches, 12 together instead of 28, and on two courts that is 6 slots. Then you cross over: the winner of pool A against the runner-up of pool B and the other way round, with the same construction one level down for places 5 to 8. Add the finals and you land on about 10 slots — five hours instead of seven, and five matches per team instead of seven.
That is the trade. In a full round robin the final table is a verdict on the whole day; in a crossover, one lost opening match can push a team out of the top half — fairer against more exciting. Three things to settle in advance:
- Spread the strength across both pools. Rank the teams as best you can and alternate: the strongest plus numbers 4, 5 and 8 in pool A, the rest in pool B. If one pool is far stronger, the real final gets played in the pool stage. How to make that kind of judgement with youth teams without guessing is in team selection in youth volleyball.
- Make sure both pools finish together. If pool A runs a slot ahead, the winner of pool B stands around going cold. Schedule them in parallel, not one after the other.
- Agree the tie-break order beforehand. With short matches, teams finish level far more often than they do in a league. Put one order on the schedule: matches won, then set difference, then points difference, then head-to-head. Inventing a rule afterwards is the one thing that genuinely causes a row.
The schedule is done — where do you put it?
A schedule on paper at the scorer's table is fine for the day itself and worthless for the week after: the results are in the handwriting of three different scorers, and later nobody can say why that afternoon went so well or so badly. So put the day somewhere your team can see it too. In Koach you do that by planning the tournament as one thing — name, date, venue and underneath it your own team's matches — instead of five separate fixtures. The app does not build your schedule: the thinking above is yours, and you only enter your own team's matches, in the order of your schedule. What you get back: your team sees the day in the calendar and the results stay together under one heading. How to fill that in is in planning a tournament; one-off friendlies outside a tournament day you create as described in setting up a friendly.
If you are playing that day to learn something rather than to win, read what a pre-season tournament does and does not tell you: short matches only measure something if you write down beforehand what you are measuring.
Frequently asked questions
How many matches is it with 8 teams if everybody plays everybody?
28. You work it out with the number of teams times that number minus one, divided by two: 8 × 7 ÷ 2. Spread over seven rounds of four matches, in which every team plays seven times.
Can a team join or drop out without me rebuilding the whole schedule?
Not really: the schedule for seven teams is a different schedule from the one for eight. That is exactly why you build it with numbers and not with names. If a team drops out, you take the schedule for one team fewer and hand the numbers out again among the teams that did turn up. If a team arrives on the morning, with an odd field that actually costs you nothing extra — the bye disappears from every round and the rounds simply fill up.
Isn't a knockout with semi-finals fairer than everybody playing everybody?
The other way round. A full round robin judges the whole day and is therefore the fairest ranking there is; a crossover or knockout is decided on a couple of matches and is more exciting but more erratic. You pick a crossover to save time or to end the day with a real final, not to make it fairer.
How many courts do I need as a minimum?
One, but then every match becomes its own slot and a tournament with eight teams runs to 28 slots. If you want nobody to wait, you need half as many courts as you have teams. In practice you usually end up on two or three courts and accept that some teams stand still every slot — and those are your scorers and referees for that slot.
