What is a Round Robin Tournament?
It’s a tournament scheduling format where competitors play against each other once or twice (aka double round robin). It’s also known as “king of the court” or “queen of the court”.
Round robin tournaments can be played individually or in teams (e.g. in 6 teams). Unlike knockout (or elimination) format, in round robin everyone plays with everyone to ensure fairness.
Popular Types
Depending on the sport, there might be one or two rounds for opponent teams or players.
Single Round Robin
In a single round robin, each participant faces every other participant once. This format is straightforward and less time-consuming than its double counterpart.
Double Round Robin
Double round robin tournaments require each participant to play against every other participant twice, once at home and once away, often seen in sports leagues like football and basketball.
Other variations
There are specific variations of round robin format in sports like pickleball, padel & tennis.
For instance, below are popular padel tournament formats to play in country clubs and among friends:
- Americano: basically, it’s a class single round robin format, and players collect point individually
- Mixed americano: same as above, but players are divided into mixed-gender teams (M1+F1 vs M2+F2); this format requires equal number of male and female players
- Team americano: works with existing teams
- Mexicano & Mixicano: the key difference is that teams are repaired after each round based on the current leaderboard; the repairing logic depends on whether you have mixed-gender teams, and on the repairing rules of the tournament
Advantages
- Fairness: round robin tournaments provide a level playing field, as each participant competes against all others, reducing the chance of luck affecting the outcome.
- Comprehensive skill assessment: since everyone plays against each other, the final standings reflect a true measure of each participant’s abilities and performance.
- Audience engagement: these tournaments can be highly engaging for audiences, as they get to see multiple matchups and enjoy more content.
Disadvantages
- Time-consuming: due to the number of matches required, round robin tournaments can take a long time to complete, which may not be practical for all events; for example, for 4 teams there will be 6 games, for 5 teams — 10, for 6 teams — 15, for 7 teams — 21 games, but for for 16 teams there will be 120 games!
- Resource intensive: organizing such tournaments requires significant resources in terms of venues, scheduling, and management.
- Potential for predictable outcomes: if one participant is vastly superior, the outcomes can become predictable, reducing excitement.
How Round Robin Tournaments Work
Players and Matches
In a classic round robin tournament, each participant plays against every other participant at least once. In case of playing in doubles, each player will play with every other player once. All players have the same amount of matches during the tournament.
This structure contrasts sharply with knockout tournaments, where a single loss results in elimination.
Scoring
Participants earn points for wins, draws, and losses. Typically, a win awards 3 points, a draw (or tie) 1 point, and a loss 0 points.
In some sports like Padel or Pickleball, each match lasts until a predefined number of points (e.g. 20, 24, or 32). Each point won gives respective player a point. For instance, if P1 and P2 won the match with P3 and P4 with 20-12, P1 and P2 each gets 2o points, and P3 and P4 — 12 points.
Rankings
Players are ranked based on the amount of points they earned during the tournament. Player with the highest number of points is considered a winner.
How to Organize Round Robin Tournament
For starters, you would need to find a least 3 players for a round robin tournament.
Step-by-Step Guide
The tournament schedule normally looks like this:
- the organizer signs up players or teams, and decides what variation of the round robin format they will play: single, double, etc.
- if it’s team play, and there are no teams yet, the organizer arranges teams according to the format so that every team plays with every other team at least once
- after that, the first round is played
- the consequent rounds depend on the format again: in the classic round robin, all rounds can be arranged from the start, while in some variations the next round will get formed after the current one is finished
- once all the games are played, the winner is determined based on the amount of points
Software
Making sure every player gets to play the same amount of games, keeping track of points, managing courts, etc. All these things take a lot of time of the organizer. Our free tournament management Brackets app takes care of it, leaving you and your friends more time to enjoy the game.
Round Robin vs. Knockout (Elimination) Tournaments
Key Differences
Round robin tournaments focus on fairness and comprehensive competition, while knockout tournaments emphasize excitement and quick results. In round robin, all players play the same amount of games, and everyone gets to play with everyone else.
When to Use Each Format
Round robin is ideal for skill assessment and ensuring all participants get ample playtime, whereas knockout is perfect for high-stakes, fast-paced competitions.
