Round-robin tournaments with minimum number of breaks and two teams per club

Abstract

We study round-robin tournaments for 2n teams. Here n is either interpreted as the number of clubs, each having two teams, or the number of strength groups with two teams each. For even n we give a construction of a single round-robin tournament for 2n teams with 2n - 2 breaks, where the teams of the same club have complementary home-away patterns and play against each other in the first round. If the pairs of teams are strength groups, then a cyclic permutation of the constructed schedule results in a group-balanced tournament