You can teach an Excel dog new tricks

If you wish to plan out a Round Robin in Excel, it’s not particularly difficult. What’s difficult is remembering how to do it.

First, there’s mechanical means. Make one column like this (for 9 teams; obviously, you make the column the length of the number of teams in the pod).

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Then you copy it and invert it.

9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

Then you abut them, starting like this

1 1
2 9
3 8
4 7
5 6
6 5
7 4
8 3
9 2

That’s round one. For round two, same left-hand column, pull down the right-hand column by 1, so it starts with 2. Rinse. Repeat for the number of rounds. If someone’s debating themselves, it’s a bye. And the bottom half of the matrix is just a dupe of the top, but the human mind finds it easier to copy and paste the whole string. Soon enough you get a pairing for each round in one nifty spreadsheet. Just add judges and cook till done.

You can also just enter the data into Evil TRPC, which will do RRs, and PF, but there’s a little less control. One thing I’m trying to do tomorrow is capture the Monticello teachers while their on-site, so forcing the Monti team to have a bye in round 1, that sort of thing. Sure, you can do it with Evil TRPC but it’s easier in a spreadsheet. I’ll just use E-TRPC for ballot entry. (And it’s not really a round robin, by the way, just a small pool. But with 9 teams, why not do 8 rounds covering the field, then pairing the top two in a final, or maybe top 4 in semis and finals if it’s too close to call?)

I know there has to be a single formula that allows me to enter the number of teams in the pod, and all the Excel shells will fill up correctly. I assure you, I meditated on this for a while. But I could tab a thousand tournaments in the time is will take me to come up with that formula. On the other hand, if you have it, please pass it along.