LR- Games and Tournaments

– Round Robin

Round Robin
This means that every team will play against each other. Say there are 5 teams: A, B, C, D
and E.
Then the matches are:
A vs B
A vs C
A vs D
A vs E
B vs C
B vs D
B vs E
C vs D
C vs E
D vs E
There will be 10 matches and each team will playy4 matches, 1 against each other team.
Common questions:
Say there are 5 teams playing round robin. Win= 2 points. Draw= 1 point. Top 2 teams
will go the next round. If 2 teams have the same points then there will be a tie breaker
rule.
1) What is the minimum points with which a team can go to the next round?

If you see every match either there will be a win loss or a draw. If there is a win loss
situation then one team gets 2 points and other gets 0 points. If there is a draw, then each
team gets 1 point. In either case, a match results in allocation of 2 points to the teams,
either in the form of 2 and 0 or 1 and 1. So if there are 10 matches, total points of all
teams after 10 matches must be 20.
The team is going to the next round. But we have to minimise its points too. So ideally
this team should be ranked 2nd. But we have to minimise its points. It the points of the 2nd
rank team is minimised then the points of all teams below it is also minimised. But the
total points of all teams together is fixed. So the points of the 1st team is maximised. Let
the 1st team will all its 4 matches and garner 8 points. So points left now = 20 – 8 = 12.
It is possible to have some combination of win, loss and draws such that every other team
except the first team gets the same number of points i.e. 12/4 = 3 points. So we ahve a
situation where first team gets 8 points and all other teams have 3 points each. But 2
teams must go the 2nd round. So one of the team going to the 2nd round will have 3 points.
So minimum points with which you can go to the 2nd round is 3.

2) What is the maximum points inspite of which a team may not progress to the next round?

If you see every match either there will be a win loss or a draw. If there is a win loss
situation then one team gets 2 points and other gets 0 points. If there is a draw, then each
team gets 1 point. In either case, a match results in allocation of 2 points to the teams,
either in the form of 2 and 0 or 1 and 1. So if there are 10 matches, total points of all
teams after 10 matches must be 20.
2 teams out of 5 will go to the next round. So this team is not in the top 2. However we
want to maximise its points also, so it has to be 3rd ranked. Now we know that it is
possible for teams to have the same points and then the ranks are decided by some tie
breaker rule. So what we should strive to achieve is that the top 3 teams have the same
points and oinly 2 out of them go to the next round. So maximise the points of the top 3

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 LR- Games and Tournaments
– Round Robin

teams. Therefore minimise the points of the bottom 2 teams. We can make the bottom 2
teams lose every match. However the match between them can only give points to the, So
the bottom 2 teams together can have a minimum of 2 points. The top 3 teams can ahve
therefore a maximum of 120- 2 = 18 points. So each of the top 3 teams can have 6 points
each. Now one of them cannot go to the 2nd round. So a team may not m,ake it to the 2nd
round even with 6 points.

3) What is the minimum points required to guarantee that a team will go to the next round?

A team may not go to the next round even with 6 points. So guarantee is 7 points

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