Byes in a round robin

The rotation

The standard method is to add a phantom team — call it "bye" — making the field even, and then run the normal circle rotation. Whoever is drawn against the phantom that round sits out.

Because the rotation moves every team through every position, each team meets the phantom exactly once, which is why everybody gets exactly one bye and no one gets two.

Why the fixture count does not change

A bye is not a match. Seven teams still play 21 matches — every pair once — and every team still plays six. The only thing that changes is that it takes seven rounds instead of six, because one of the seven slots in each round is empty.

So an odd field costs you time, not fairness. Everybody plays the same number of matches against the same opponents.

A round robin bye is not a bracket bye and not a Swiss bye

Three different things share the word. In a round robin, a bye is a rest — it scores nothing and affects nothing, because everybody gets one.

In a bracket it is a free pass to the next round, and it scores nothing because the round itself was skipped.

In a Swiss it takes the points for a win, because not everybody gets one and the team that did should not be punished in the table for having been the odd one out. Same word, three meanings, and the difference matters when you are looking at why a table came out the way it did.

Scheduling around it

The practical annoyance is that the team sitting out is standing around. If you have a spare court, schedule their bye round early or late rather than in the middle, or run a two-leg format so the gaps are spread out.

Common questions