How long will a games night take?

Multiply the number of rounds by your typical game length. Six players is five rounds, so five game slots — with a thirty-minute game that is about two and a half hours.

What if we have an odd number of players?

One player sits out each round, and the schedule rotates who that is so everyone takes exactly one break.

How is this different from the round-robin fixture generator?

It is the same schedule with different vocabulary. The fixture generator talks about teams, home and away; this one talks about players and matchups at a table.

Board Game Tournament Scheduler

Plan a games night or a club tournament where everyone should face everyone else. Enter the players and this works out how many rounds you need and who sits at which table each round, without anyone being scheduled for two games at once.

Players

One player per line. Everyone will be drawn against everyone else exactly once per leg.

6 entered — 15 fixtures across 5 rounds

Legs

1 plays everyone once. 2 is home and away. Up to 4.

Seed (optional)

Enter a word to make the draw reproducible. Leave blank for a one-off random draw.

Assign home and away

Your fixture list will appear here.

What this generator does

Answers the question a games night organiser actually has: how many rounds will this take, and who is playing whom in each one. It is the same underlying schedule as the sports fixture generator but framed for a table rather than a pitch, so there is no home and away and the output reads as matchups rather than fixtures.

How to use this tool

Enter one player per line.
Choose how many times each pair should meet — usually once.
Press Draw the schedule to see every round.
Print it and pin it up, or copy it into your group chat.

Understanding the controls

Players: One per line. The count decides the length of the evening — with an even number you need one fewer round than there are players, and with an odd number you need as many rounds as players because someone sits out each time.
Legs: How many times each pair should meet. One is usual for an evening; two doubles the length and is worth it only for a club running over several weeks.
Assign home and away: Leave this off for most games. Turn it on only if your game has a meaningful first-player or side advantage that you want spread evenly, in which case the first name listed in each matchup takes that side.
Seed: Type a word to fix the draw so you can reproduce the same schedule at the next session, which is useful for a league that runs across several evenings from one printed sheet.

Worked examples

Five players: 10 matchups across 5 rounds, two games running at once and one player resting each round.
Eight players: 28 matchups across 7 rounds, four games running at once and nobody sitting out.
Four players, two legs: 12 matchups across 6 rounds — a short club evening where every pair meets twice.

Common use cases

A chess or draughts club evening with a fixed number of rounds
A two-player board game tournament at a games café
A card game night where everyone should play everyone once
A school games club running a term-long ladder
A family tournament over a weekend, printed and ticked off as you go

How this generator works

Players are drawn into a circle at random and then rotated one seat per round, pairing off across the circle. Because the rotation is systematic rather than a fresh shuffle each round, the schedule is guaranteed to cover every possible matchup exactly once and to finish in the smallest number of rounds. An odd number of players means one person is drawn against an empty seat each round and takes that round off, which the schedule labels as a bye so you can plan a break or a side game around it.

Randomness and fairness

The randomness decides seating positions in the circle, not the matchups themselves — those follow from the rotation and are the same set every time. So while the order in which pairs meet varies from draw to draw, the fact that everyone meets everyone is fixed by the construction rather than left to chance. A seed replaces the cryptographic source with a deterministic, non-cryptographic one so the same evening can be reproduced; that is reproducibility, not secrecy, and anyone with the seed can recreate the schedule.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Limitations and good to know

This schedules two-player matchups only. A game for three or four at a table is a different problem, and splitting a group into tables of four is what the group generator is for.
Round length is assumed to be uniform. If some games run much longer than others the printed rounds will drift, so treat the sheet as an order of play rather than a timetable.
There is no scoring, tie-break or standings table here — you will need a separate sheet to record results as the evening goes on.
With more than about a dozen players a full round-robin becomes a very long evening; consider splitting into groups first and playing a knockout between the winners.

Common mistakes

Planning an evening for twelve players and running out of time: Twelve players is 66 matchups across 11 rounds. Check the round count before committing, and split into two groups of six if the evening is only a couple of hours.
Reshuffling between rounds to keep it fresh: Redrawing mid-tournament restarts the schedule and will repeat matchups already played. Draw once at the start and work down the printed sheet.

Practical tips

Count your tables before you start — the schedule assumes every match in a round can be played simultaneously, so you need half as many tables as players.
If someone drops out partway through, treat their remaining matches as forfeits rather than redrawing, which would invalidate the rounds already played.

Privacy and your data

Player names stay in your browser for as long as the tab is open and are never sent anywhere. No cookie records them, nothing is written to the address bar, and the only thing measured is that a schedule was produced. Print or copy the sheet before closing the tab, because nothing is saved.

Frequently asked questions

How long will a games night take?: Multiply the number of rounds by your typical game length. Six players is five rounds, so five game slots — with a thirty-minute game that is about two and a half hours.
What if we have an odd number of players?: One player sits out each round, and the schedule rotates who that is so everyone takes exactly one break.
How is this different from the round-robin fixture generator?: It is the same schedule with different vocabulary. The fixture generator talks about teams, home and away; this one talks about players and matchups at a table.