Round-robin tournament

A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn. A round-robin contrasts with an elimination tournament, in which participants/teams are eliminated after a certain number of losses. The term round-robin is derived from the French term ruban, meaning "ribbon". Over a long period of time, the term was corrupted and idiomized to robin. In a single round-robin schedule, each participant plays every other participant once. If each participant plays all others twice, this is frequently called a double round-robin. The term is rarely used when all participants play one another more than twice, and is never used when one participant plays others an unequal number of times (as is the case in almost all of the major United States professional sports leagues – see AFL (1940–41) and All-America Football Conference for exceptions). In the United Kingdom, a round-robin tournament has been called an American tournament in sports such as tennis or billiards which usually have knockout tournaments, although this is now rarely, if ever, done. In Italian it is called girone all'italiana (literally "Italian-style group"). In Serbian it is called the Berger system (Бергеров систем, Bergerov sistem), after chess player Johann Berger. In Brazil it is called sistema de pontos corridos ("running points system"), referring to the accumulation of accounted points as the determinant of each participant's final performance, once all participants have played their games. A round-robin tournament with four players is sometimes called "quad" or "foursome". In sports with a large number of competitive matches per season, double round-robins are common. Most association football leagues in the world are organized on a double round-robin basis, in which every team plays all others in its league once at home and once away. This system is also used in qualification for major tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup and the continental tournaments (e.g.