Round robin
A round-robin tournament schedules each participant against every other participant exactly once from a fixed table, so the standings involve no pairing choices and an even field of n players needs n minus 1 rounds.
Also called: all-play-all
In a round robin a field of eight plays seven rounds and a field of ten plays nine, with each player facing every opponent exactly once. The schedule comes from a fixed table, and FIDE's General Regulations for Competitions publish the details of the Berger table used for it. Colors are balanced as evenly as the schedule allows.
Because nobody is paired by results, no one is lucky or unlucky in the draw of opponents, which is why round robins are used for elite events and for qualifiers where fairness between a few players matters most. The cost is length: the number of rounds grows with the field, so the format suits small groups.
For ties, FIDE's tie-break regulations list the Koya System, a tiebreak made for round robins, next to Sonneborn-Berger, and say that Buchholz and the tiebreaks related to it must not be used in them. Round-robin events are also an accepted format for title norms, with their own rules for the number of titled opponents. See double round robin, swiss system and tiebreak.
Compare it with Invitational tournament. An invitational tournament is an event where the organizer chooses the participants, so entry depends on an invitation instead of a registration form and an entry fee.
Compare it with Match play. Match play is a format in which two players, or two teams, play a fixed set of games against each other and the side with the better total result wins the match.
How "Round robin" applies to your own results depends on where you stand now, and the improvement plans by rating band show what players near your rating work on.
Related terms
A double round-robin tournament is a round-robin format in which every pair of players meets twice, once with each color, so each player plays every opponent as both White and Black.
In a Swiss-system tournament the number of rounds is announced in advance, nobody is knocked out, and every round pairs players who have scored about the same so far, never matching the same two players twice.
A tiebreak is a rule that ranks players who finish on the same score, either by a calculation from the results or by extra games, so that the final standings can be published.
Sonneborn-Berger is a tiebreak that adds, for every game, the opponent's final score multiplied by the points you took from them, so a win over a high finisher counts far more than a win over a low one.
In a knockout tournament, entrants are placed into a bracket and each pairing is a match or a short series, so every loss ends a player's event and the survivors meet again until one remains.
Guides that go further
What a rating measures, how FIDE, Lichess, US Chess and chess.com compute theirs, and why the numbers differ.
How the Candidate Master, FIDE Master, International Master and Grandmaster titles are earned, with every Handbook clause.
The Handbook rules for a first FIDE rating: five rated games, the 1400 floor, the two 1800 draws and a worked example.
Sources
- FIDE Handbook C.07 Play-Off and Tie-Break Regulations, effective 1 March 2026, Articles 8 and 9.2, read Oct 21, 2026.
- FIDE Handbook B.01 FIDE Title Regulations, effective 1 January 2024, Clause 1.4.2, read Oct 21, 2026.
- FIDE Handbook C.05 General Regulations for Competitions, Annex 1 "Details of Berger Table", Annex 1, read Oct 21, 2026.
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