[RESOLVED] Data Distribution issue

I'm running a tournament and I need help evenly distributing the players. I have 9 players, 3 courts, and 5 time periods. There will be 3 players per court per time period. So, the data should/can look something like this:

Time period||Court1||Court2||Court3
9am||1,2,3||4,5,6||7,8,9
9:30am||1,3,6||2,5,8||4,7,9
10am||1,4,9||2,5,7||3,6,8
10:30am||...||...||...
11am||...||...||...

A number can only be listed once per time period. No one can play in the same group of three more than once (ie group 1,2,3 can only play together in this threesome once during the tourney).

You would think that randomizing programs would make this an easy task, but it's not. Well, it's not to me at least.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wendt80

Let me know if you have any questions!

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Could it be that you have some questions? Or why else did you write this post? :confused:

Ah, and, anyway... Welcome to CodeGuru! :)

I definitely have questions. Or rather one BIG question that I would LOVE to get answered! :)

So, what is the question? You should make an attempt first, describe what you tried, and then ask a specific question.

The question is this: How can I evenly distribute these 9 players between three courts for each of the 5 time periods listed?

All 9 players must be listed for each time period.
Each threesome can only play together once during the tournament ( ie. if group 1,2,3 plays, then group 3,1,2 cannot be listed since they've already played together).
Each player must play in a group with each of the other players at least once (ex: group 1,2,3, group 1,4,5, group 1,6,7, and group 1,8,9 satisfies this criteria for player 1)

I'm not sure if the last criteria can be met with only 5 time periods available. If not, then I'll be happy with getting the closest to satifying the criteria.

I used SAS to create a dataset listing all possible 3 player combinations for the 9 players (84 different combinations total), and then I tried randomly assigning these groups to the time period/courts grid, but I could never quite satisfy the last part of my criteria.

Let me know if you need additional info.

Thanks!

I found the answer in another forum.