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Perth Thundersticks is an Australian field hockey club based in Perth , Western Australia. The club was established in 1991 as a men's only team competing in the Australian Hockey League before expanding to include women's teams, WA Diamonds, under the same banner as part of the 7 clubs to compete in Hockey Australia 's new premier domestic competition, Hockey One .

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47-524: Perth Thundersticks will compete for the first time in the inaugural season of Hockey One , which will be contested from late September through to mid November 2019. The Thundersticks were one of the most successful teams in the history of the Australian Hockey League , winning nine men's titles and producing countless international players. The club colours are WA's traditional colours, black, gold and white. Perth Thundersticks are based out of

94-463: A bye . The schedule can therefore be computed as though the dummy were an ordinary player, either fixed or rotating. Instead of rotating one position, any number relatively prime to ( n − 1 ) {\displaystyle (n-1)} will generate a complete schedule. The upper and lower rows can indicate home/away in sports, white/black in chess , etc.; to ensure fairness, this must alternate between rounds since competitor 1

141-464: A bye. If the number is even, an added player (ω) becomes the opponent. For an even number n {\displaystyle n} or an odd number n − 1 {\displaystyle n-1} of competitors, Schurig builds a table with n / 2 {\displaystyle n/2} vertical rows and n − 1 {\displaystyle n-1} horizontal rows. Then he populates it starting from

188-485: A certain number of wins or losses. The term round-robin is derived from the French term ruban ('ribbon'). Over time, the term became 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

235-411: A competitor to play the strongest opponents in a round robin in quick succession while others play them intermittently with weaker opposition. This asymmetry means that playing the same opponents is not necessarily completely equitable. There is also no scheduled showcase final match unless (by coincidence) two competitors meet in the last match of the tournament, with the result of that match determining

282-477: A competitor's chance of ultimate victory. Final records of participants are more accurate, in the sense that they represent the results over a longer period against the same opposition. The system is also better for ranking all participants, not just determining the winner. This is helpful to determine the final rank of all competitors, from strongest to weakest, for purposes of qualification for another stage or competition as well as for prize money. In team sports,

329-484: A lower-placed qualifier is perceived to be easier than for a higher-placed one). Four pairs in the 2012 Olympics Women's doubles badminton , having qualified for the next round, were ejected from the competition for attempting to lose in the round robin stage to avoid compatriots and better ranked opponents. The round robin stage at the Olympics was a new introduction, and these potential problems were readily known prior to

376-437: A round in which players meets each other. For example, player 7 plays against player 11 in round 4. If a player meets itself, then this shows a bye or a game against player n. All games in a round constitutes a diagonal in the table. The above schedule can also be represented by a graph, as shown below: Both the graph and the schedule were reported by Édouard Lucas in as a recreational mathematics puzzle. Lucas, who describes

423-497: A round, a non-leftmost position (not including 1 {\displaystyle 1} ) can only be taken by competitors of a fixed distance. In round 1 {\displaystyle 1} of the example, in the second position competitor 2 {\displaystyle 2} plays against 13 {\displaystyle 13} , their distance is 2 {\displaystyle 2} . In round 2 {\displaystyle 2} , this position

470-540: A schedule where player 14 has a fixed position, and all other players are rotated counterclockwise n 2 {\displaystyle {\frac {n}{2}}} positions. This schedule is easily generated manually. To construct the next round, the last player, number 8 in the first round, moves to the head of the table, followed by player 9 against player 7, player 10 against 6, until player 1 against player 2. Arithmetically, this equates to adding n 2 {\displaystyle {\frac {n}{2}}} to

517-619: A straight knockout system. The top one, two, or occasionally three teams in these groups then proceed to a straight knockout stage for the remainder of the tournament. In the circle of death it is possible that no champion emerges from a round-robin tournament, even if there is no draw, but most sports have tie-breaker systems which resolve this. Round-robins can suffer from being too long compared to other tournament types, and with later scheduled games potentially not having any substantial meaning. They may also require tie-breaking procedures. Swiss system tournaments attempt to combine elements of

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564-521: A table. In France this is called the Carousel -Berger system (Système Rutch-Berger). The schedule can also be used for "asynchronous" round-robin tournaments where all games take place at different times (for example, because there is only one venue). The games are played from left to right in each round, and from the first round to the last. When the number of competitors is even, this schedule performs well with respect to quality and fairness measures such as

611-416: A tournament of 16 teams can be completed in just 4 rounds (i.e. 15 matches) in a knockout format; a double elimination tournament format requires 30 (or 31) matches, but a round-robin would require 15 rounds (i.e. 120 matches) to finish if each competitor faces each other once. Other issues stem from the difference between the theoretical fairness of the round robin format and practice in a real event. Since

658-555: A variety of tiebreaker criteria. Frequently, pool stages within a wider tournament are conducted on a round-robin basis. Examples with single round-robin scheduling include the FIFA World Cup , UEFA European Football Championship , and UEFA Cup (2004–2009) in football, Super Rugby ( rugby union ) in the Southern Hemisphere during its past iterations as Super 12 and Super 14 (but not in its later 15- and 18-team formats),

705-455: Is a field hockey competition organised by Hockey Australia , which replaced the Australian Hockey League . Dual competitions are conducted for both men's and women's teams, with parallel fixtures for both competitions throughout the regular season. The league serves as Australia's premier domestic hockey league, helping unearth future talent for selection to the Australian national teams;

752-613: Is a simple algorithm to create a schedule for a round-robin tournament. All competitors are assigned to numbers, and then paired in the first round: Next, one of the competitors in the first or last column of the table is fixed (number one in this example) and the others rotated clockwise one position: This is repeated until when the next iteration would lead back to the initial pairings: With an even number n {\displaystyle n} of competitors this algorithm realizes every possible combination of them (equivalently, that all pairs realized are pairwise different). First,

799-435: Is always on the first row. If, say, competitors 3 and 8 were unable to fulfil their fixture in the third round, it would need to be rescheduled outside the other rounds, since both competitors would already be facing other opponents in those rounds. More complex scheduling constraints may require more complex algorithms. This schedule is applied in chess and draughts tournaments of rapid games, where players physically move round

846-691: Is even, then in each of ( n − 1 ) {\displaystyle (n-1)} rounds, n 2 {\displaystyle {\begin{matrix}{\frac {n}{2}}\end{matrix}}} games can be run concurrently, provided there exist sufficient resources (e.g. courts for a tennis tournament). If n {\displaystyle n} is odd, there will be n {\displaystyle n} rounds, each with n − 1 2 {\displaystyle {\begin{matrix}{\frac {n-1}{2}}\end{matrix}}} games, and one competitor having no game in that round. The circle method

893-1054: Is held by competitors 14 {\displaystyle 14} and 12 {\displaystyle 12} , also having distance 2 {\displaystyle 2} , etc. Similarly, the next position ( 3 {\displaystyle 3} against 12 {\displaystyle 12} in round 1 {\displaystyle 1} , 2 {\displaystyle 2} against 11 {\displaystyle 11} in round 2 {\displaystyle 2} , etc.) can only hold distance- 4 {\displaystyle 4} competitors. For every k < n 2 {\displaystyle k<{\frac {n}{2}}} , there are exactly n − 1 {\displaystyle n-1} pairs of distance k {\displaystyle k} . There are n − 1 {\displaystyle n-1} rounds and they all realize one distance- k {\displaystyle k} pair at

940-497: Is never used when one participant plays others an unequal number of times, as is the case in almost all of the major North American professional sports leagues. In the United Kingdom , a round-robin tournament has been called an American tournament in sports such as tennis or billiards which usually have single-elimination (or "knockout") tournaments, although this is now rarely done. A round-robin tournament with four players

987-413: 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

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1034-408: Is the fairest way to determine the champion from among a known and fixed number of contestants. Each contestant, whether player or team, has equal chances against all other opponents because there is no prior seeding of contestants that will preclude a match between any given pair. The element of luck is seen to be reduced as compared to a knockout system since one or two bad performances need not ruin

1081-560: The 2025 ICC Champions Trophy . In a more extreme example, the KBO League in baseball plays a 16-fold round robin, with each of the 10 teams playing each other 16 times for a total of 144 games per team. LIDOM (Baseball Winter League in the Dominican Republic) plays an 18-fold round robin as a semi final tournament between four classified teams. Group tournaments rankings usually go by number of matches won and drawn, with any of

1128-550: The COVID-19 pandemic , the league's second season was postponed until 2021. The decision was made by the Hockey One board on 24 March 2020 following consultations with Hockey Australia and the seven member associations in the league, all of which being unable to financially support the program later in the year. The postponement was not only made to benefit associations financially, but also on account of restrictions put into place by

1175-630: The Cricket World Cup along with Indian Premier League , major Twenty-20 Cricket tournament, and many American football college conferences , such as the Conference USA (which currently has 9 members). The group phases of the UEFA club competitions and Copa Libertadores are contested as a double round-robin, as are most basketball leagues outside the United States, including the regular season of

1222-520: The EuroLeague (as well as its former Top 16 phase); the United Football League has used a double round-robin for both its 2009 and 2010 seasons. Season ending tennis tournaments also use a round robin format prior to the semi on stages. The champion in a round-robin tournament is the contestant that wins the most games, except when draws are possible. In theory, a round-robin tournament

1269-457: The Government of Australia , which prohibited mass-gatherings and sporting events. The league went on to postpone the second season to October 2022, owing to divergent state border restrictions in place across the country in late 2021. Seven teams will compete in a round-robin tournament with home and away matches, played from late September to mid November, with the top four teams advancing to

1316-644: The Kookaburras and Hockeyroos . The NSW Pride and the Brisbane Blaze are currently the most successful teams, winning three out of six titles each. The Pride won both the men's and women's competitions in 2022, whereas the Blaze won both competitions in 2023. The Hockey One League was founded on 17 April 2019. The tournament was formed following an overhaul of the Australian Hockey League, and replaced

1363-656: The Perth Hockey Stadium in Western Australia 's capital city, Perth . The stadium has a capacity of 6,000 spectators. Throughout the Hockey One league, Perth Thundersticks will play a number of home games at the stadium. Details and team rosters to be confirmed. Details and team rosters to be confirmed. Perth Thundersticks, along with six other teams, are part of Hockey Australia 's development of hockey. The club unites both WA's male and female teams, with

1410-446: The algorithm obviously realizes every pair of competitors if one of them equals 1 {\displaystyle 1} (the non-moving competitor). Next, for pairs of non- 1 {\displaystyle 1} competitors, let their distance be the number k < n 2 {\displaystyle k<{\frac {n}{2}}} of times the rotation has to be carried out in order that one competitor arrives at

1457-535: The amount of rest between games. On the other hand, when the number of competitors is odd, it does not perform so well and a different schedule is superior with respect to these measures. Alternatively Berger tables, named after the Austrian chess master Johann Berger , are widely used in the planning of tournaments. Berger published the pairing tables in his two Schach-Jahrbücher (Chess Annals), with due reference to its inventor Richard Schurig. This constitutes

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1504-435: The championship. A notable instance of such an event was the 1950 FIFA World Cup match between Uruguay and Brazil . Further issues arise where a round-robin is used as a qualifying round within a larger tournament. A competitor already qualified for the next stage before its last game may either not try hard (in order to conserve resources for the next phase) or even deliberately lose (if the scheduled next-phase opponent for

1551-567: The company, forming the Sultana Bran Hockey One . The following day it was confirmed that Westfund Health Insurance had been named as a supporting partner. On 11 September 2023, the league announced Jamie Dwyer Hockey (JDH) as the new official naming rights partner. Following a successful first season of the Sultana Bran Hockey One in 2019, the second edition was anticipated for commencement in late 2020. However, due to

1598-581: The continental tournaments (e.g. UEFA European Championship , CONCACAF Gold Cup , AFC Asian Cup , CONMEBOL Copa América and CAF Cup of Nations ). There are also round-robin cricket , bridge , chess , draughts , go , ice hockey , curling , and Scrabble tournaments. The World Chess Championship decided in 2005 and in 2007 on an eight-player double round-robin tournament where each player faces every other player once as white and once as black. There has been several major international cricket tournaments held in this format including ICC events, including

1645-561: The finals round at a pre-determined location. The seven teams to compete in the Sultana Bran Hockey One come from Australia's states and territories, with the Northern Territory being the only team absent. To promote the sport and engage fans, every match of the 2022 Hockey One League was broadcast live across Australia. All matches were broadcast live on Kayo Sports and in addition, all Thursday night double headers were broadcast on FOX Sports . Both Kayo and FOX Sports broadcast

1692-677: The finals series, held over a weekend in Bendigo on the 19th and 20th of November, 2022. Prior to the 2023 season, Hockey Australia announced a new broadcast deal with the Seven Network , bringing the competition to their free streaming service 7plus in a multi-year deal. Round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn. A round-robin contrasts with an elimination tournament , wherein participants are eliminated after

1739-403: The method as simple and ingenious , attributes the solution to Felix Walecki, a teacher at Lycée Condorcet . Lucas also included an alternative solution by means of a sliding puzzle . To easily remember this method, the following mnemonic can be used. Starting from the first round, the next round is constructed: and then, If the number of players is odd, the player in the first venue gets

1786-496: The position the other had. In the example given ( n = 14 {\displaystyle n=14} ), 2 {\displaystyle 2} has distance 1 {\displaystyle 1} to 3 {\displaystyle 3} and to 14 {\displaystyle 14} and it has distance 6 {\displaystyle 6} to 8 {\displaystyle 8} and to 9 {\displaystyle 9} . In

1833-400: The previous row, with the exception of player n {\displaystyle n} . When the result of the addition is greater than ( n − 1 ) {\displaystyle (n-1)} , then subtract ( n − 1 ) {\displaystyle (n-1)} from the sum. This schedule can also be represented as a (n-1, n-1) table, expressing

1880-406: The round-robin and elimination formats, to provide a worthy champion using fewer rounds than a round-robin, while allowing draws and losses. The main disadvantage of a round robin tournament is the time needed to complete it. Unlike a knockout tournament where half of the participants are eliminated after each round, a round robin requires one round less than the number of participants. For instance,

1927-521: The round-robin major league champions are generally regarded as the "best" team in the land, rather than the cup winners, whose tournaments usually follow a single-elimination format. Moreover, in tournaments such as the FIFA or ICC World Cups, a first round stage consisting of a number of mini round robins between groups of 4 teams guards against the possibility of a team travelling possibly thousands of miles only to be eliminated after just one poor performance in

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1974-408: The same position. Clearly, these pairs are pairwise different. The conclusion is that every distance- k {\displaystyle k} pair is realized. This holds for every k {\displaystyle k} , hence, every pair is realized. If there are an odd number of competitors, a dummy competitor can be added, whose scheduled opponent in a given round does not play and has

2021-603: The teams. This famously happened during the 1994 FIFA World Cup Group E , where all four teams finished with a record of one win, one draw, and one loss. This phenomenon is analogous to the Condorcet paradox in voting theory. If n {\displaystyle n} is the number of competitors, a pure round robin tournament requires n 2 ( n − 1 ) {\displaystyle {\begin{matrix}{\frac {n}{2}}\end{matrix}}(n-1)} games. If n {\displaystyle n}

2068-434: The tournament to serve as Australia 's premier hockey competition. Following a series of rule innovations during the 2018 men's and women's AHL tournaments, Hockey Australia made the decision to disband the premier competition, making way for the new domestic league. On 23 September 2019, Hockey Australia confirmed that the new league had secured a major partnership with Kellogg's , with naming rights also afforded to

2115-435: The tournament; changes were made prior to the next Olympics to prevent a repeat of these events. Another disadvantage, especially in smaller round-robins, is the "circle of death", where teams cannot be separated on a head-to-head record. In a three-team round-robin, where A defeats B, B defeats C, and C defeats A, all three competitors will have a record of one win and one loss, and a tiebreaker will need to be used to separate

2162-451: The victor is gradually arrived at through multiple rounds of play, teams who perform poorly, who might have been quickly eliminated from title contention, are forced to play out their remaining games. Thus games are played late in the competition between competitors with no remaining chance of success. Moreover, some later matches will pair one competitor who has something left to play for against another who does not. It may also be possible for

2209-558: The women's team previously being known as the WA Diamonds. The club name and identity celebrates the Thundersticks' success from the 1990s and 2000s when they were a dominant force in the men's Australian Hockey League . The club retained the state's iconic black, gold and white colours. https://web.archive.org/web/20070307114712/http://www.hockeywa.org.au/thunderstruck/thundersticks.cfm Hockey One The Liberty Hockey One

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