How to automatically create a player schedule?

Question

I need your help how to automatically create a player schedule from a given list of players who will play doubles in a given period.
Let's say, I have a list of 12 players who will each play doubles with random partners for 4 times.
So play one could be: 1&2 vs 3&4, 5&6 vs 7&8, 9&10 vs 11&12.
But now I want inumbers to plan the second, third and fourth play automatically but with unique combinations.
In this example it's quite easy to do it manually, but I need to plan something similar for the tennisclub with many more players.
It should be able to set up a worksheet where you will fill out the following parameters:
List of players, number of available courts, whether you want ot let them play single or double games, number of plays.
The last one could also be left empty so discover how many unique plays you have given the other parameters.
I hope someone is able to help me, because this would save me a lot of time to make the planning for the tennisclub.
Thanks in advance for any support!

Answer 1

OK.  I think this may work for you:
There are two parts:
1) a small program you have to run (this is the part you may find difficult at first)
2) a Numbers spreadsheet
1) the program is invoked on the command line in the terminal.  You can open the Terminal by navigating to the folder "/Applications/Utilities"
you need to download the zip file here, then copy and unzip  in the same folder where you plan to store the Numbers document for making the tennis schedule.
Let's agree for this procedure that you are storing the program and Numbers file in the folder "/Users/<your user name>/Documents/TennisSchedule".
Once you launch the terminal you can navigate to the folder where you stored the zip file by typing:
cd ~/Documents/TennisSchedule
now you can invoke the program by typing:
./TennisRandomList
Then hit the return key.  Without any arguments the program simply emits some program information with a little help on how to use it-- described in the text starting with "USAGE" (see below)
Proton:TennisRandomList wayne$ ./TennisRandomList
Tennis Randomw List maker
Version 0.1
compiled on Nov 18 2012 @ 09:14:41
USAGE: TennisRandomList numPlayers numCourts numWeeks type verbosity
  numPlayers: 1 - 255
  numCourts: 1 - 255
  numWeeks: 1 - 255
  type: [s]ingle or [d]ouble
  verbosity: 0 - 5
  0 -> player ids only
  1 -> player ids + inputs
  2 -> player ids + inputs + raw random values
  3 -> player ids + inputs + raw random values + pairings
  4 -> player ids + inputs + raw random values + pairings
  5 -> player ids + inputs + raw random values + pairings
Proton:TennisRandomList wayne$
so to make a schedule for:
-12 players
  - 3 courts
- 6 weeks
- singles
you would invoke as:
./TennisRandomList 12 3 6 s
Then type return.
you should get something like:
Proton:TennisRandomList wayne$ ./TennisRandomList 12 3 6 s
Weeks: 6
Players: 12
Courts: 3
Type: singles
          Game
Week          Slot          Court 1          Court 2          Court 3
1          1          3          2          4          6          5          8
1          2          9          11          10          12          1          7
2          1          12          2          7          10          11          1
2          2          3          5          8          4          9          6
3          1          6          11          2          1          7          3
3          2          4          8          5          10          9          12
4          1          4          8          11          3          5          7
4          2          10          12          1          6          9          2
5          1          8          4          3          12          9          5
5          2          6          10          7          11          1          2
6          1          5          7          1          12          3          10
6          2          6          8          2          4          9          11
Proton:TennisRandomList wayne$
You can select, then copy the text following the line "Week Slot Court 1 Court 2 Court 3" upto, but not including, "Proton:TennisRandomList wayne$ "-- bolded in the above quotation
You can paste that into the Numbers document we will now make.
2) a Numbers spreadsheet
The Numbers document includes several tables as shown below: