A club ladder or ratings-free round robin is the simplest fair format for a chess club: everyone plays everyone once, nobody is knocked out, and the final table needs no tie-break tournament. The snag is the odd number. Seven players means one person sits out each week, and the organiser has to make sure it is a different person each time. This guide works one season through: 7 players, Monday evenings, 3 boards, 7 weeks.
Open the free schedule tool (paste your teams, pick the night, get dates and a CSV or calendar file)
Seven invented players meet on Monday evenings from 14 September 2026, all games starting at 19:00 on Board 1, 2 or 3. Seven players give 3 games and a bye a week. The player listed first in a game has White.
| Round | Night | Games |
|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | Mon 14 Sep 2026 | Ben v Gus (Board 1), Finn v Chloe (Board 2), Dev v Ella (Board 3); bye: Ana |
| Round 2 | Mon 21 Sep 2026 | Chloe v Ana (Board 1), Gus v Dev (Board 2), Ella v Finn (Board 3); bye: Ben |
| Round 3 | Mon 28 Sep 2026 | Dev v Ben (Board 1), Ana v Ella (Board 2), Finn v Gus (Board 3); bye: Chloe |
| Round 4 | Mon 5 Oct 2026 | Ella v Chloe (Board 1), Ben v Finn (Board 2), Gus v Ana (Board 3); bye: Dev |
| Round 5 | Mon 12 Oct 2026 | Finn v Dev (Board 1), Chloe v Gus (Board 2), Ana v Ben (Board 3); bye: Ella |
| Round 6 | Mon 19 Oct 2026 | Gus v Ella (Board 1), Dev v Ana (Board 2), Ben v Chloe (Board 3); bye: Finn |
| Round 7 | Mon 26 Oct 2026 | Ana v Finn (Board 1), Ella v Ben (Board 2), Chloe v Dev (Board 3); bye: Gus |
That is 21 games over 7 weeks, every pair meets exactly once, and each player sits out exactly one week. White and Black are shared out so that every player has White three times and Black three times, with one bye.
The table comes from the same code the page runs and a test recomputes it, so it cannot drift from the tool.
List the seven players, pick the club night and give the number of boards. With an odd number of players one is paired with nobody each week, so the tool plays seven weeks of three games and gives every player exactly one bye.
For an odd number of players it takes as many weeks as there are players, so seven players need seven weeks. For an even number it takes one week fewer than the number of players.
The tool alternates colours so each player has White and Black the same number of times, give or take one. In the seven-player example everyone has three games with White and three with Black.
Add the player and the date under blackout dates. Only that game moves to a makeup night after the main rounds, and the rest of the evening goes ahead.
Score 1 for a win, one half for a draw and 0 for a loss. In the tool you can use 2-1-0 points and break ties on head-to-head results, and type the results in to see the standings update.
Related: byes in a round robin with an odd number of teams, how Swiss pairings work, how a challenge ladder works, breaking ties in the standings and how to make a round-robin schedule.