Round Robin Fairness: Ensuring Equity in Scheduling and Tournaments

Updated On: August 23, 2025 by     Aaron Connolly  

Fundamentals of Round Robin Fairness

Round robin fairness makes sure every participant actually gets the same shot by rotating matchups in a set order. This format wipes out scheduling bias and ensures each competitor faces the same opponents throughout the tournament.

Definition and Core Principles

Round robin fairness is all about giving everyone an equal chance. Every team or player ends up playing against every other participant just once during the tournament.

The main idea? Systematic rotation. You see this in the way matches get scheduled—no team gets to pick when or who they play. Each participant has to play the same number of games under the same conditions.

Time allocation matters a lot too. Round robin formats spread playing time evenly, so nobody gets extra rest or special scheduling.

Resource equality goes beyond the match schedule. Venue assignments, time slots, and equipment access stay consistent for everyone. By doing this, the system removes outside factors that could mess with the results.

The best part about this format is its deterministic nature. Unlike knockout systems where one bad day sends you packing, round robin gives everyone a chance to bounce back from early losses. It keeps things fair all the way through.

Comparison with Other Tournament Formats

Round robin tournaments really shine when it comes to fairness. Single-elimination formats can knock out strong teams early just because of bad luck or one off day.

Swiss system tournaments land somewhere in the middle. They’re fairer than knockouts, but their pairing algorithms can still give some participants a leg up.

Format	Games per Team	Fairness Level	Time Required
Round Robin	n-1	Highest	Longest
Swiss System	5-7 rounds	Medium	Moderate
Single Elimination	1-6 matches	Lowest	Shortest

Double elimination does better than single-elimination, but it still rewards teams that dodge early losses. Teams in the upper bracket get longer breaks and more rest.

Round robin wipes out bracket advantages completely. No matter how you start or where you’re seeded, you’ll face the same set of opponents as everyone else.

Historical Development

Round robin tournaments started out as a way to schedule military activities back in the 18th century. The term “round robin” actually came from petitions where signatures went in a circle to hide who started it.

Sports picked up the idea in the 1800s, especially cricket and tennis. These games needed fair schedules because of weather and limited venues.

Modern esports took round robin from traditional sports. Early gaming tournaments used elimination formats since they were faster, but concerns about fairness led organizers to switch to round robin.

League of Legends Championship Series made round robin a staple in esports. Teams play double round robin splits, letting everyone face off before playoffs.

The format keeps evolving as organizers try to balance fairness with the need to entertain. Now, you’ll often see hybrid systems—round robin group stages followed by elimination playoffs.

How Round-Robin Scheduling Achieves Fairness

Round-robin scheduling gives every process a fair shake by rotating access to system resources on a timer. It stops any one task from hogging the system, and everyone gets predictable access patterns.

Equitable Resource Allocation

Round-robin splits CPU time evenly by giving each process a fixed slice, known as a time quantum. When a process uses up its slice, the system shifts it to the back of the line.

This way, every process—whether it runs for 2 milliseconds or 200—gets the same treatment in each cycle.

The algorithm doesn’t play favorites. Whether you’re editing a text file or rendering video, your task gets the same shot at resources.

Quick tip: Most operating systems pick time quantums between 10 and 100 milliseconds to balance fairness and efficiency.

Time Quantum	Fairness Level	Context Switch Overhead
Very Short (1-5ms)	Excellent	High
Medium (10-50ms)	Good	Moderate
Long (100ms+)	Fair	Low

Prevention of Bias

Traditional scheduling can favor certain kinds of processes. Round-robin keeps things simple by rotating tasks without caring about their characteristics.

The algorithm blocks starvation, so long-running processes can’t keep shorter ones waiting forever. Every task in the ready queue gets its turn, even if the system is slammed.

Heads up: Skip round-robin fairness, and a single heavy process could hog resources for ages.

Round-robin also dodges the convoy effect, where fast processes get stuck behind slow ones, making the system feel sluggish.

The circular queue keeps waiting times predictable. Users can guess roughly when their process will run by looking at the queue and the time quantum.

Advantages Over Other Scheduling Algorithms

Round-robin beats First Come, First Served by stopping long jobs from blocking quick ones. FCFS can make short tasks wait forever behind big jobs.

Unlike priority-based scheduling, round-robin makes sure low-priority tasks don’t get left out. With priority systems, high-priority tasks can keep arriving and push others out of the way.

Shortest Job First needs to know how long processes will take ahead of time, which isn’t always possible. Round-robin doesn’t need that info.

The algorithm delivers better interactive responsiveness than non-preemptive methods. No single app can freeze the system, so users get more consistent performance.

Round-robin’s simple setup makes it reliable and easy to maintain. The queue rotation doesn’t need heavy calculations.

Round Robin Fairness in Competitive Events

Round robin events keep things balanced by making sure every team faces the same schedule and gets a fair shot to prove themselves. This format cuts out luck and gives transparent scoring that actually reflects how teams perform.

Balanced Match-Ups

Round robin guarantees each team plays every other team once. No one can get an easier run just because of bracket luck.

Equal strength of schedule is the name of the game. Nobody can say they had it harder or easier than anyone else.

The format stops strong teams from getting knocked out early just because of a bad draw. In single-elimination, two favorites could meet in round one and one is gone instantly.

Home and away games also help. Many round robin tournaments alternate venues, so teams don’t always have home advantage.

Match-up Benefit	Round Robin	Single Elimination
Plays all opponents	✓ Yes	✗ Limited
Equal schedule strength	✓ Guaranteed	✗ Varies by bracket
Prevents early upsets	✓ Multiple chances	✗ One loss eliminates

Scoring Systems and Standings

Round robin uses a points system that rewards steady performance over one-off wins. Usually, teams get three points for a win, one for a draw, and nothing for a loss.

Transparent scoring lets everyone—fans and players—see exactly where things stand. There’s no confusion about who advances or why.

Tiebreakers like goal difference and head-to-head records sort things out if teams finish level. It’s a logical system that matches actual performance.

Every match counts right to the end. Unlike group stages where some teams might qualify early, round robin keeps the pressure on until the final match.

The system rewards teams that perform well across the whole tournament, not just in a few games. Consistency beats flashiness here.

Clear Determination of Winners

Round robin crowns the winner based on the entire tournament, not just one great day. The team with the most points after facing everyone else really earns the title.

Bracket luck doesn’t play a role. Winners can’t claim an easy path, and losers can’t blame tough draws.

The format gives clear rankings from top to bottom. Each spot reflects how teams performed against the same set of opponents.

Statistical accuracy is a big plus. With more matches, the results show real team strength instead of just lucky breaks.

Final standings tell the whole story. Fans can track how their team did against every opponent, not just a handful.

Scheduling Algorithms and Fairness Measurement

Scheduling algorithms decide which process or packet gets computer resources next. Fairness measurement shows if these choices treat all jobs equally. Different algorithms use everything from simple round-robin to complex math indices tracking completion times.

Packet and Process Scheduling

Scheduling algorithms usually fall into two buckets: timestamp-based and round-robin. Each has its own way of handling fairness.

Timestamp-based scheduling uses calculations to pick the next job. These systems track when jobs arrive and how long they’ll take. They can be fair but need more computing power.

Round-robin scheduling is much simpler. It gives every job a fixed time slice, then moves to the next. When a job’s time is up, it gets bumped to the end of the line.

Classic round-robin isn’t perfect, though. Some jobs end up waiting much longer than others since the system doesn’t check how much work each job needs.

Group Round-Robin (GRR) helps with this. It sorts similar jobs into groups, then rotates within each group. This balances fairness with round-robin’s straightforward design.

Fairness Indices

We use math tools called indices to measure scheduling fairness. They let us compare different methods side by side.

The L₂-norm checks how spread out job completion times are. If jobs finish close together, that’s a good fairness score.

Flow time fairness tracks how long each job waits from start to finish. Round-robin does well here since it gives every job regular attention.

Research shows round-robin hits certain fairness ratios. If all jobs start at once, the approximation ratio is predictable. If jobs arrive at different times, the competitive ratio usually stays under 4.

TCP fairness measures look at network packet scheduling. They check if different network connections get equal bandwidth over time.

Worst-Case Fairness Metrics

Worst-case metrics look at what happens when things go badly. These measurements protect against jobs being treated unfairly.

Normalised worst-case fair index shows the biggest gap between fair and actual treatment. Standard round-robin doesn’t always do well here.

Fair Round-Robin (FRR) helps with worst-case scenarios. It keeps things proportional and still uses round-robin’s simple O(1) design.

Bounded delay properties guarantee jobs won’t wait forever. Timestamp systems handle this well, but round-robin variants sometimes fall short.

The worst-case TCP fairness index checks network scheduling fairness. It finds the most unfairly treated connection and measures that gap.

Modern fair scheduling tries to blend round-robin’s simplicity with the stronger guarantees of timestamp-based systems.

Implementing Round Robin in Tournaments

Round robin tournaments take some planning if you want to keep things fair and practical. It’s all about setting up clear rules, adjusting schedules for participants, and having solid tiebreakers ready to go.

Standard Procedures

Every round robin tournament sticks to a pretty straightforward setup. Each participant faces off against every other participant just once. So, in an 8-player tournament, everyone ends up with 7 matches.

We usually go with a point-based scoring system. A win gets you 3 points, a tie nets 1, and a loss gives you nothing. This approach rewards players for victories but still acknowledges that drawing a match takes effort.

Match duration needs to be set in stone. Most tournaments slap on a 50-minute time cap per match. That keeps things moving and helps maintain competitive integrity.

You can figure out the total number of matches by using n(n-1)/2, where n is the number of players. For 6 players, you get 15 matches; with 10, it jumps to 45.

Tournament organisers really have to nail down venue logistics. You can run multiple matches at the same time, but only if there’s enough space and gear for everyone.

Flexible Scheduling Approaches

Traditional round-based scheduling makes everyone wait around. These days, most tournaments use rolling schedules instead. Players jump into their next match as soon as they’re done with the last one.

This setup really cuts down on downtime. Players aren’t just sitting there, waiting for slow matches to finish. The whole event wraps up faster—sometimes in half the time.

We hand out opponent tracking sheets to each participant. Players check off finished matches and see who’s available next. Some folks use apps, others stick with paper—it all works.

Scheduling flexibility only works if everyone’s on the same page. Tournament directors regularly announce who’s up next. Digital displays or old-school boards help keep people in the loop.

For bigger groups, some tournaments switch to pool systems. We break everyone into smaller round robin pools and then merge the results. It’s a fair way to keep things manageable.

Scheduling Method	Best For	Duration
Traditional rounds	Small groups (6-8)	3-4 hours
Rolling schedule	Medium groups (8-12)	2-3 hours
Pool system	Large groups (16+)	4-6 hours

Tie-Breaker Methods

Head-to-head results settle most two-player ties. If Player A beat Player B, Player A takes the tie-breaker, no matter what else happened.

Three-way ties get trickier. We start by looking at just the matches between the tied players. If someone beat both of the others, they take the top spot.

If that doesn’t sort it out, we use game-win percentage next. We divide a player’s total game wins by the number of games they played. It’s a decent way to reward consistency.

Some tournaments factor in strength of schedule. Players who faced tougher opponents get a slight edge in tie-breakers. You need good seeding data ahead of time for this to work.

Warning: Complicated tie-breakers can leave people scratching their heads. We make sure everyone knows the rules before the tournament starts.

If all else fails, we go for sudden-death matches or, as a last resort, a coin toss. Not ideal, but sometimes you’ve just got to wrap things up.

Digital tournament management tools handle tie-breakers automatically. Manual calculations work, but you have to keep records spotless the whole way through.

Comparing Tournament Formats for Fairness

Different tournament formats give players wildly different experiences when it comes to fair competition. Single-elimination systems move quickly but don’t give everyone a real shot, while round robin tournaments let everyone play everyone—though it eats up time and resources.

Single-Elimination Versus Round Robin

Single-elimination tournaments kick players out after just one loss. Sure, it’s dramatic, but is it really fair?

A strong player can get knocked out early because of a tough bracket or just one bad game. We see this all the time in big esports events when top teams get sent home way too soon.

Key fairness issues with single-elimination:

• No chance to recover from a single loss
• Bracket placement can make or break your run
• Not enough matches to show who’s really best

Round robin fixes a lot of this by having everyone play everyone else. Every player gets several chances to show what they can do against different opponents.

Round robin advantages for fairness:

• Full head-to-head records
• One bad match doesn’t ruin your tournament
• Everyone gets an equal shot

The downside? Round robin takes way more matches. A 16-player single-elimination event only needs 15 matches—round robin needs a whopping 120.

Double-Elimination and Other Systems

Double-elimination lands somewhere in the middle. Players have to lose twice before they’re out, so everyone gets a second chance.

This format splits things into two brackets: winners and losers. If you drop from the winners bracket, you still have a shot in the losers bracket.

Double-elimination fairness benefits:

• One loss won’t send you packing
• Keeps the excitement alive
• More matches than single-elimination, but not as many as round robin

Swiss system tournaments pair up players with similar records each round. You don’t play everyone, but you get balanced matchups all the way through.

Swiss works especially well for big tournaments where time is tight. Players face others at their skill level, which feels a lot fairer than getting a random opponent.

Hybrid Bracketing Options

A lot of tournaments now blend formats for the best of both worlds. Pool play followed by elimination brackets is a go-to setup.

Groups of 4-6 players play round robin matches first. The top players from each group move on to single or double-elimination playoffs.

Hybrid format advantages:

• Everyone gets several matches up front
• Elimination rounds keep things exciting
• Cuts down on the total number of matches compared to full round robin

Some events use round robin results to seed their elimination brackets. That way, the knockout phase is based on real performance, not just random placement.

Warning: Hybrid formats can get confusing if you don’t explain them clearly at the start.

Choosing a format really comes down to your priorities—do you care more about finishing quickly, keeping players happy, or making sure the competition’s as fair as possible?

Optimising Bracket Design for Equity

If you want fair brackets, you’ve got to seed strategically and randomise transparently. These two things work together to make sure everyone gets a fair shot.

Seeding and Competitor Distribution

Good seeding is the backbone of any fair tournament. We spread out the strongest players so they don’t knock each other out early.

Effective seeding sticks to a few basics:

• Top seeds go up against the weakest players first
• Heavyweights only meet late in the tournament
• Mid-tier players get a fair mix of matchups

Single-elimination tournaments depend a lot on good seeding, since there’s no coming back from a loss. Double-elimination gives you a bit more wiggle room, but you still want to start things off right.

Round robin handles seeding differently. We focus on mixing up the difficulty of each player’s matches across the schedule, not just the bracket.

Common seeding mistakes:

• Using outdated rankings
• Piling strong teams into one section
• Forgetting about regional strength differences

The bracket design should reflect skill gaps. If the top seeds are way better than the bottom, early matches can get boring fast—and viewers might just tune out.

Randomisation and Transparency

If you want players to trust your tournament, you need transparent randomisation. We show everyone exactly how we place people in the bracket.

Key randomisation steps:

• Hold public draws for initial placements
• Use documented algorithms for digital brackets
• Spell out tie-breaker rules ahead of time

Lots of tournaments mix things up with hybrid approaches. Top performers get seeded, and everyone else gets their spot randomly. It keeps things fair but still unpredictable.

Best practices for transparency:

• Publish your bracket method before the event
• Stream the draw live if you can
• Set up a way for players to appeal seeding issues

Tech helps a ton here—AI-powered scheduling tools can optimise matchups and factor in stuff like travel or venue limits.

Just a heads-up: Avoid last-minute bracket changes unless you absolutely have to. Players and fans will notice, and trust can take a hit.

Technological Tools for Scheduling Fairness

Modern tournament platforms rely on automated bracket generators and real-time systems to keep scheduling fair. These tools cut out human bias and can adapt on the fly when things go sideways.

Digital Bracket Generators

Tournament software builds balanced matchups for round robin events automatically. These platforms spread matches out evenly across available time slots and venues.

Popular tools like Challonge and Battlefy handle player registration and bracket creation in seconds. They crunch the numbers to fit matches into the schedule and space you’ve got.

Key features:

• Automatic seeding
• Venue allocation
• Time slot optimisation
• Built-in conflict checks

Most generators offer a free tier for small events. If you need more, premium plans usually run £10-50 per month, depending on how many players you have.

This software stops common mistakes, like scheduling back-to-back matches for one player. It also gives everyone the same amount of rest between games.

Real-Time Adaptation Platforms

Some scheduling systems update brackets live during the tournament. If a match runs late or a player drops out, the platform adjusts things instantly to keep it fair.

Adaptive features:

• Auto-rescheduling
• Player substitution options
• Time buffers
• Venue reassignment

Platforms like Toornament and Smash.gg send live bracket updates straight to participants’ phones. Organisers get instant alerts about any scheduling hiccups.

These systems come up with fair fixes in seconds. They aim to keep the match load balanced and avoid delays for everyone else.

Warning: Free versions often limit these real-time features to smaller tournaments (usually under 64 players).

Applications of Round Robin Fairness in Networking

Round robin scheduling is at the heart of fair resource sharing in computer networks, making sure everyone gets equal access to bandwidth. Fair queuing and weighted fair queuing both use this idea to keep network performance balanced.

Fair Queuing in Computer Networks

Fair queuing borrows from round robin to treat each network flow equally. When several users share a connection, this keeps one person from hogging all the bandwidth.

The system gives each data flow its own queue. The scheduler cycles through each queue in round robin order, grabbing one packet before moving on.

Benefits of fair queuing:

• Everyone gets their share of bandwidth
• Greedy apps can’t take over
• It’s simple and fast—just O(1) time per packet

Deficit Round Robin is a popular version. It gives each queue a set amount of “credit” to send packets. If a queue doesn’t use all its credits, the leftover rolls into the next round.

This handles different packet sizes well. Big packets don’t end up unfairly eating more bandwidth than small ones.

Weighted Fair Queuing

Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) tweaks the basic round robin approach by letting you set priorities. Not all traffic is equal—WFQ lets you decide who gets more bandwidth.

It still cycles through queues, but higher-priority ones get more turns. So, if one flow has a weight of 2 and another has 1, the first gets twice as much bandwidth.

Typical weighting:

• Premium traffic: Weight 4 (video calls, gaming)
• Standard traffic: Weight 2 (web, email)
• Background traffic: Weight 1 (downloads, backups)

WFQ stays fair while letting critical apps get what they need. If there’s extra capacity, it still gets shared out fairly.

There’s also stratified round robin, which groups flows by priority and then applies round robin within each group. Time-sensitive traffic gets predictable delays, which is great for real-time stuff.

Challenges and Limitations of Round Robin Fairness

Round robin fairness sounds great, but it hits real obstacles in competitive settings. When you have groups of different sizes, things can get lopsided, and tight schedules sometimes force compromises that chip away at the system’s core ideals.

Handling Varying Group Sizes

Different group sizes can really mess with round robin fairness. If you’ve got an odd number of teams or players, some folks end up with more rest between matches, while others might have to play back-to-back.

It gets especially tricky in esports tournaments when teams drop out in the middle. Imagine a group starting with six teams, then suddenly two bail—now you’ve got four left, and their match schedules look nothing like the other groups that kept everyone.

Practical issues include:

• Unequal rest periods between matches

• Some teams playing more games than others

• Difficulty keeping the bracket fair

• Bye rounds that hand out unfair advantages

Tournament organisers constantly wrestle with competitive balance. They have to pick between strict fairness and actually getting through the tournament. Most end up tweaking schedules as they go, which can really annoy participants who expected things to stick to the original plan.

Time Constraints and Scalability

Round robin formats get out of hand fast as the number of participants grows. The total number of matches is n(n-1)/2, so an eight-team event needs 28 matches, but a 16-team event suddenly jumps to 120.

That kind of growth just isn’t realistic for big esports competitions. Major events can’t fit full round robin formats into reasonable timeframes. People lose interest if it drags on, and venues start costing a fortune.

Scaling challenges include:

• Matches multiply way too quickly

• Viewers get bored by repetitive matchups

• Venue and production costs soar

• Scheduling gets tough with player availability

Most big tournaments go for hybrid formats instead. They’ll do round robin in the group stage, then switch to elimination brackets. It’s a compromise—some fairness, but the event stays manageable. Still, you lose out on the “pure” round robin experience.

Future Trends in Fair Tournament Scheduling

Tournament scheduling keeps evolving, especially with new algorithms that juggle fairness in real time. AI can even spot unfair patterns before they actually happen.

Advances in Algorithm Design

New scheduling algorithms are now solving problems that stumped organisers just a few years ago. These systems can juggle multiple fairness factors at once.

Dynamic Scheduling Systems react in real time as tournaments unfold. If a team drops out or a match gets delayed, the algorithm instantly recalculates to keep things fair. This cuts down on the chaos that used to happen when schedules fell apart.

Multi-Factor Optimisation tackles several fairness rules at the same time:

• Equal home/away splits for each team

• Balanced rest periods between matches

• Strength-based opponent rotation

• Venue availability constraints

The latest algorithms can process all this for tournaments with hundreds of teams in just seconds.

Constraint Programming now deals with edge cases much better. If perfect fairness isn’t possible, these systems show organisers which trade-offs they’re making and suggest the least unfair options.

Integration of AI in Fairness Assessment

Organisers now rely on AI tools to guarantee fair scheduling before events even start.

Pattern Recognition lets AI spot advantages that humans might miss. It can scan thousands of possible schedules and flag subtle biases, like certain teams always getting easier early matches or more rest.

Predictive Modelling looks ahead to see how scheduling decisions could impact competitive balance. The AI simulates different setups and shows which ones keep things most balanced.

Machine learning models now learn from past tournaments to tweak fairness criteria. They figure out which scheduling factors really affected outcomes and adjust future recommendations.

Real-time Monitoring during live events warns organisers when fairness starts to slip. They can jump in and fix things before problems snowball.

Frequently Asked Questions

People have a lot of practical questions about round robin fairness—especially when it comes to scheduling, group sizes, and time management. These things matter to everyone, from local gaming nights to pro esports leagues.

How does round robin scheduling ensure equal opportunities for all participants?

Round robin gives each participant the same number of matches against different opponents. Every team or player faces the same conditions throughout the event.

It removes the random bracket luck you get in single-elimination formats. No one gets knocked out just because they drew the toughest opponent first.

Everyone gets equal home and away fixtures if that applies. This stops venue advantages from deciding the results.

The format also spreads out rest periods so everyone gets similar recovery time. That helps keep things fair all the way through.

What are some common challenges encountered with round robin scheduling in tournaments?

Time constraints are probably the biggest headache for organisers. A 16-team round robin needs 120 matches, while single elimination only needs 15.

Venue availability gets tricky when schedules stretch out. Most gaming centres and esports arenas can’t book endless time for one tournament.

Motivation sometimes drops when teams know they’re out of the running early. Players might not give it their all in final matches that don’t matter.

Travel costs can pile up for multi-day events. Teams end up spending more on hotels and transport than they would in shorter formats.

Can you explain the process of calculating time slices in round robin scheduling?

Time slice calculation starts with your total number of participants and available tournament days. Divide the total matches by how many you can run each day to find the minimum duration.

For computer scheduling, time slices mean how long each process gets the system’s attention. The system cycles through, giving each process equal time before moving on.

Tournament time slices work much the same way. You assign specific time blocks to each match. Most esports matches need 30–60 minutes, including setup and possible overtime.

Don’t forget to add buffer time for technical issues or delays. Organisers usually tack on 15–30 minutes between matches to keep things running smoothly.

What is the best strategy to create a fair schedule for a round robin tournament?

Mix up the strength of schedule so each participant faces tough and easy opponents in a balanced way. Don’t lump all the strong teams together at the start or end of someone’s fixtures.

Spread home and away games evenly if venues matter. Everyone should get about the same number of favourable and neutral conditions.

Keep matches spaced out through the tournament. Give everyone similar rest periods to protect competitive integrity.

For multi-venue events, think about travel. Try to keep teams from having to make long trips or play back-to-back matches in different places.

How does round robin handle situations where the number of participants isn’t evenly divisible by the group size?

If the numbers don’t divide evenly, you’ll need bye rounds. Some people sit out each round while others play.

The system rotates bye assignments so everyone gets the same number of rest rounds.

Organisers sometimes add dummy participants to balance things out. These placeholders help the scheduling algorithm work with even group sizes.

Or, you can tweak group sizes a bit to fit odd numbers. That way, everyone gets to play and the competition stays balanced.

In what ways can the standard round robin algorithm be adjusted for improved fairness in diverse scenarios?

Weighted scheduling helps close skill gaps by handing stronger teams tougher fixture lists. That way, dominant teams don’t just breeze through with easy wins.

Time zones matter a lot for online international tournaments. Organizers should shift match times so no region always ends up playing at some wild, inconvenient hour.

Seeded rotations let teams of similar skill levels face off at the same stages. This keeps the matches competitive and, honestly, a lot more exciting for everyone.

Dynamic rest allocation gives teams different recovery times based on how intense their last match was. If a team just slogged through overtime, they’ll get a bit longer to catch their breath before the next game.