Thanks everybody for detailing how you set up the rotations. I have been trying to get a league going at the Game Preserve for a while and we have tried several approaches. The first was to run double elimination tournaments. Everyone is randomly seeded and pairs draw for the machine they are to play. Each player gets 2 games and the total score of both games determines the winner. 16 player tournaments usually last about 3 hours.
The other approach was to establish a ladder similar to the way they do squash/handball ladders. Every round lasted 2 weeks (big mistake, that really slowed things down). You can challenge up to 2 positions above your current position. Each round is played on a single machine with each player getting 2 games, total score determines the winner. There was no limit on the number of games you had to play in a round, but you had to play at least 1 or it was a two position penalty. So what ended up happening was a ton of activity on Saturday nights and nothing any other time. The format was fun because it really encourages a lot of smack talking and somebody on a roll that night can move way up the ladder. Conversely, when you are having a bad night, you can really fall down the ladder too.
I have been trying to figure out a bowling style round robin and some of the suggestions in this thread have given me plenty to think about.
ken