League Championship Algorithm (LCA): An algorithm for global optimization inspired by sport championships

League Championship Algorithm (LCA) is a recently proposed stochastic population based algorithm for continuous global optimization which tries to mimic a championship environment wherein artificial teams play in an artificial league for several weeks (iterations). Given the league schedule in each week, a number of individuals as sport teams play in pairs and their game outcome is determined in terms of win or loss (or tie), given known the playing strength (fitness value) along with the intended team formation/arrangement (solution) developed by each team. Modeling an artificial match analysis, each team devises the required changes in its formation (generation of a new solution) for the next week contest and the championship goes on for a number of seasons (stopping condition). An add-on module based on modeling the end season transfer of players is also developed to possibly speed up the global convergence of the algorithm. The aim of this paper is to describe LCA in a step by step manner together with verifying the rationale of the algorithm and suitability of the updating equations empirically.