def bathmologia(agwnes): scores = {} for i in agwnes: print i tl=i.split(": ") tl1=tl[0].split("-") print tl , tl1 if tl1[0] not in scores: scores[tl1[0]]=0 if tl1[1] not in scores: scores[tl1[1]]=0 tl2=tl[1].split("-") if int(tl2[0]) > int(tl2[1]): scores[tl1[0]] += 3 elif int(tl2[0]) < int(tl2[1]): scores[tl1[1]] += 3 else: scores[tl1[0]] += 1 scores[tl1[1]] += 1 return scores agwnes = ['aa-bb: 3-1', 'aa-cc: 1-1', 'bb-cc: 0-2', 'cc-dd: 2-2', 'dd-aa: 2-1'] x = bathmologia(agwnes) print x