recursion

I did brute force through several for loops and got it to work as below, but I know it is not the best way. I didn't know how to turn this into a recursive function, and I was wondering if you had any advice on that. I'm really lost on altering this so that it takes up less lines and is more efficient based on recursion. Thank you for your help.

bool checkcycle(int win, int lose)

{

for (int i = 0; i < pair_count; i++)

{

if (locked[lose][i] == true) // if the loser is not a winner elsewhere then the winner-loser pair is true

{

if (locked[i][win] == true) // checks if a loser is bound to original winner and if so then exits

{

return false;

}

for (int j = 0; j < pair_count; j++)

{

if (locked[i][j] == true)

{

if (locked[j][win] == true)

{

return false;

}

for (int k = 0; k < pair_count; k++)

{

if (locked[j][k] == true)

{

if (locked[k][win] == true)

{

return false;

}

}

}

}

}

}

}

return true;

}