I would like to organise a regular weekly doubles badminton ladder activity for a local community. I want it to run in such a way that all ladder games are played during the weekly sessions only and that there are no fixed partners for the season or session (i.e. there is a fluid change of partners every game). The people likely to attend will be intermediate adult social players. There'll probably be a mix of women and men. I don't think we'll have enough people to do separate ladders for men's, women's and mixed so a system that handicaps appropriately would be better. I'd like to also run this for kids but this would be a separate ladder session that could use the same rules as for the adults (or something very close to it if it does need tweaking). Are there any tried and tested systems to do this? If not, can anyone make up something that could reasonably work? I tried to think of a few ideas but haven't really got much. Thanks in advance
How many courts v people have you got? and what do you mean by ladder games? like the person below on the ladder can challenge one up and move up but never two individuals stay together playing? Sorry bit confused seen a few systems just not quite sure what your after.
I haven't actually started this so not sure how many courts/people we'll have but I'd guess on having about 3 to 4 courts and 16 to 24 people. What I mean by ladder is as you describe. There would be a round robin style picking system where they can pick their partner and then pick the team they will challenge. Then normal ladder rules (if challengers win then they move up the ladder, if they lose then no change). The team pairings only apply for that game and thus no person has a fixed partner. There'd obviously need to be rules on how you pick the game - One idea I thought of was, the picker you will pick 3 other people from the ladder from a maximum of X positions above and/or below on the ladder. Of those 4 people and their relative ranking, the picker will be 2nd ranked and partner with the 4th ranked (or picker will be 4th ranked and partner with the 2nd rank). The 1st and 3rd ranked players will be the opposing team. If the challengers win then the 2nd rank will move directly above the 1st rank person and the 4th rank will move directly above the 3rd rank person. This seems like it would be fair if all the players were single *** players but in reality there will probably be a small percentage of female players.
What we do at one open club is 6 courts (could be 4 or 3) everybody take place on court randomly at start of the night. You play with the same player 2 games in a row(could be one game) then switch with the player across the net from you (after you have moved up or down). After each game if you win move up a court if you lose move down a court. If you have excess players to courts you just have to slot them in and take them off as fairly as possible.
This is a good idea for a ladder that runs just in one session but I'm looking to keep the ladder going for a season of around 10 weeks. During the season, I hope to have the same faces turning up but in reality, there'll probably be a few new faces and a few that drop out. I could use your idea to run the session and then allocate points based on the position of everyone at the end of the session, the points would then be used in the season ranking. The main problem with this is that in a single session, I will definitely have more players than places on the court. And I can't think of how to slot players onto the court fairly in such a way that all players get roughly equal turns with sitting out. Any ideas?
You will probably take everyone off once in a 2 hour session, if you take someone of court three(or 2 or 4) replace him on court three(2 or 4) after his one game break. Take someone of court 1 try replace him on court 1 after break. It's sometimes not perfect but one court down(or up) after their one game break, over the course of a night makes not much difference.
Whilst I appreciate that there is likely to be a range of abilities & that there's nothing wrong with a ladder, do you really need one? Most club sessions consist of a pegboard. It's primary advantages are that it is simple and ensures that people tend to get the same number of gamess. Alternatively, you could try a 'top court' system. There's a pdf in one of the other treads which explains it better, but essentially each court effectively has it's own pegboard. The pair which win move 'up' a court/board, the others move down. May give you the sorting you need and still enables a mix of partners.
I can't see how this would work. Taking off someone on one court won't mean that court will have a space when they are due to come back on. Either I will need to reshuffle everyone around every time someone comes back on (which will be too messy) or players won't have even turns at sitting out (which is unfair). This would be great I had exactly the amount of players as courts spaces but this won't happen. Yes, I definitely want a ladder as I feel this is what will make this club successful for the targeted community. It will give a sense of competition and motivation for people to attend each week. I agree the peg system is good and gives everyone even games but it's missing the ladder competition element. I couldn't find the post regarding the 'top court' system but it sounds like the system that craigandy has already mentioned in this topic. Any chance you can link the post for it? Does it accommodate having more players than courts in a fair way? Thanks again everyone.
It's not that messy as i said sometimes you have to put them one court down when bringing them back on or one court up depending on who is still to come off. At the end of the night (season if you are allocating points at the end) the best players still end up at the top. All other ladder systems will be a lot more messy if you are constantly switching partners. Cheers Good Luck!
View attachment Badminton Rota System.pdf Found it. Personally, I think you'll need approximately 8 players per court minimum & you could have a court 'run-dry' every now and then, but is probably worth testing & taking feedback.
