Generate rounds in Crazy 8's
The first generation builds the groups and seeds them. Every round after that is winners-stay, losers-swap within the same group.
First generation
Choose how to sort players — by rating, or random. That order becomes the seeding, which decides both the groups and the round 1 pairings.
Groups of 8 are built from the top down. Spare players become ninth seeds in the lower groups.
Round 1 pairs by seed:
Court | Pairing |
|---|---|
Court A | Seeds 1 & 8 vs 2 & 7 |
Court B | Seeds 3 & 6 vs 4 & 5 |
Later rounds in the same day
Score the current round.
Generate the next.
Four winners, four losers. Winners keep their partner and play on one court; losers swap partners and play on the other.
The group does not change. The same eight players stay together all day — the sorting happens between the two courts, not between groups.
Score the round before generating the next one. Without results there are no winners to keep together.
The rotating ninth player
In a nine-player group, one player sits out each round.
Between rounds the bye passes to one of the losers, preferring whoever has sat out fewest times so far. The player returning from bye takes the place of the one going out.
This keeps the sit-outs spread across the group rather than falling on the same person, and it draws from the losing side so a winning pair is never broken up by a bye.
Editing groups before you generate
The group editor lets you set seeds by number and remove players from the active pool. Do this before generating a round rather than after.
When you have edited groups manually, the next generation uses seeded pairings based on your order rather than winners-stay — your edit takes precedence over the previous round's results.
See Seeds and groups in Crazy 8's.
Starting a new day
For a league, generating a new play date applies movement between groups first, then seeds the new groups and pairs round 1 from those seeds.
Performance across the previous day decides who moves up and who moves down.
Re-sorting everyone
If you need to rebuild the groups from scratch — a big roster change, or a first session that seeded badly — a re-sort re-pools every player and rebuilds the groups and seeds from your chosen order.
This discards the current grouping, so use it deliberately.