Getting started with Humpty Dumpty
Win and climb a court. Lose and hold your place. Lose on the top court and you fall all the way to the bottom.
Two variants:
Humpty Dumpty (Individual) — new partner every round
Humpty Dumpty (Set Partners) — fixed pairs all season
Start with How Humpty Dumpty works.
Season lifecycle
1. Create the event. Always a League event. See Create a Humpty Dumpty event.
2. Set play dates and the opt-in deadline before generating. See Managing rounds and dates in Ladder formats and League opt-in.
3. Generate week 1 and pick the starting order. See Generate rounds in Humpty Dumpty.
4. Score the round. See Scoring matches in Ladder formats.
5. Generate the next round. Winners climb, middle losers hold, top-court losers fall.
Repeat 4 and 5 each week.
Good to know before you start
A loss usually costs nothing except the chance to climb. Only the top court is dangerous.
The top court is the whole tension of the format — it is the only place a loss is expensive.
Players bunch upward over a season. That is inherent: nobody moves down except from Court 1.
Courts are exactly 4 and play one match a round. Any remainder sits out.
More courts makes the fall harsher. Falling from Court 1 to Court 8 hurts far more than falling to Court 3.
Nothing moves until the round is scored.
Not the same as Up and Down the River
Up and Down the River | Humpty Dumpty | |
|---|---|---|
Win | Up one court | Up one court |
Lose (middle) | Down one court | Stay put |
Lose (top court) | Down one court | Fall to the bottom |
That middle row is the difference your players feel every week. If you want losses to cost a court everywhere, use Up and Down the River. If you want a ladder with round robins and a ranked order, use Ladder League.
Settings
Bye Mode is the one you will actually set — chosen when you generate. See Byes in Humpty Dumpty.
Other ladder settings live in Event Settings → Ladder League Configuration, shared across the ladder formats. Game scoring per court size is the one most worth setting here. See Ladder League Configuration settings.