How court movement works in Ladder formats
Court movement determines where players or teams go after each ladder round. The movement rule depends on the ladder format you chose.
Up and Down the River
Winners move up one court and losers move down one court. A winner already on Court 1 stays there. A loser already on the bottom court stays there.
For the full rules, including how the bye group is handled, see How movement works in Up and Down the River.
Ladder League
Ladder League does not use simple winner-up, loser-down movement. Each court plays a full round robin, and movement is driven by where you finish in it rather than by a single win or loss. The number of players moving between courts each round is configurable — 1 or 2.
It also maintains a persistent division-wide ladder rank, which the other formats don't have, and an absence penalty, which it shares only with Cream of the Crop. See How movement works in Ladder League.
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty uses more dramatic movement. Winners move up one court. Losers on Court 1 fall all the way to the bottom court. Losers on any other court stay where they are rather than moving down.
Cream of the Crop
Cream of the Crop regroups the whole field by finishing place instead of moving players court by court. Every court winner is ranked first, then every runner-up, and so on, and the courts are filled from the top of that list. Winning the bottom court can put you on Court 1.
A player who misses a round keeps the place they last finished in, and leagues apply the same absence penalty as Ladder League. See How Cream of the Crop works.
Crazy 8's
Crazy 8's does not move players between courts at all during a day. Groups of eight stay together and results change your partner rather than your court; movement between groups happens between days.
See How Crazy 8's works.
When the next week's court appears
After a round completes, standings park on the upcoming week and show each player's projected ladder order. The court number is hidden until you generate that week's matches — while the week is still upcoming, opt-ins are in flux, so the court a player would land on is only a projection, not a commitment. Once you generate the round, the courts appear.
To set the order before you generate, see Adjust the ladder by hand.
How byes are handled
When player counts are uneven, some formats show byes at the bottom of the matches view. Up and Down the River and Humpty Dumpty can show bye players. Ladder League does not use a separate bye group — its courts flex between 4 and 6 players instead. Cream of the Crop never uses byes: every player is seated, on courts of 4 and 5 (or larger when courts are limited).
For the formats that do, you can choose how byes are assigned. See Bye Mode for Ladder Leagues.
To understand how round results affect rankings, see How Standings Are Calculated.
When someone fills in on another court
A game you add with Add Game counts for the players whose court it is, and not for a player from another court who fills in. Each player's court for the round is the court of the games the app generated for them.
A hand-added game decides someone's court only when they have no generated game that round, such as a player you added by hand after the round was created.
For the player filling in, that game:
does not move them up or down, and stays out of their standings
does not list them on that court, or count them in its player count or its sitting-out note
leaves them on their own court in Edit Groups
A court whose only game is one of these belongs to nobody that round. It is left out of the standings and does not change Champion Points.
This applies to Ladder League, Ladder League (Set Partners), Up and Down the River, Up and Down the River (Set Partners), Humpty Dumpty (Individual), and Humpty Dumpty (Set Partners).