How movement works in Ladder League
Movement is what turns last week's results into next week's courts. Once every match in a round is scored, the standings update to the new ladder order; when you generate the next round, the courts are built from it.
Nothing moves until something is scored
If no match in a round has been scored, nobody moves. Generating the next round simply carries the current ladder forward.
This is deliberate. Otherwise an unplayed round would shuffle a field of 0–0 records for no reason. It also means the next-round preview of an unplayed round looks identical to the current one. That is correct, not a bug.
The order things happen in
When the app works out movement, it goes through these steps in order. Knowing the order explains almost every surprising result:
Rank each court by that week's results.
Swap between courts: top finishers move up, bottom finishers move down.
Fit in the absent. Players who did not play hold their existing ladder slot; the players who did play are placed around them, and the whole ladder is renumbered 1..N.
Apply the absence penalty: repeatedly absent players drop down the order. See The absence penalty in Ladder League.
Place held players: players you placed by hand (shown as Held at this spot) start the round at their chosen rank and everyone else is placed around them. The hold then ends.
Results first, then absences, then your hand placements. A hand placement always wins, because it is applied last, but it only lasts one round.
How many move
The Player Movement setting in Ladder League Configuration controls how many players go up and down at each court boundary each week: 1 Player Movement or 2 Player Movement (the default).
Keep 2 for more week-to-week change; choose 1 for a league that settles into a stable order.
Absent players hold their slot
Someone who misses a week does not lose their position through movement. Their ladder rank stays put and the players who played move around them.
The only thing that pushes an absent player down is the absence penalty, and only once they have used their free missed days (1 by default, set under Free missed days).
Scoring type changes movement in Set Partners
In Ladder League (Set Partners), the division's Scoring Configuration decides what movement counts:
Match Wins (default): movement follows matches won.
Individual Game Wins: movement follows games won.
In Ladder League (Set Partners) with Individual Game Wins, a match recorded without per-game scores counts for nothing in movement. Enter scores game by game. Ladder League with rotating partners moves on the match result whichever scoring you pick.
Filler games do not count
On courts where the partnerships don't divide evenly into games, some games exist only to complete everyone's partnerships. The filler side's result doesn't count toward movement, so it can't push anyone up or down.
A player filling in from another court
A game you add with Add Game counts for the players whose court it is. A player from another court in that game keeps their own court: the result does not move them, and it stays out of their standings.
Their court for the week is the court of the games the app generated for them, so filling in never moves someone onto the court they visited. The same rule covers standings and Edit Groups in How court movement works in Ladder formats.