How partners are chosen each round
In the individual variant of Up and Down the River, you get a new partner every round. The app picks the pairing rather than leaving it to chance, and it has a clear order of priorities.
This applies to Up and Down the River only. In Up and Down the River (Set Partners) partners are fixed for the season and none of this runs.
Only three options exist
A court has exactly 4 players, so there are only three ways to split them into two pairs. Ranking that court's players 1st to 4th by standings:
Option | Pairing |
|---|---|
A | 1st + 4th vs 2nd + 3rd |
B | 1st + 3rd vs 2nd + 4th |
C | 1st + 2nd vs 3rd + 4th |
Option A is the most balanced — it puts the strongest with the weakest. Option C is the least, stacking the top two together.
How the app chooses
Priorities, in order:
1. Split up previous partnerships. Any option where neither pair has partnered before is preferred over everything else. Variety of partners comes first.
2. Then take the most balanced. Among the options that fully split previous partnerships, it picks the most balanced one — A before B before C.
3. Partial split if it has to. If no option fully splits, it takes one where at least one pair is new.
4. Repeat only as a last resort. If every option repeats both partnerships, it falls back to the most balanced.
So a slightly less balanced match beats putting the same two people together again.
Why a match can look lopsided
Because splitting partnerships outranks balance, you will sometimes see Option B or C — the top two players together against the bottom two.
That is the algorithm preferring fresh pairings over an even match, and it is working as intended. Over a season it produces more partner variety than always optimising for balance.
Standings drive the ranking
The 1st-to-4th ordering within a court comes from your division's standings sort, including its tiebreakers. Change the standings sort and you change which pairing counts as "balanced."
See How Standings Are Calculated.