Seeds and groups in Crazy 8's
Every player carries a seed from 1 to 8 within their group. Seeds decide the opening pairings, and you can change them by hand.
Where seeds come from
Seeds are assigned when you first generate, from the sort you choose — by rating, or random.
Groups are built from that order: the strongest eight form the top group, the next eight the group below, and so on down.
Within each group, players are numbered 1 to 8 in that same order. Seed 1 is the top of the group.
Seeds are editable
The seed is not locked to a rating. Open the group editor and set a player's number directly — the app uses your order rather than recalculating from DUPR.
This matters because a rating is often a poor guide to who should be seeded where in a social league. If you know two players are stronger than their rating suggests, seed them accordingly.
Edited seeds persist. They survive reloads and carry into later sessions until you change them again.
What seeds actually control
The round 1 pairings. Seeds 1 & 8 partner against 2 & 7 on one court; 3 & 6 against 4 & 5 on the other. Strongest with weakest, so the day opens balanced.
Group membership. Where you sit in the overall order decides which group of eight you land in.
After round 1, seeds stop driving pairings — winners stay together and losers swap, so results take over. Seeds come back into play when a new day is generated.
Nine-player groups
A group can hold nine — eight active and one sitting out at a time.
The ninth seed goes to the lowest-rated groups first, so the top group stays a clean eight wherever possible. That keeps the strongest players in a clean two-court rotation and pushes the awkward extra down the ladder.
Only one extra per group is supported. If your numbers leave more than one spare per group, you need another group.
Excluding players
Players removed from the active pool in the group editor are left out of generation entirely — they are not seeded, grouped, or scheduled.
Use this for someone who is registered but not playing that session.
Roster sizes
Because groups are eight, roster size shapes the event more than in other formats:
Players | Groups |
|---|---|
8 | One group of 8 |
9 | One group of 9 — one player sits out each round |
16 | Two groups of 8 |
17 | Groups of 8 and 9, with the 9 lower down |
24 | Three groups of 8 |
Multiples of 8 divide cleanly. Anything else distributes the spare players as ninth seeds, starting from the bottom.