Troubleshoot Pecking Order

Someone went from the bottom court to near the top after a single win.

Cause: The ranking is rebuilt from scratch every round rather than moved one court at a time. A player with a short record and a high win percentage sorts near the top, so early rounds move people a long way.

Fix: Working as intended. Movement settles as players accumulate games and win percentages spread out.

Both are 2-1 but only one is on the top court.

Cause: Level records are separated by average point differential first, then by the court each played on last round.

Fix: Working as intended. Winning by wider margins, and doing it higher up, both rank you above the same record earned narrowly or lower down.

A few players take a bye most rounds.

Cause: The bye setting is on position, which sits the bottom of the ranking. With many more players than courts, that is the same people every round.

Fix: Switch to rotation when you generate the next round. It spreads byes by how many each player has already taken, so the field evens out from that point. See Player counts and byes in Pecking Order.

Eight players are idle on a 20-player night.

Cause: The field is capped by your court count. Three courts hold twelve players, so eight sit regardless of the roster size.

Fix: Add courts to put more players on at once. There is nothing to fix in the roster — the format is built to absorb the surplus through rotating byes.

You cannot generate over the current round.

Cause: A round has to be cleared before it is rebuilt, so a half-finished round is never silently replaced.

Fix: Clear the round, then generate it again.

You cleared and regenerated, and a different pair sat out.

Cause: With rotation byes, players who have taken the same number of byes are separated at random.

Fix: Nothing to fix; bye counts stay even either way. Use position byes if you need the selection to be repeatable.

The round will not build.

Cause: Fewer than four players are available. Four fill one court and are the minimum for a round.

Fix: Add players, or for a league check who actually opted in for that date. See League opt-in.

Round 1 courts mixed strong and weak players.

Cause: Round 1 is seeded from ratings, and players without a DUPR or anchor rating sort to the bottom regardless of ability. Seeding randomly produces the same effect by design.

Fix: Add ratings before the first session if you want a rated opening round. From round 2 the order comes from results, so this corrects itself quickly.

The same two players were paired in consecutive rounds.

Cause: Players with similar records land on the same court repeatedly, which is the format sorting correctly. Within a court, a repeat partnership is avoided where possible, but with four players there are only three ways to split them.

Fix: Nothing to fix. It resolves as records separate and players move to different courts.