Hi there We have been using the pegboard system but there have been rumblings of discontent in some of the better players being stuck with those who are not as strong. Personally, I think that is the luck of the draw and when its your own turn, pick the stronger players if thats the kind of game you want but each to their own. There is a system whereby you all start on court and the winning pair move up a court but split to opposing sides and the losing pair move down a court and split. We are struggling however, with people who are sitting off as we have more than 16 players so the rotation is difficult. Anyone have any suggests as to how we integrate them into the games? I've tried to find info online but not having any joy. Cheers
We have anarchy, it works fine. Some unwritten rules: - Don't be a duck - You have to switch it up with other people after every match
Lol! If only it were that easy. Folks have been threatening to leave so someone came up with the up/down idea but we can't get it to work without having exactly the right amount of players I was just curious as to whether any other players/clubs had used it successfully?
It won’t work perfectly and there would be random variations from week to week. Assuming there are two hour sessions and four courts, you could pilot a hybrid system where the pegboard is used for 1h 20mins and the the last half hour or so, the players get loosely separated into levels to rotate play amongst themselves. That way they can get games which are balanced with the four players. Obviously, some weaker players or newer members will be a quite shy so a nice club committee member who notices a person sitting out for too long and helps arrange a game for them would be greatly appreciated. You need something for the better players otherwise they would have travelled to and from home without getting a challenging workout - no one likes paying time and money for that.
Ahh, the diplomatic pegboard system. You have to match skill with amount of time on court. No one likes sitting off. We use a pegboard system at two clubs I play at. One is a plastic, social club. It's below my standard, but still fun. You get good games, but few long ralleys. No one complains about the games that I see. Most people i've seen is 26 at once across 4 courts. When picking you pick from the next 6 people. There's only a problem with repetition if you have 20-23 people and people 17-23 keep only having themselves to pick from. You want to play with other people, not the same 3-6 each game. The more advanced club I play at does have some Cliques, but there is also 1-6 visitors a week. Most people there have been playing a long time to a high standard and if there are any young or new people that show up, they have likely been coached as Junior or have some experience in competitions. Out of maybe 10-15 club nights i've been to there was one specific lady I had never been on court with, until last week. Pegboard and favouritisms ^^. I would say get a non player to act as a "Co-ordinator". So they are in control of the board and match players skillwise. Like Cheung said, it's not fun to beat weaker players and then sit out and pay money for the privilege
Hi Dave. It's not the pegboard that's the problem is more how to deal with those sitting off if using the up/down method. We have on average about 18-20 every week and it will get harder to sort when we start league season as one court is permanently used for the match. Everyone knows how the pegboard works and how to "play" it for better games etc. I think everyone should rotate between players and just suck it up if they get what they deem "a bad game". However, they want to trail this up/down thing which brings its own problems to the court
I do agree that the "up down" method you described has problems. People should not sit out more than 1 game in a row. A variation of "winner stays on" is unfair to weaker players, as they will play one, maybe lose it and then sit out. I had this happen to me at my Tuesday club last month. 6 players across 2 courts. I go on, get paired with a weaker player and lose the game. I then practice serves for up to 10 minutes because the "winner stayed on". Same thing happens next time I go on court. Playing, sitting, playing, sitting. It really irked me
Thanks Dave. Looks like they are implementing the up down method (probably alternating with the pegboard) as they've been working on a "visual" explanation of the system to help players know where they should be but I think we should definitely add "People should not sit out more than 1 game in a row".
Thanks to everyone who replied. It doesn't look like there is an effective alternative to the pegboard so we will be trialling the up/down system alternating with the pegboard from week to week (depending on numbers) Hopefully we will get to grips with what we are doing. Only time will tell if it actually works or not.
What is the ratio of better players, beginner, average players? I assume you have 4 courts, right? What about the option of having one court for the better players who queue just on their court? That would lead to only quality matches for them, but they will compremise court time. If they are unhappy with less time/matches they can also queue on the other courts, but mix with the other players. This would be a fair system of giving them the enviroment of only good games, but also give the option to be okay to play with everybody else depending on mood. The rest stick to previous system and can use the peg board as usual. IMO on the peg board the better players are also open to refuse to play and get placed at the end of the queue, so they had the option to play less in the past, but with more quality as well. IMO this is the only fair solution to respect the ambition of the better players to give them more quality, but less quantity of games.
Thank you for your reply. We've actually started using our ladder system (sometime called the whist system?) and while it works ok with a good rotation of players if we have any more than 2 sitting off it becomes a pain and we simply revert back to the pegboard. Folk seem to have got to grips with it so far and we'll have to see if it works during league season as we usually are down a court for home games.
A little similar to the 'queue for one court' option: We operate a winner-goes-up loser-goes-down for 25 or so players on 4 courts. 25%/75% women/men. Even spread of abilities from beginner to county standard club. It runs much like having 4 mini waiting list / pegboard sections - one for each court. As players arrive they are distributed evenly across all available court lists, roughly in order of ability to begin with if players arrive on time together, but it's not critical. Person at the top of each court list picks a game for that court, from the people on their court waiting list. Games are to 21, and all games start and finish together: the first court to reach 21 calls 'TIME' and all games finish regardless of score. Highest score or side with the serve is the winner. Everyone comes off at once. If you win, you put your name at the bottom of the next court up's list (or the same court for top court). Likewise if you lose, you put your name at the bottom of the list for the next court down. Generally winners' names are placed above the losers. If people arrive late they get added to balance the numbers on each court list. You could swap people around if you like to fit them in the right 'place' but it sorts itself out quick enough. If you open up an additional court just shuffle people around fairly when a cycle finishes. Pros: After a couple of cycles, the levels are pretty balanced. Proper motivation for all players to play well. Good for bringing on strong women players. Cons: needs a bigger pegboard? Needs a critical mass of players - works best when no-one is sat off. Still have issues with favouritism / cronyism. Solve with common sense rules e.g. only 1 game off / random picking / another court picks your games If you've fewer than 4 courts, there's not much stratification of ability. With just 3 courts the middle court can be a real mix of abilities; handle it with common sense selection. If you want dedicated mixed practice then it gets tricky.
Simply - no. Is it a different type of game? Yes. Is is good psychological practice? Yes. Is it good formal match practice? Perhaps you'd need to supplement with games to 21 for match practice. It's a different kind of match pressure than reaching 21, but IMHO it's good for you. Every point could be match point. Every point clear of your opponent's score is a safety buffer. Every serve counts and you can't just rest on your laurels and rely on 'catching up' later in the game. It really helps your concentration and ability to maintain pressure. Try it!
Hallo I know this thread is old. Just wanted to give some input. We have a little club around 25 - 30 players. We started using a system that also moves people up / down a club ladder. We try to get the levels of players to fit best so the matches are as equal as possible. We play with 4 - 5 - 6 players per court depending on how many players meet up. 4 player total of 6 matches. 5 players total of 10 matches. 6 Players total of 9 matches. We often play the matches with best out of one, and not best out of three. Again depends on player count. We use excel sheet on a laptop to track the progress witch automatically calculates and call the matches. Its pretty new to us but it really creates some equal plays as far. People really just sets more into it because of this. You can also do this on plain paper. Its a lot to track every thing on paper. The reason we started all this. The level of play between players varies a lot. From players playing for many years and new players. We still wanted a social club but some players also want the tight games were equal player play best so to speak. May the badminton force be with you
We currently use a computer application which seiects players based on their ability and gender. There's a lot of settings and rules you can tweak in the system. Time slots per game can be set like 10 minutes. The computer picks the next pairings 3 to 5 minutes or more before a current match finishes. This time someone can check the next selection and can tweak or move some players if they wishes.
