Rotation guide · Court Social
What a fair rotation can—and cannot—do
Understand waiting streaks, balanced appearances, repeat partners and the limits of a round-based rotation.
An original guide to this tool’s behavior, not official competition rules.
Put waiting players first
Court Social selects active players by consecutive sit-outs first, then by their recorded playing share of eligible completed rounds, then by games played. A seeded tie-break makes the preview reproducible. Only completed matches count as games. Sit-outs are recorded when a round is completed, and only for the eligible people explicitly listed as sitting out. Cancelling a match does not turn its players into sit-outs.
A 12-player example
With 12 players, 2 courts and 6 fully completed rounds, there are 8 playing places per round: 48 appearances in total. With no manual swaps or player changes, the rotation gives each person 4 appearances and 2 sit-out rounds. That does not mean every partner or opponent will be new. Starting a preview, reshuffling it or opening another view never adds an appearance.
When equal shares are impossible
With 9 people on 2 courts for 6 rounds, there are 48 appearances. Dividing by 9 gives 5 appearances each with 3 left over. Equal appearances for everyone are impossible in that schedule. The actual Games played and Sit-out rounds columns show the distribution; Court Social does not promise absolute equality for arbitrary player changes or manual adjustments.
Fresh partners come after playing time
After selecting players, the planner compares 240 seeded team arrangements. It prefers fewer repeated partner pairings, then fewer repeated opponents. This bounded candidate search is not a proof of an optimal schedule. With 4 people there are only 3 possible partners each, so repeats are inevitable over longer sessions. Manual swaps can also introduce repeats or change playing-time balance; review the preview and fairness table before starting.
Changing the eligible group
Late arrivals have no sit-outs recorded before they join. Paused and departed players are not added to future waiting lists, and absence breaks a waiting streak. Their old results remain. Games played and Unique partners are lifetime session totals; eligibility and sit-outs cover only recorded rounds in which that person was available. The scheduler uses the playing share rather than treating missed time as an automatic debt of games. If everyone plays different numbers of rounds, compare the eligibility column too—not just raw appearances.
Read results without inventing a ranking
Unique partners counts distinct partners in finished matches. Wins, draws and losses use only finished matches with two recorded scores. An unscored finished match is shown separately, never treated as a loss. This tool records casual outcomes, allows tied scores and does not enforce official scoring rules, skill ratings or rankings.