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What is Court Captain?

Court Captain is a round-robin and ladder scheduling app for pickleball players. It helps you organize sessions, track standings, and manage team members effortlessly.

Whether you're running a casual group session or a competitive league, Court Captain makes it easy to create fair matchups and track player performance.

Getting Started

1. Create an account - Sign up with your email and complete your profile
2. Set up your DUPR rating - Enter your DUPR (Digital Universal Pickleball Rating) to help with fair matchmaking
3. Join or create a team - Teams group players who play together regularly
4. Create sessions - Schedule pickleball sessions for your team
5. Play matches - Record scores and see standings update in real-time

Teams

Teams are the core organizational unit in Court Captain. Each team has:

• Members - Players who belong to the team
• Sessions - Individual playing events
• Invite code - Share with others to join the team

Team owners and admins can create sessions, manage members, and configure session settings.

Open vs Closed Teams

Team owners can choose between two team types:

• Open Team - Anyone with the invite code can join immediately
• Closed Team - Players must request to join and get approved by an admin/owner

Joining a Closed Team

When you enter an invite code for a closed team:

1. Your request is submitted to the team admin/owner
2. You'll see a pending approval message
3. Check "My Requests" in the menu to see your request status
4. Once approved, you'll be added to the team automatically

Managing Join Requests

Team admins and owners can view and manage join requests:

1. Go to your team page
2. Click "View Join Requests" in the invite code section (for closed teams)
3. Review pending requests
4. Click Approve or Reject for each request

You can change a team's open/closed status at any time from the team settings (Admin view).

Team Roles

Court Captain has three team roles:

• Owner - Can manage all team settings, create/manage sessions, add/remove admins, remove members
• Admin - Can create/manage sessions, view member list
• Player - Can join sessions and record scores

Team owners can promote players to admin or demote admins back to player. Only owners can remove members from the team.

Sessions

A session is a single playing event within a team. When you create a session, you can configure:

• Format - Round Robin or Ladder
• Max capacity - Maximum number of players (4-32)
• Date & time - When the session takes place
• Name - A descriptive name for the session

Session States

• Open - Players can register/unregister. Rounds are not generated yet.
• Active - Registration closed. Rounds are generated and matches are played.
• Completed - Session ended. Final standings are displayed.

Players can register for open sessions until capacity is reached. Once the session starts, the format determines how matches are generated. A minimum of 4 players is required to start a session.

Sitouts

When the number of players isn't divisible by 4, some players will need to sit out. Court Captain handles sitouts in two ways:

• Manual Sitouts (M) - Admins can manually select players to sit out before generating a round
• Automatic Sitouts (A) - If there are still extra players after manual selection, the system automatically selects additional sitouts

The automatic sitout feature prioritizes players who haven't sat out in previous rounds to ensure fair playing time.

Valid sitout requirements: At least 4 active players per round, and the number of active players must be divisible by 4.

Round Robin Format

In Round Robin format, players are randomly matched each round while avoiding repeat partnerships and opponents. This format is ideal for:

• Ensuring everyone plays against different opponents each round
• Mixing up partner combinations for social play
• Small to medium groups (4-16 players)

The system generates courts each round by seeding players based on their team points (or DUPR rating if no history), then pairing them using a balanced 1+3 vs 2+4 pattern to create competitive matchups. Players who've previously partnered or played against each other are avoided when possible.

Ladder Format

In Ladder format, players are ranked and play against others at similar skill levels. This format is ideal for:

• Competitive leagues
• Tracking skill improvement over time
• Ensuring close, competitive matches

After each round, winners move up to higher courts and losers move down. Players are seeded by team points or DUPR rating, and the system uses a balanced 1+3 vs 2+4 pairing pattern to create competitive matchups. History-aware matching avoids repeat partnerships and opponents when possible.

Scoring

Match scores are entered by players after each game. Points are calculated as follows:

• Win - 10 points
• Point differential - 0.5 points per point difference

For example, if you win 11-8, you get 10 + (3 × 0.5) = 11.5 points. This system rewards not just winning, but winning decisively.

Player Stats

Court Captain tracks your match statistics across all teams and sessions. Your stats are automatically updated when sessions are completed.

Where to Find Stats

Access your stats from your Profile page by clicking "View Stats". You can see:

• Overall Statistics - Total matches, wins, losses, win rate, sessions played, and teams played across
• Team-specific Stats - Performance breakdown for each team you've played with

How Stats Work

• Stats are calculated from completed session matches only
• Your stats persist even if teams or sessions are deleted
• Win percentage = (Wins / Total Matches) × 100

If a user account is deleted, all associated stats are also removed.

Contact

Have questions or need help? Reach out to us at: