Open Play, Clinic, League, or Tournament?

The short answer: one night with rotating partners is Open Play. Coaching over several weeks is a Clinic. A season with standings is a League. A bracket that produces a winner is a Tournament. A season stitched from nights you already run is a Series.

How to choose

Open Play is the default: one night, one entry fee, people rotate. Formats include Americano, Mexicano, King of the Court and round robin — pick the one you actually call out on court, because it changes how points are awarded.

Clinic is the only format built around a coach teaching rather than players competing. No scoring, no standings, and sessions are enrolled individually, so someone can take weeks 2 and 4 and skip the rest. If you want a coach working with one to four people, that is Private Lessons, not a clinic.

League is a season with standings. You set the number of weeks — eight by default, anywhere from two to fifty-two — and every week is generated at once as its own event. Two consequences worth knowing before you commit:

• Players pay per week, not once for the season. A $20 fee over eight weeks is $160, charged eight times.

• You open each week's registration individually, from Events → Open Play. This catches everyone out at least once.

Tournament is the only format with draws and brackets. Players register to the tournament as a whole and are placed into an eligible draw automatically by rating, gender and space. If nobody fits, the player gets an unhelpful “no eligible competition” message — so keep rating bands wide enough to cover who is actually signing up.

Series is the one people miss. Instead of building a season from scratch, you link open play nights you already run into a season leaderboard. Each night scores from 100 down to 10 by finishing position, and a player's season score is their best few nights — so missing a week does not wreck them.

Use a Series when you already have a good Thursday night and want it to add up to something. Use a League when you want a fixed roster committed to a fixed season.

Two rules when linking nights into a Series: a night can only belong to one series, and it must not have started yet.

The differences that matter

• Length — Open Play is one session; Clinics, Leagues and Series run over multiple; a Tournament is one event with several draws.

• Sign-ups — individuals or fixed pairs for Open Play and Leagues, per session for Clinics, to the group for Tournaments.

• Brackets — Tournaments only.

• Standings — per night for Open Play, across the season for Leagues, a best-of leaderboard for Series, per draw for Tournaments. Clinics have none.

• Payment — per night, per session, per week, or per draw. Never once for a whole league season.

Before you build

Three decisions that are painful to change later:

• Fixed partners or rotating? Fixed-partner events register two people as a unit, which changes sign-up, substitutions, and whether standings track a team or a person.

• Rating band? Remember unrated players skip the check entirely.

• Members-only? A members-only event must be free — if you want members free and others paying, use the separate free-for-members setting instead.

Do not use Copy Event. It is on the menu, but it opens a blank creation form rather than copying anything. Build from scratch until we have fixed it.