break your limits

BADMINTON LADDER NIGHTS

Badminton – a complete sport demands power, speed, skills and strategy! Here is where you test yourself.

Competitive (13+) Doubles Ladder

Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles – we aim to have it all! Competitive Badminton Ladder is not for the feint of heart, but for those who live for competition! Are you counting your wins and losses? Cuz we are. Rank up every Thursday at 6-11PM and 8-11PM!

First time players must complete a self assessment: Click Here

$20.00/ session

Competitive (13+) Mixed Doubles Ladder

First time pairings must complete a self-assessment: Click Here

$20.00/ session

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Competitive (13+) singles Ladder

First time players must complete a self assessment: Click Here

$14.00/ session

Please note that services and prices shown are subject to taxes and may change at any time at the sole discretion of the Club.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the doubles ladder format?

Players are divided into groups of four according to their leaderboard rating (Elo). Each group is made up of players whose Elo scores are similar, so the players are roughly equal in skill.

In each group, players are assigned a letter: A, B, C or D. Each player will pair up with another player for two games up to 21 before switching partners, playing a maximum of 6 games per ladder session.

Exact groupings depend on the number of players that are registered for a particular ladder session. Depending on where a player is on the leaderboard and who registers, the competitiveness of games may vary from session to session.

What does a typical ladder night look like?

The Elo Rating System is a zero-sum method of calculating the relative skill of players in competitions including sports, video games, and chess.

It takes two to form a partnership - How is Elo calculated in doubles?

To find the Elo Rating of a team, we add the two players and divide by two. We are using a K-Factor of 16, an Elo Scaling Factor of 150, and a margin of victory multiplier that awards 90% as many points for winning by 1-2 points and up to 120% as many points for winning by 11 or more. You can learn about the details of the calculation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

How many points do I get for winning?

This depends on your Elo Rating and the Elo Rating of your partner and your opponents. If you and your partner are rated HIGHER than your opponents, you are EXPECTED to win, and you will receive fewer points for winning (and they will lose less points). If, however, you and your partner are rated LOWER than your opponents and you win anyway, you will get EXTRA points for winning (and they will lose more points).

My friend is ranked much higher than me in ladder, but we have close games when we play in drop-in. Is the system favoring them in some way?

The system uses the same calculations for all players and cannot favor one player over another. It is normal for strong players to elevate their level of play for Ladder Night. Whether the difference is in skill, conditioning, or intensity, your friend is finding a way to win against tougher opponents than you on ladder night and advancing. If they are open to it, you may wish to ask these stronger players for some hints about where you can improve the weaker points of your game.

Why do I play against the same players each week?

The court groupings are created by taking the top four attending players according to their Elo Rating, then the next four, then the four after that. If your court is ‘stable’, it indicates that no one is significantly outperforming or underperforming the other players on the court. It could also mean that the players on the court below you are not accumulating enough points to advance.

I won my court last week, but I didn't move up this week.

There could be a number of reasons for this. For starters, you cannot ‘win’ your court. You can only win or lose individual sets, each of which contributes to your score independently.

If you are not moving up, it could simply be because you have not elevated your score enough to surpass the lowest ranked player on the court above you. Another reason for this could be that you won your first 4 games last week (elevating your Elo Rating, and reducing the Elo Ratings of the rest of your group), then lost your last two, which results in greater losses since your score is higher and you are expected to win.

A good solution may be to work on stamina to ensure that you can perform at your top level for the duration of the ladder competition.

I am playing lots, but my Elo Rating is staying the same.

Your opponents may be playing lots too. It may be time to change your routine if you really want to step up your level and break past them. Consider taking some classes to work on your fundamentals, or finding a ‘sparring partner’ and booking some court time (maybe during an off-weekday when things aren’t busy) where you can work on feeding each other to improve consistency.

Our Premium Membership includes unlimited access (8:00am-11:00pm) to the fitness gym upstairs. It might be time to put some work in one the weights or cardio machines depending on what’s holding you back. Improvement is not enough to rank up, you must improve MORE than the other players in the ladder pool.

I heard some ladder sessions are 'easier' than others.

We cannot control who signs up for each session.

It is possible that the same player could be on the top court in one session and the 5th court in another. In any case, over time, the system will level out as long as SOME players are playing across multiple sessions. For example, if you play an “easier” session, and rank up, then play a “harder” one, the points you gained from the “easier” session will be lost to the players in the “harder” session, inflating their overall scores and deflating the scores in the “easier” one until everyone’s score is an accurate representation of their relative level within our club.

I don't like the self-assessment system for new players.

We agree there is significant room for improvement, but it’s still the best compromise we have today. The problem with self-assessment is that any player who assesses incorrectly will be out of place on their court for a period of 1-4 weeks while their score normalizes. During this period, the other players on their court might not get the most competitive games.

The issue with any other system (having players start at the bottom, or start in the middle) is that you will STILL have the exact same problems. If a national level player started at the bottom, do we really want to waste their time for a period of weeks playing against our weakest players, and robbing everyone else on their court of an opportunity to move up?

That’s an extreme example, but it carries through to just about any player who joins the ladder and doesn’t happen to belong on the bottom rung. That would create a VERY frustrating experience for bottom court players who would get no chance to rank up on almost any night a new player joins.

We are open to improvements to the self-assessment form, but for now self-assessments are here to stay.

My rating is provisional. What does that mean?

For your first 12 sets, your K-factor (how much your score can fluctuate with each set) will be 64 rather than 16. This will make your rating more volatile, which allows our system to more quickly adjust your rating while it gets a better measure of your performance.

Can I see how my Elo Rating has changed over time?

We are tracking this in the backend, but we still haven’t found a good way to display it. Give us some more time for this. In the meantime, feel free to visit this sheet weekly and take a snapshot for your own records.

I prefer ladders where the winner of the court goes up and loser goes down.

This system works quite well in clubs where attendance is very consistent from week-to-week and there is no cap on the number of attendees per session.

At Smash Champs, we prefer to cap attendance on each ladder night to minimize waiting, which creates an environment where attendance is not consistent – at the time of creating this FAQ, we have about 2x as many active ladder players as the roster capacity of our biggest ladder session. What this means is that with a ‘move up/move down’ system, you could easily “win” court 4, but have 10 players who are ranked above you attend the following week, pushing you down to court 6, where you then have to “win” again. It just doesn’t work.

Some systems build in penalties for missing a night or directly reward consistent attendance, but we prefer to reward performance over participation in the interest of creating an environment where every match is going to be a tough battle. We have other sessions that are less competitively-oriented for folks who just want to enjoy the game, like our Drop-Ins and Mixer Nights.