Mini-leagues: concepts¶

Mini-leagues allow clubs to organize regular internal competitions among their members. This page presents the key concepts to understand how they work.

Hierarchy¶

graph TD
    C["🏢 Club"] --> ML1["Mini-league A<br/><small>e.g.: Tuesday League</small>"]
    C --> ML2["Mini-league B<br/><small>e.g.: Thursday League</small>"]
    ML1 --> S1["Session 1<br/><small>1-31 January</small>"]
    ML1 --> S2["Session 2<br/><small>1-28 February</small>"]
    ML1 --> S3["..."]
    S1 --> D1["Division 1<br/><small>(top players)</small>"]
    S1 --> D2["Division 2<br/><small>(intermediate)</small>"]
    S1 --> D3["Division 3<br/><small>(beginners)</small>"]
    D1 --> P1["Pool A<br/>4 players"]
    D1 --> P2["Pool B<br/>4 players"]
    D2 --> P3["Pool C<br/>4 players"]
    D2 --> P4["Pool D<br/>4 players"]
    D3 --> P5["Pool E<br/>4 players"]

• A club can manage several mini-leagues in parallel
• Each mini-league runs in successive time sessions (one session after another)
• Each session is divided into divisions (skill levels)
• Each division contains one or more pools (groups of players)
• Within a pool, each player faces all others (round-robin)

Session flow¶

graph LR
    A["Session start"] --> B["Matches in progress<br/><small>round-robin within<br/>each pool</small>"]
    B --> C["End reminder<br/><small>notification to<br/>players</small>"]
    C --> D["Session end"]
    D --> E["Review period<br/><small>corrections by<br/>the manager</small>"]
    E --> F["Redistribution"]
    F --> G["New session"]

1. The session starts with players distributed into pools
2. During the session period, players play their matches
3. A reminder is sent a few days before the end
4. At the end of the session, the manager has a review period to make any corrections
5. Players are redistributed and a new session starts automatically (if automatic renewal is enabled)

Divisions and pools¶

Divisions represent skill levels. Division 1 groups the top players, Division 2 the intermediate players, etc.

When a division has too many players for a single pool, it is split into multiple pools. Pools within the same division are parallel groups of the same level: they only serve to limit the size of round-robin groups.

Redistribution between sessions¶

At the end of each session, players are redistributed according to their results. Each pool has a configurable number of promotion and relegation slots, defined in the mini-league configuration. These numbers can differ from one pool to another and are not necessarily balanced between divisions.

Example with 1 pool per division¶

graph TB
    subgraph sessionN1["Session N+1"]
        direction LR
        subgraph d2n1["Division 2"]
            new2["Pool B<br/><br/>🆕 David<br/>Frank<br/>Gina<br/>Hugo"]
        end
        subgraph d1n1["Division 1"]
            new1["Pool A<br/><br/>Anna<br/>Bob<br/>Carla<br/>🆕 Eva"]
        end
    end

    subgraph sessionN["Session N"]
        direction LR
        subgraph d2n["Division 2"]
            p2n["Pool B<br/><br/>🔺 Eva<br/>🟰 Frank<br/>🟰 Gina<br/>🟰 Hugo"]
        end
        subgraph d1n["Division 1"]
            p1n["Pool A<br/><br/>🥇 Anna<br/>🟰 Bob<br/>🟰 Carla<br/>🔻 David"]
        end
    end

Example with multiple pools per division¶

When a division contains multiple pools, the best players from each pool are promoted and the last from each pool are relegated:

graph TB
    up2["Eva + Iris<br/>promoted to Division 1"] ---|"🔺 Eva"| p2a
    up2 ---|"🔺 Iris"| p2b

    subgraph sessionN2["Session N"]
        subgraph d2n2["Division 2 — 2 pools"]
            p2a["Pool A<br/>🔺 Eva<br/>🟰 Frank<br/>🟰 Gina<br/>🔻 Hugo"]
            p2b["Pool B<br/>🔺 Iris<br/>🟰 Jules<br/>🟰 Kate<br/>🔻 Léo"]
        end
    end

    p2a --- |"🔻 Hugo"| down2["Hugo + Léo<br/>relegated to Division 3"]
    p2b --- |"🔻 Léo"| down2

The middle players (Frank, Gina, Jules, Kate) stay in Division 2 and are redistributed into the pools of the new session.

Matches and points¶

Within each pool, matches are played in round-robin format: each player faces all others. Results are converted into points according to a configurable table.

The pool ranking is then calculated using configurable ranking filters (tiebreak criteria) ordered by priority.

Parameters¶

Mini-leagues are configurable at two levels:

• Club parameters: default values and global parameters, shared by all mini-leagues in the club. See Mini-league parameters.
• Session parameters: each mini-league can adjust its own parameters (duration, scoring system, point scale, etc.)