Challenging on the ladder

A challenge ladder ranks everyone by position. Position 1 is the top. You climb by challenging someone above you and beating them: win, and you take their position while they drop to yours.

How positions work

When the ladder opens, the organiser sets a starting order and everyone is given a position from 1 downwards. From then on the order only changes through challenges. You can see the full order, and your own position, on the competition's public Ladder page.

Who you can challenge

You can challenge anyone a set number of places above you. The organiser chooses that range when they set the ladder up, and it is shown on your ladder panel (for example, "up to 3 places above you"). You cannot challenge someone below you, and you cannot reach past the range to challenge the very top straight away. You can only have one challenge on the go at a time.

To issue a challenge, open the Ladder page while signed in, find the person you want to play in your challenge list, and choose Challenge.

What happens after a challenge

The person you challenge has a set number of days to respond:

• If they accept, a fixture is created for the two of you to arrange between yourselves, exactly like any other self-arranged match. Agree a date and venue, play it, and record the result. See Arrange your fixture and Submitting a singles or pairs result.
• If they decline, they hand you their position without playing.

When the match result is confirmed, the positions settle: if the challenger wins they take the higher position and the other player moves down. If the person who was challenged wins, the positions stay as they were. Either way, the movement shows as a small up or down badge on the public ladder.

What happens if a challenge is not answered

Every challenge has a respond-by date, shown on your ladder panel and on the Ladder challenges to answer item in your Action Centre. If you have not responded within 48 hours of that date, you get a reminder notification.

If the respond-by date passes with no answer, the challenge expires automatically: the challenger takes your position and you drop to theirs, exactly as if you had lost the match. This happens on the next daily check, so there is no need to do anything yourself, but answering promptly (accept or decline) is always better than letting a challenge expire, since you keep control of when you play.

Declining a challenge has the same effect straight away: the challenger takes your position immediately, with no match needed.

Leaving a ladder

If you withdraw from a competition while you hold a ladder position, your position is removed and everyone below you moves up by one, so there is never a gap. Any challenge you had open or accepted at the time is cancelled.

If you are playing as a pair and your partner leaves, the whole pair's position is withdrawn in the same way, since a pair with one player cannot continue.

Rejoining later starts you at the bottom of the ladder. There is no way to resume from a previous position.

Related

• Arrange your fixture
• Submitting a singles or pairs result
• Enter a competition
• Running a challenge ladder (committee-facing)