Box league promotion and relegation options

Box leagues consist of a number of round-robin boxes where players end up ranked within their box based on the total of their match scores played with the other players in their box. Typically, all league box matches are played in a relatively short period of time (e.g. monthly) and then a new set of boxes are prepared into which players are placed according to their previous performance. There are several choices available to the league organiser as to the rules that are applied to determine how players are relegated and promoted based on that performance. Typically, players who came top of their last league box will be promoted to a higher box in the subsequent set of leagues and players who came last will be relegated.

A player's overall box league score is a summation of their individual match scores. However, they can also be awarded bonus points if they played all their matches. And there are rules to determine how to resolve a tied score - these attributes are set in the Overall draw scoring panel in Manage series. Ultimately, for every box, each player is newly ranked from top to bottom- there can be no ties in the box ranking system.

Clubs have different preferences as to how this works and the selections in MMM reflect these. This choice is set in the Individual event features panel in Manage series under Method used to auto-sequence draws.

These rules have been built up as a result of the needs of specific clubs and are somewhat eclectic in nature. It's probably not critical which one you use so long as you use the same one consistently.

It's called "auto-sequencing" because it's a more generic term that allows an event organiser to rank players prior to entry into any type of draw, including league boxes.

There are choices more appropriate to non-box-league events as follows:

• Player ranking - sorts players by their MMM internal ranking
• Random - sequences players completely arbitrarily
• Team leagues - sequences teams by club and team for preparation of a team league system
• Nominated draw - sequences players by the team that they nominated for themselves when entering a team competition
• Handicap - (legacy) sequences players based on their ability level as derived from their performance in a box league system
• Custom - (legacy & very specific) sequences players purely based on their overall previous league score, assuming an average score of 13.

For box leagues, the choices mainly concern the degree to which players are moved up or down the system based on their previous box league result and position. The nomenclature for this on the choices given follows this format as an example:

B1-4 1↑ 1↓, B7+ 2↑ 1↓ 1↓↓

What this means is that for the top 4 boxes, the winner of each box goes up 1 league and the loser down 1 league. For boxes 7 onward we promote the top 2 of each box up one league and relegate one player down 1 league and the bottom player down 2 leagues. Where there is a change of rules as per this example depending on the position of the boxes, there must exist hybrid rules to accommodate the change over. So in this example boxes 5 & 6 have to work slightly differently to accommodate the two schemes that exist below and above.

This should all be taken as an approximation as it all depends how many players there are in each league. The numbers given generally assume a league contains 5 players. But there could be less or many more. The system actually determines the number of people to promote or relegate based on their relative position as a ratio of the league numbers. For example "promote 1 person" is really "promote the top 10%" and "promote 2 people" is really "promote the top 30%". Where necessary, this percentage is given in the name.

When a player is promoted or relegated, the normal behaviour is for the promotion to be positioned towards the bottom of the higher league and the relegation to be positioned towards the top of the lower league. But this can also be adjusted for certain rules. For example

B1+ 1↑+ 1↓+, 1↑- 1↓-

Indicates that the top player would be positioned at the top of the higher league and the bottom player should be positioned at the bottom of the lower league. The next two would be promoted and relegated as normal.

It should be noted that due to players coming in and out of the leagues on a regular basis, and the potential for irregular sized boxes, the absolute league any player ends up in from one set to the next cannot be guaranteed based on the above rules. What can be guaranteed is that, relative to any other player in their box, a player will be placed appropriately either above or below them.