Challenge-Up Session
The club’s Challenge-Up Process is for when a member in a particular Group wants to try to move up to the next Group. To do this, the player can opt-in to the club’s Challenge-Up Process. This process has two parts, namely a pre-challenge qualifier (to ensure the candidate is one of the top players in his or her existing Group) and then, if the player is successful in the qualifier, a challenge-up session (to determine whether the challenger is at the level of the higher Group). If the player is successful in the challenge-up session, then he or she will be promoted to the higher Group. The details of both parts of this process are set out below:
A. Pre-Challenge Qualifier
I. “Normal” Qualifier:
a. To opt-in for a pre-challenge qualifier, the interested player should email or tell one of the Group Coordinators in his or her existing Group that the player wants to try a pre-challenge qualifier. The Coordinator will then provide the candidate with a results-tracking sheet, for the candidate to record the results of his or her games.
b. To complete the qualifier, the player will need to play at least 10 Group Play round-robin games (which will be regular games in regular Group Play sessions). After every Group Play round-robin game that the player plays in (until he or she has played at least 10 of these games), the player must record whether his or her team won and how many points they scored. Once the player has completed at least 10 qualifier games, he or she can provide his or her completed results-tracking sheet to one of the Group Coordinators.
c. The Group Coordinators will periodically review (roughly every month) all of the qualifier results-tracking sheets that have been recently submitted (for the particular Group) and not previously considered.
d. The candidate, in order to successfully qualify for a Challenge-Up Session, must have a Win Percentage (i.e., percentage of games won to games played) of at least 70% over all of the qualifier games that he or she has played this time around, AND, if more than 4 candidates (amongst the pool of candidates being considered at the time) have achieved this standard, then the player must be among the 4 candidates (in that pool of candidates) with the highest Win Percentages (and, if there is a tie between two or more candidates for the fourth spot, then that spot will go to the player with the highest average points scored per game).
e. Following the Group Coordinators’ determination of the successful qualifiers, they will advise all candidates as to who the successful qualifiers are and of the Win Percentages for each of the candidates (successful and unsuccessful). The Group Coordinators will subsequently contact each successful candidate to try to work out a convenient date and time for their Challenge-Up session.
II. “Group 1 Players” Exception: Since there may from time to time be some clearly-stronger players in Group 1 (possibly because they didn’t accurately complete the self-assessment form), the Executive (in consultation with the relevant Group Coordinators) has agreed that the Club’s Skills & Drills leader (Wade Dawe) may, on his initiative (as opposed to at a player’s request), determine that a Group 1 player whose play he is familiar with (through Skills & Drills sessions) would be a better fit in Group 2 and inform the player of this and then, if the player wants, advise the G1 and G2 Group Coordinators that the player should be moved directly into Group 2 (without having to do a “Normal” Qualifier or a Challenge-Up Session).
III. “Group 2 Players” Partial Exception: Since there may from time to time be some clearly-stronger players in Group 2 (possibly because they didn’t accurately complete the self-assessment form), the Executive (in consultation with the relevant Group Coordinators) has agreed that the Club’s Skills & Drills leader (Wade Dawe) may, on his initiative (as opposed to at a player’s request), determine that a Group 2 player whose play he is familiar with (through Skills & Drills sessions) would be a better fit in Group 3 and inform the player of this and then, if the player wants, advise the G2 and G3 Group Coordinators that the player should be awarded a Challenge-Up opportunity (without having to do a “Normal” Qualifier) when convenient, provided that the player’s Challenge-Up attempt would not cause there to be more than 4 Challenge-Up attempts into the target Group in a month.
B. Challenge-Up Session
(i) Challenge-Up sessions will be held periodically (roughly every month during the Club’s core season). The session will be part of a regular 2-hour Group play session for the target Group.
(ii) Throughout the session, the challenger will play a minimum of 4 games up to a maximum of 6 games (but the Group Coordinators will have a discretion to allow a 7th game), firstly, three games on a rotating-partners basis with three players in the target Group, and then all remaining games will once again be on a rotating-partners basis with three players in the target Group but this time they will be different target Group players to the extent available. The scores for each game will be recorded. Each game will be to 11 points, on a win-by-one basis. There will be no “rally point” scoring for challenge-up games.
(iii) A challenger, in order to successfully challenge-up, must have a total score of at least 28 points in their best 4 consecutive games.
(iv) Following the challenge-up session, the Group Coordinators will advise each challenger as to who the successful challengers are and of the number of points scored by each challenger (successful and unsuccessful) in their best 4 consecutive games. The successful challengers will be promoted to the target Group. Any unsuccessful challengers can try to qualify again, through the normal two-stage process, in a subsequent month (although we note that there may be a restriction introduced in the future on the number of challenge-up attempts that an unsuccessful challenger can make in any one season, since challenge-up matches do have an impact on target group players).
All club members are reminded that, when Challenge-Up sessions are occurring, it is important to participate if asked. The proper functioning of these sessions is important to the club and its members.