The rules
Each award has its own rule further down. These four sit underneath all of them.
The window is the last ten sessions — the awards are computed over those alone, so the wall tells the story of the crew as it is now, not as it was last winter.
Three sessions to count — a player with fewer is “provisional” and cannot win any award. A player’s first three sessions also never count for Best Single Night and Most Improved: the climb from 1200 to your own level is calibration, not form.
Ties are shared — if two or more sit level at the top, all of them are named. But if every eligible player is level, the award is not handed out at all: an award everyone wins is not an award. The card stays, empty, with the reason.
Only the roster counts — archived players are left out. Everyone who plays a group session is on the roster, with or without an account, and the rating and the awards follow the name.
The awards
Each award below has three parts: what it measures, what leaves its card empty, and who took it in the Thursday crew — an ordinary crew of eight over eight Thursdays, worked through in full further down.
HIGHEST PEAK · HØYESTE TOPP
Measures the rating after each session in the window and finds the top — not necessarily the rating now. Whoever peaked highest wins, even if it went downhill afterwards.
When is the card empty? When every eligible player peaked at exactly the same rating. It sounds rare, but in team formats with fixed pairs the partners are bit-for-bit identical in rating, so a group with two eligible players who always play together shares the peak — and then it goes to nobody.
Thursday crew: Anna, who peaked at 1280 before the last night — and gave a little of it back, which makes no difference to the card.
BEST SINGLE NIGHT · BESTE KVELDEN
Measures the rating change per session and finds the biggest positive one in the window. Two things do not count: a player’s first three sessions (calibrating from 1200 is not form), and moves under half a point — the app shows whole points, and a “best night” of +0 says nothing.
When is the card empty? When nobody has had a night worth a full point in the window — common in the first weeks, while everyone is still calibrating — or when everyone’s best night is exactly the same size.
Thursday crew: Fredrik, +14 on session six — the night his climb began.
THE GRINDER · SLITEREN
Measures attendance: who played the most of the sessions in the window. The simplest award — and the one that most often stands empty.
When is the card empty? When every eligible player has played the same number of sessions. In a crew where everyone always shows up, everyone is level at the top every single week, and then nobody has ground harder than the rest. The card in the app says it outright: be there when someone else isn’t.
Thursday crew: David, eight of eight — the only one who did not miss a single Thursday. Everyone else sits on seven.
MOST IMPROVED · MEST FORBEDRET
Measures rating now minus the rating before the window — but never earlier than the rating after the player’s third session. A newcomer’s climb from 1200 to their own level does not count as improvement, then; that is Elo catching up with you. Gains after that count in full. Under half a point is not shown.
When is the card empty? When nobody has gained rating over the window — or when everyone has climbed by exactly the same amount, as fixed pairs do.
Thursday crew: Fredrik, +30 — a flat start, a strong finish.
GIANT SLAYER · KJEMPEDREPEREN
Measures the matches you won when your pair was the weaker one on paper. “On paper” is the Elo expectation before the match, computed pair against pair with the ratings as they were at that moment: a win counts as an upset when your pair had under a 47% chance — that is, sat about 21 rating points or more behind on team average. Being below the opponents yourself is not enough; a 1150 player with a 1250 partner meets two 1200s as an equal. A draw has no winner and never counts.
When is the card empty? When no eligible player has an upset in the window — or when everyone has the same number. If your ratings are close, it takes a while before anyone is 21 points behind enough for a win to count; see the arithmetic under the Thursday crew.
Thursday crew: Grete and Henrik, one upset — they beat Anna and Bjørn on the last night from 149 points behind.
DREAM TEAM · DRØMMELAGET
Measures pairs that have played at least three matches together in the window, and ranks them on a shrunk win rate: (wins + ½·draws + 1) / (matches + 2). The shrinking is there so that 6–0 beats 3–0: both are a hundred percent, but six proofs are more than three — 0.875 against 0.80. The card shows the ordinary win rate; the ranking uses the shrunk one.
When is the card empty? When no pair has three matches together — common in americano and mexicano, where partners rotate — or when every pair with enough matches is level on the pair rating.
Thursday crew: Anna and Bjørn, 11–0–1 together over twelve matches — 92% on the card, 0.86 shrunk.
CURSED DUO · UHELDIG DUO
The same arithmetic as Dream Team, turned upside down — with two provisos. The pair must have a genuinely losing record (under 50% wins, draws count half): nobody is “cursed” while they are winning. And the Dream Team can never also be the Cursed Duo, so with only one pair that has three matches together, there is no worst pair.
When is the card empty? When no pair has enough matches together, when only one pair does, when no pair with enough matches is losing — or when every pair with enough matches is losing and they are all level. The share cards never mention this award; it lives on the wall only.
Thursday crew: Camilla and David, 0–1–10 together — they drew Anna and Bjørn in more than half their matches.
NEMESES · ERKERIVALER
Measures pairs of opponents: two players who have faced each other at least three times in the window. Most meetings wins; if two pairs are level on meetings, the closest head-to-head record wins — 4–4 over eight nights is a rivalry, 8–0 is a habit. Always one pair, never a shared award.
When is the card empty? When no two eligible players have faced each other three times yet. Rivalries take a few nights.
Thursday crew: David against Emma, ten meetings and 2–4–4 — five pairs had met ten times, and this was the closest of them.
PODIUM MAGNET · PALLMAGNETEN
Measures how many of the sessions in the window you finished in the top three rows of the night’s standings. In team formats the row is a pair, so both members of a podium pair count — a pair that finished third of four really did stand on the podium. Davis Cup is the exception: only the winning squad counts there, because “top three of four” would hand a podium to twelve of sixteen.
When is the card empty? When every eligible player has stood on the podium equally often — or, more rarely, when none of them has.
Thursday crew: Bjørn, on the podium seven times on seven nights.
Example
Eight regulars, eight Thursdays, two courts and three rounds on full nights — 42 matches with a few no-shows and a few fixed pairs, the way an ordinary crew looks. Every number here was produced by the same engine the app uses, over the same archive.
THE ROSTER AFTER EIGHT THURSDAYS — RATING, SESSIONS, MATCHES (W–D–L)
| Player | Rating | Sessions | Matches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anna | 1270.8 | 7 | 16–2–3 |
| Bjørn | 1264.0 | 7 | 17–3–1 |
| Camilla | 1166.4 | 7 | 6–2–13 |
| David | 1167.5 | 8 | 5–5–14 |
| Emma | 1239.3 | 7 | 11–5–5 |
| Fredrik | 1230.7 | 7 | 13–6–2 |
| Grete | 1131.1 | 7 | 1–3–16 |
| Henrik | 1130.1 | 7 | 1–2–16 |
Nine awards, nine different stories out of the same archive: Anna peaked highest, but Bjørn stood on the podium every single night he was there. Anna and Bjørn lost one match together in twelve; Camilla and David won none in eleven. David was the only one who never called off — and the one who most often stood straight across from Emma. Fredrik was still about where he started after four Thursdays, then climbed the most of anyone. And Grete and Henrik, who lost almost everything, took the scalp of the season on the last night.
Giant Slayer needs the Elo expectation from the Elo rating page (in Norwegian): before every match the system works out how likely your pair is to win, from the difference between the two team averages — 1 / (1 + 10^((opponents − your pair) / 400)). Equal pairs give 50%. If your pair sits 21 points behind, the formula gives 47.0% — just under the 47% line, so a win from there counts as an upset. Sit 20 behind and it gives 47.1%: the win is just as welcome, but no upset. The change after the match is 32 × (point share − expected), so one match never moves a rating by more than 32 points — and the line is set so that three straight losses to the same pair are enough for the next win over them to count.
Last Thursday in the Thursday crew: Anna and Bjørn meet Grete and Henrik. The team averages are 149 points apart, so Grete and Henrik go in with a 30% expectation — well under 47. They win 15–9. It is the season’s only upset, and it is enough for Giant Slayer on its own, even though the two of them lost almost everything else. That is as it should be: the award rewards the one night you beat someone you were not supposed to beat.
The details
Shared awards name everyone — if two are level at the top, both are on the card, and with three or more the first two are shown plus “& N others”. Fixed pairs in team formats are identical in rating and therefore share Highest Peak, Best Single Night and Most Improved almost always. If the whole field is level, the award is not handed out.
Half a point is the floor — Best Single Night and Most Improved never report a move under 0.5 rating points. The app shows whole points, and a card that says “+0” announces that nothing happened; better that the card stands empty and says why.
How the pairs are ranked — Dream Team and Cursed Duo don’t use the plain win percentage: 3–0 and 6–0 are both a hundred percent and impossible to tell apart. Instead every pair gets one imaginary win and one imaginary loss added to its record before the rate is computed: 3–0 counts as 4 of 5 (0.80), 6–0 as 7 of 8 (0.875) — so the pair that has proved more ranks first. The addition is deliberately small: enough to separate equal records by length, but not enough for a long, uneven run to beat a short, perfect one — 8–2 becomes 9 of 12 (0.75) and still ranks below 4–0, which becomes 5 of 6 (0.83). A bigger addition would push every three-match pair down towards 50% — exactly the pairs the three-match qualifier exists to let in.
The share cards don’t hand out everything — the my-card share shows one badge, picked in the order Giant Slayer, Most Improved, Podium Magnet, The Grinder, Dream Team. Cursed Duo and Nemeses live on the wall only: a share card should never single anyone out. At 10, 25 and 50 sessions the app also offers a recap for the whole group.
All of this lives in the group: a shared roster, a shared results archive, and the same nine awards on every phone after every session. The rating behind the numbers is explained on the Elo rating in padel page (in Norwegian).
FAQ
Because nobody has earned it yet — or because everybody has. An award needs a player with at least three sessions, and an award that every eligible player ties on is not handed out: an award everyone wins is not an award. The card does not disappear; it sits under “Still up for grabs” in the app with one line saying why it is empty, and so what it would take.
Because everyone shows up every time. The Grinder goes to whoever played the most of the last ten sessions, and in a crew where everyone always comes, everyone has the same number — so nobody has ground harder than the rest. The moment one person misses a night, the others have a winner to point at.
A win where your pair had under a 47% chance beforehand — that is, sat about 21 rating points or more behind the opponents on team average, with the ratings as they were before the match. Being lower-rated yourself is not enough; it is your pair against theirs.
Yes. Everyone who plays a group session is on the roster, with or without an account, and the rating follows the name. The awards count roster players with at least three sessions — a newcomer is on the night’s standings from their first match, but wins no award until their third session is played.
Once someone in the group has played three sessions. Before that the screen shows an example of what the wall will look like, using the group’s own names. From the third session on, all nine awards are computed over the last ten sessions and every one of them is shown — either with a winner or as an empty card with the reason.
Ready?
Create the group, play the sessions and enter the results — the nine awards are computed from the archive, night after night, with share cards for the chat.
Works on iPhone, iPad, Android and in the browser
