Overview

For any league, the system must know how many players are expected to be in each box, or else the automation systems cannot now how to move players up and down during the league processing.

There are two ways to handle box sizes, but the key feature is the Default Players Per Box (DPPB) value.

Fixed Box Sizes

The most common system is to have an overall DPPB value that is applied to every box in the league, and this is by far the easiest system to run and process. Where the total number of players do not divide exactly into the number of boxes used, the bottom boxes are adjusted.

This is the default setting and is used where the Individual Box Sizes value on the league setup page is left unticked.

Flexible Box Sizes

If you want the flexibility of having different numbers of players in the boxes, then you can set the size of each box independently. However, the DPPB value still applies as the maximum number of players per box.

To use flexible box sizes, the Individual Box Sizes value on the league setup page should be ticked.

A set of boxes, with the space to add a certain number of players, can be created and you could enter however many players you liked in any box; 4 in Box 1, 6 in Box 2, 5 in Box 3 etc. up to a maximum of 10.

And at the end of a period, you could create another set of boxes and enter players in the same way but the problem with this approach is that it places severe restrictions on automating the whole process of box leagues.

The generally accepted way of running box leagues is that at the end of a period, usually a few weeks, the top player(s) in each box are promoted into the box above and the bottom player(s) are relegated into the box below.

In addition, the system must allow for new players being added, or existing players dropping out.

To do this automatically requires a Default Players Per Box (DPPB).

Example

Assume you have box where the DPPB is 4:

At the start of a new period, a new player James joins and he is of standard that would put him in the middle of the league, and you want to add him to the box above. You could turn just this box into one of 5 players but this cannot work with the automatic systems, so one of the players must move into the box below to make room for James.

Chris has the lowest points, so he moves down and James is then entered into the box.

Of course, if Chris goes down, then someone from the box below must be moved down as well to create a gap, and so on. Adding a player has a cascade effect as everyone is moved down. And exactly the same happens if someone drops out, where everyone must move up a box to fill the gap.

But this system can ONLY work if there is a Default Players Per Box (DPPB).

Default Players per Box

Assume you have 50 players and decided to have 10 boxes of 5 players each. This works out perfectly with exactly 5 players per box.

However, what if you had 49 players? The normal system is to have 4 players in the bottom box. And for 48 players, 4 players in the bottom two boxes and so on until you reach 45 players. Now, you revert to 5 players in all the boxes but only have 9 boxes instead of 10.

This process of maintaining a DPPB value but having one less in the bottom boxes if necessary is how the system handles player numbers.

With the example of 50 to 45 players, the numbers of boxes works out fine, with a combination of boxes of 5 players and 4 players, but a problem arises as the numbers of players decreases to low numbers.

The following grid shows the number of boxes of 5 and 4 needed where the DPPB size is 5:

Where na is shown in the grid, no combination of 5 player and 4 player boxes can make the total number of players. However, if we introduce 3 player boxes, then some of the combinations will now work:

The important point to note is that beyond 11 players, we do not need to have 3 player boxes. But below 12 players some combinations must include 3 player boxes and some can't be done at all. So with a DPPB value of 5, where the total number of players is below 12, League Master does not use any automatic shuffling of players; you must do this manually.

Having said that, if you only had 11 players or less, you probably wouldn't be using a DPPB value of 5 anyway; you would be using one of maybe 4. In this case, the combinations would be as follows:

The situation now is that with a DPPB value of 4, where the total number of players is below 6, League Master does not use any automatic shuffling of players; you must do this manually.

And of course similar restrictions apply to all other DPPB values.

General Rule

Looking at the above tables, we can see that the start of the valid range increases as the total number of players increases:

The general rule for box leagues is this:

Start of valid range = DPPB x ( DPPB - 3) + 2

There are valid combinations below these values but from these values all combinations are valid.

Using this as a guide

There are several considerations when creating boxes, particularly with smaller numbers of players.

For instance, the difference in standard between the players may be large and with 12 players, for instance, the top 8 are way better than the rest. Therefore, you might decide to have 1 box of 8 players and one of 4 players. In this case with the largest box size being 8, we know from our formula that the start of the valid range starts at 42 players, way more than our 8.

In this case, League Master cannot use the automatic shuffle but it is hardly necessary as the player number is so low anyway.

However, in a more common situation you may have 25 players. We know from the formula that we can use a DPPB value of 6 but we can also use a DPPB value of 5 or 4. So how many boxes are required in each case?

Most people would look at this and feel that 5 boxes or 5 players seems about right.

The other consideration is that of time. Generally you might expect your players to play once a week, so with 4 players per box, all the matches can be played in 3 weeks but with 5 or 6 players per box, all the matches can be played in 5 weeks.