DiNKR's Enhanced Americano Scoring: How We Determine the Winner

Welcome to DiNKR's Americano Round Robin! Whether you've played this format before or not, you may well wonder how a winner is determined, especially when you have players at different skill levels, and a mixture of men and women.

So here's what we've done: in Americano round robins, your individual points scored across all your different partnerships are just as important as winning or losing any single game, so never give up! You'll play with different partners each round, and every point you personally score counts toward your final total.

We take those scores and make some small adjustments based on what our super-duper advanced algorithm predicted the scores should have been, considering the skill ratings of all four players on court. That means you get rewarded for overperforming against stronger opponents, even if your team lost. And yes, you get penalized if your team won but let those weaker opponents score more points than expected.

For example: if you're a 3.5 player partnered with another 3.5, and you face two 4.0 players in a standard game to 11 points, our system might expect your team to score around 7 points while the stronger team gets 11. If you actually score 9 points (even in a loss), you each get bonus points for that great performance! But if those two 4.0 players win 11-8 when they were expected to cruise to an 11-4 victory, they get dinged for letting you score too many points.

Here's where it gets really exciting: we also have an "upset factor"! If your team has a combined rating that's more than 0.5 points lower than your opponents and you actually pull off the win, you get a significant bonus for that David-vs-Goliath moment. This rewards teams that truly punch above their weight and shock the higher-rated players.

The beauty of this system is that it keeps every game competitive and meaningful. Lower-rated players aren't just hoping to "not get crushed" - they're actively hunting for upsets and trying to exceed expectations. Higher-rated players can't just show up and expect to coast because even winning ugly will hurt their tournament standing.

We crown an overall champion based on total adjusted points, plus separate male and female winners, because we believe that's not only a fairer system, but it makes every point worth playing for and keeps all players engaged, regardless of whether they win or lose any given game. The most adaptable player who consistently rises to challenges usually comes out on top!