The board that
updates itself
Sixty people turn up for eight courts and somebody ends up holding the marker all night. On Deck keeps the running order instead, so that person gets to play.
Free to use. The demo needs no account.
Player
Session running
#4of 6
in the queue
Volunteer
Court 3
- Anna W
- Ben J
Kiosk / display
- 1Tyson M
- 2Catherine P
The same night, on whichever screens you have
Volunteers run the night, and anyone courtside can still tap a game done.
You have run this night with a marker in your hand
Fifty or sixty people on eight courts, and the running order is a whiteboard you keep rubbing out, or a board of chips with everybody's name on it that somebody has to keep moving. It works, right up until it is the only thing you do all night.
You don't get to play
The order lives in your head and on the board in front of you, and it only stays right while you are standing next to it. The two hours you came for go to running the floor.
The order is only as fair as your memory
Nothing is counting who has waited longest. The quiet ones get passed over, and the people who come and ask get back on again.
The same four keep reforming
Nothing on the board remembers who has already shared a court, so people play the same three faces all night. That is the opposite of a social.
You answer “am I next?” all evening
A player has no way to check their own place in line except by finding you and asking.
A court sits empty while you hunt four people down
You call the names and two of them are at the snack table. The court waits, and so does everyone below them.
How a night runs
Start the Session
One tap from your club's saved defaults for the venue and court count. The Club QR sign is printed once and never changes, so there's nothing to set up at the door.
Players add themselves
They scan the sign, give a first name and last initial, pick a skill level from four plain words, and they're in the Queue. There's no check-in desk and nothing to install.
On Deck picks who's up
Two Foursomes are chosen and announced before any court is free, so those eight people can gather instead of being tracked down one at a time.
A court frees, the next four walk on
When a game wraps, someone taps that court done: a volunteer, or any player on the tablet by the courts. The leading On Deck Foursome walks on and a fresh one moves up behind it. The players coming off re-queue on their own. Volunteers can run the turnover, or nobody has to and the tablet handles it.
Call Last Call when the night winds down
Games in progress finish and nothing new starts. When the Session closes, the roster is deleted. You keep an anonymous Session Summary and nothing else.
A sign on the wall and your phone
The club prints one sign and never touches it again. A player points a camera at it and gives a first name. Their phone does the rest.
Join tonight's social
Point your camera here. No app, no sign-up.
Riverside Pickleball Club
#4of 6in the queue
Hang around. You don't need to touch anything.
Playing as Intermediate
What the courtside screen shows
One lit panel a loud gym can read from the far end: who is on each court, and who walks on when one of them frees up.
- Ben J
- Anna W
- Hunter J
- open spot
- Tyson M
- Catherine P
- JW J
- Kaitlyn C
- Federico S
- Dylan F
- Andrei D
- Jorja J
- Parris T
- Kate F
- Jade K
- Lea J
- Ben J
- Anna W
- Hunter J
- Gabe T
- Connor G
- Rachel R
- Anna B
- Sahra D
- 1Tyson M6 MIN
- 2Catherine P6 MIN
- 3JW J5 MIN
- 4Kaitlyn C4 MIN
- 5Noe K3 MIN
- 6Tina P3 MIN
- 7Chao Yi W2 MIN
- 8Hayden P1 MIN
- 9Gabe Tjust now
Longest wait is always next
The person who has waited longest anchors the next foursome. The other three come from the next-longest waiting.
Orange means being called now
Court 3 just turned over. Those four gather while every other court keeps playing. Nothing else on the board is orange.
Waits are on the board
Every name in the line carries how long it has been there, so the order is something anyone in the room can check rather than something they take a volunteer's word for.
Check your own spot
A player scans the sign and sees their place in line on their phone, so nobody has to ask a volunteer whether they're up.
How the next four get picked
Match Me
The person who has waited longest is always in the next Foursome. The other three come from the next-longest waiting, chosen to keep skill levels close and to avoid people you have already played tonight. Every one of those is a preference rather than a rule, so a court never sits empty waiting for a perfect group. Players who want none of this can just leave their phone in a bag and keep rotating.
Queue Together
Came with friends? Build a group of up to four from your phone, or ask a volunteer to do it. It joins the Queue as one unit at the median wait time of its own members, so it takes its real turn instead of jumping the line or losing anyone's place. A group of two or three gets its last seats filled by Match Me, and it dissolves once the game ends.
On a bad night
Saturday, and something breaks
You are handing your night to software in a gym with bad wifi and no spare tablet. Here is what it does when that goes against you.
- The wifi keeps dropping
- A screen that loses its live connection keeps asking every few seconds and picks it up again on its own. The night is a record of what happened rather than a picture a screen is holding, so a tap on a board that has fallen behind never doubles anything up.
- The gym has no internet at all
- Then On Deck doesn't work. Nothing here runs offline, and you should know that before you plan a night around it.
- The tablet dies
- The night isn't on the tablet. Sign in on your own phone and the board is where you left it, or use any other screen by the courts.
- You tap the wrong court done
- Undo takes the last thing back for fifteen minutes, as long as nothing has happened since. Once someone else has joined or been called you put people back by hand, the same as you would on the whiteboard.
- A player arrives with a dead phone
- Add them yourself, or let whoever is standing by the courts do it. First name, last initial, and they queue like everyone who scanned the sign.
- You forget to close the night
- It closes itself after six quiet hours and leaves the same Session Summary any other night leaves. Next Saturday doesn't open with you fixing last Saturday.
It stays a social
Nobody keeps score. There are no winners recorded and no leaderboard. The only thing a game leaves behind is that its four players have now shared a court, which feeds back into who they get matched with next.
On Deck is free to use. There is no trial to run out and no card to enter.
Two fields to start a Club. Nothing to install at the venue.