Rules

The Humber Squash league plays under the standard rules of squash, with the following local arrangements:

Match format

A fixture is four rubbers. Each rubber is one player against one player, and the two teams play their number 1 against their number 1, number 2 against number 2, and so on down the order. A team wins the fixture by winning more rubbers than the other side; two rubbers each is a draw.

All divisions: 4-person teams, so 4 rubbers per fixture.
Each rubber is the best of 5 games — first to 3 games wins the rubber. A rubber can therefore finish 3–0, 3–1 or 3–2.
Division 1–4: PAR to 11 or 15 by mutual captain agreement before play.

How a game is scored

We play PAR — point a rally. Every rally is worth a point to whoever wins it, whether they served or not. There is no "hand out"; you do not have to be serving to score.

A game is won by the first player to reach the target the captains agreed, 11 or 15 — but only with two clear points.

Playing to 15, 15–13 wins. So does 15–0 or 15–9.
15–14 does not win. One point is not two clear.
At 14–14 the game goes on until somebody is two points ahead: 16–14, 17–15, 18–16, and so on. There is no upper limit — the game simply continues until one player leads by two.
Playing to 11 the rule is identical: 11–9 wins, 11–10 does not, and 10–10 goes on to 12–10, 13–11 and so on.

Every game must be played out. A game cannot be a draw, and a rubber cannot be shared. Where a rubber is not played at all — a side turns up short, or a player cannot start — it is a walkover to the side that did turn up rather than a score, and it counts as a 3–0 rubber to them.

An unplayed rubber is recorded on the result card: choose “nobody turned up (walkover)” for the side that didn’t turn up, name the player who did, and enter no game scores. It is then a walkover to the side that did. A result card with a rubber left blank is not accepted.

A player who retires during a rubber — injured, or unable to carry on — keeps the games they have already won, and their opponent is credited the rest and wins the rubber: retiring at one game all is a 1–3 rubber to the opponent. It counts as a played rubber, for the team’s points and for both players’ ratings. On the result card, name both players, enter the finished games, choose which player retired, and enter the score of the game in progress when they stopped — or leave it blank if they retired between games.

What to write down

Record the score of every game, not just who won the rubber. A rubber won 3–1 is entered as its four game scores, for example 15–11, 13–15, 15–8, 15–13.

The game scores matter twice over. They decide the fixture, because a team's points are its games won rather than its rubbers — see below. And they are what the site checks: a game that does not reach the target, or is won by a single point, is refused when the result is entered, because one of those two numbers has been mistyped.

Substitutions

Substitutes can play upwards freely.
Playing down a division needs league approval in advance, and one division down is the limit. Captains request it from their team page.
Substitute appearances are tracked but do not count toward the player's home-team record.
There is a limit of five times that a player can be a substitute for their clubs teams per season, use them wisely!
You can only substitute to teams within your club.

Points

A team's points for a fixture are its games won, plus one bonus:

1 point for every game won — win or lose the fixture.
2 bonus points to the team that wins more rubbers.
1 bonus point where the rubbers finish level (2–2), to whichever team won more games overall. Level on rubbers and games is a straight draw, with no bonus to either side.

The two bonuses are alternatives — a team gets one or the other, never both — and winning the fixture itself carries no points of its own. So a 2–2 fixture won 8 games to 7 scores 9 against 7, and a 3–1 fixture won 9 games to 5 scores 11 against 5.

Teams level on points

Teams level on points are separated by rubbers won, then games difference, then the results between them; teams still level share the position.

Games difference is games won minus games lost. "The results between them" means the points each team earned in the fixtures it played against the others still level — a mini-league when more than two are level. A shared position is shown as, for example, 3=, and the next team is placed after all of them.

Historical rules document: HDSA rules as amended at the 2005 AGM (Word). This is the 2005 document and it is out of date — the league’s rules were updated at this year’s AGM. This page is the current summary, and an updated full rules document will follow.

How player ratings work

Every player carries a rating, a number that goes up when you win and down when you lose. It decides the order of the player rankings, and it is worked out automatically. Nobody adjusts it by hand.

The whole thing rests on one idea: you are rewarded for who you beat, not for how many you beat. Beating somebody well above you is worth a great deal. Beating somebody well below you is worth very little.

The basics

Every rubber you play moves your rating. The winner gains points and the loser loses the same number - nothing is created or destroyed.
It is worked out per rubber, not per match. A 3-2 team win is five separate rating changes.
Your rating cannot go below zero. If you lose more than you have, you simply drop to nought.
The rankings are recalculated from scratch every time a result is entered, in date order, so a result entered late lands where it belongs rather than on top.

When the favourite wins

If the higher-rated player wins, they gain a little and how they won matters. Winning comfortably is worth more than scraping through.

The two of you are close (within 100 points): 60 points, whatever the score. At that distance it was a real contest.
You were clearly the favourite (more than 100 points above):
- won 3–0 — 30 points
- won 3–1 — 20 points
- won 3–2 — 10 points

That is the part people are usually surprised by, and it is deliberate: if you are 400 points better and you only just get past them, you have told the league something, and it is not that you deserve 60 points. Taking a game off a much stronger player is worth something to you, and it costs them.

When the underdog wins

An upset pays properly, and it pays more the bigger the upset. It starts at 80 points for beating somebody at your own level, and climbs with the gap:

gap of 50 — 80 points
gap of 150 — 110 points
gap of 250 — 170 points
gap of 500 — 270 points
gap of 619 or more — 300 points, and no more than that

Why the cap? So that one freak result cannot undo a season. Three hundred points is a big swing - it is five ordinary wins — but it is not a whole season's work, and it means nobody can be catapulted up or wiped out by a single afternoon.

Notice also that the score does not matter in an upset. Beating somebody well above you is the achievement; whether it went 3–0 or 3–2 does not change that.

A worked example

Say you are on 4,850 and your opponent is on 5,000 — they are 150 points above you.

You win. That is an upset with a gap of 150, so you gain 110 and they lose 110. You go to 4,960, they drop to 4,890 — and you have swapped places.
They win 3–1. They were more than 100 above you, so they gain 20 and you lose 20. They go to 5,020, you drop to 4,830.

The same fixture, two results, and the swing is more than five times bigger when the underdog takes it. That is the engine in one example.

Starting ratings

Your rating at the start of a season is whatever you finished the last one on. A player new to the league starts on a figure set for their division, so they begin somewhere sensible rather than at zero and spend the season catching up.

Things that count but do not move your rating

Walkovers. The appearance is recorded, it counts as played, and as a win or a loss - but no rating changes hands. Nobody proved anything on court.
Doubles rubbers. Same again: played, won and lost all count, and no rating moves. A pair's win is not evidence about either player individually - the stronger partner can carry a rubber and there is no way to tell from the scoreline which of them did. Inventing a number for that would be worse than not having one.
An opponent who is not registered. The appearance counts; no rating moves.

Your position in the rankings

Within each division, players are simply listed by rating, highest first. Your position at the start of the season is your starting rating’s place in that order, so you can see how far you have climbed - or slipped - across the season.

Your own page shows every rubber you have played, what your rating was before it, what the result was worth, and what it became afterwards. If a number ever looks wrong, that page will show you exactly which result caused it.