Third Shot Pickleball Grove · Open Play
Games follow standard USA Pickleball (American) doubles rules — the same rules you'd see at any sanctioned club or tournament:
Games are played to 11 points, win by 2.
If it reaches 10–10, play continues until one side is ahead by 2 (e.g. 12–10, 13–11).
Only the serving side can score a point.
This is traditional side-out scoring — if the receiving team wins the rally, no point is scored; the serve just passes to the other side (a "side-out").
Each player on the serving team gets a turn to serve.
Except right at the very start of the game: the first server's team only gets one serve before the first side-out, then both players on every team after that serve in turn.
The serving team calls the score as three numbers.
Serving team's score, receiving team's score, then which server (1 or 2) — e.g. "4–2–1".
Two-bounce rule.
The ball must bounce once on each side before either team can volley (hit it out of the air).
Once a game finishes, the venue owner enters the final score (e.g. 11–7) — that's the only number that gets recorded. Point-by-point play isn't tracked, just the result.
Every registered player starts at Level 0. Your Level goes up when you win and down when you lose — but not by a fixed amount. It's a rating system (similar to chess Elo ratings), so a few things change how much you gain or lose each game:
Who you beat matters more than just winning.
Beating a higher-level team gains you more than beating a lower-level one. Losing to a lower-level team costs you more than losing to a higher-level one.
Both partners on a team get the same change.
Your team's average level is compared against the other team's average level to decide what's "expected," then both teammates move the same amount based on the actual result.
A blowout moves the needle more than a close game.
The bigger the point gap in the final score, the larger the Level swing for that game (capped so one lopsided game can't swing things too wildly).
"Top players" (all-time) ranks by your current Level.
This is your running total, built up across every Open Play session you've played here — not just one night.
A session recap ranks by how much you gained that one night.
The "+X" shown on a session's top-3 card is the Level you gained (or lost) in just that session, not your overall standing.
Guests don't appear on the all-time leaderboard.
Playing without a free account still earns you a Level for that one session (so you can see how you did), but it isn't saved anywhere afterward — create a free account to start building a Level that carries over session to session.
Questions about a specific game or your Level? Ask the venue owner, or check the full leaderboard to see everyone's standing.