# Padel & Pickleball Scheduler

> Fair Americano or Mexicano doubles rounds with balanced sit-outs, scores and standings. Enter the players, the number of courts and rounds. The scheduler creates doubles rounds that avoid repeating partners and opponents and spreads sit-outs evenly (Americano), or pairs players by their current standings (Mexicano: 1st + 4th against 2nd + 3rd). Enter scores to get the standings and the next Mexicano round.

Part of usefulweb.site (https://usefulweb.site/). Results are deterministic calculations from the inputs and the listed assumptions; the API returns exactly what the web page shows.

## Use it
- Human interface: https://padelpickleballscheduler.usefulweb.site/ (interactive tool at https://padelpickleballscheduler.usefulweb.site/tool)
- JSON API: POST https://padelpickleballscheduler.usefulweb.site/api/v1/calculate with a JSON object of inputs (schema: https://padelpickleballscheduler.usefulweb.site/api/v1/tool)
- OpenAPI: https://padelpickleballscheduler.usefulweb.site/openapi.json
- MCP (Streamable HTTP): https://padelpickleballscheduler.usefulweb.site/mcp - tool `padel_pickleball_scheduler`

## Inputs
- sport (select): Sport
- format (select): Format
- players (list, required): Players - One name per line, at least 4. For Mexicano, list them by strength for the first round.
- courts (integer): Courts
- rounds (integer): Rounds
- pointsPerMatch (integer): Points per match - Americano/Mexicano usually play a fixed total (e.g. 24 or 32 points); pickleball games often go to 11. Used only to check scores; 0 = no check.
- scores (table): Scores - Optional. Round, court and the points of team A (left) and team B (right) as shown in the schedule.

## Method
- Each round uses min(courts, ⌊players ÷ 4⌋) courts; everyone else sits out. Sit-outs go to the players who have sat out least, then to those who sat out longest ago, then from the bottom of the list, so sit-outs differ by at most one where possible.
- Americano: the active players are arranged on courts to minimise a penalty: 10 for every earlier round two partners already played together and 3 for every earlier meeting of two opponents. Starting from a rotated order, a deterministic local search swaps players while the penalty falls. With few players, repeats are unavoidable; the fairness table shows them.
- Mexicano: round 1 is drawn like Americano from the list order. From round 2, the active players are ranked by the standings, and every group of four (1–4, 5–8 …) plays 1st + 4th against 2nd + 3rd. A round can only be drawn when all scores of the previous round are entered.
- Standings: every player gets the points their team scored. Sorted by points, then wins, then point difference, then name.
- No randomness: the same players and settings always give the same schedule.