● Session formats
Pick a format.
The app runs the night.
These are real formats with real rules, played long before anyone wrote an app for them. What EpokSports does is work out the pairings, the rounds and the standings that follow from the rules, so nobody is doing it on the back of a scorecard while everyone waits.
Every session format below is free to run, for as many people as you like.
Americano
4 per court · padel, tennis, squash, badminton, table tennis, pickleball
Rotating partners. Every round you are given a new partner and new opponents, so over the session you play with everyone and against everyone. You score as an individual, not as a pair — the points you win go to you, whoever you happened to be partnered with. That is the whole idea: the draw stops being about who you came with.
It is the standard social format for a padel or tennis night, and it is the one to pick when the group is a mix of abilities and you want everyone playing everyone.
Four players, one court — how the partners rotate
ROUND 1A + BvC + D
ROUND 2A + CvB + D
ROUND 3A + DvB + C
Three rounds and every pairing has happened once. With more players there are more rounds, and anyone not on court sits that round out and comes back in.
Ultimate Americano
8 or more · racket sports
An Americano group stage first, and then finals across the whole field, paired by where you finished. The player who came first partners the player who came fourth, against second and third. Fifth and eighth play sixth and seventh. And so on, all the way down.
Everybody gets a final, not just the top four. If you finished eleventh out of sixteen you are still playing a final that matters, against people who finished where you did. It is the fix for the usual problem with a group stage, which is that most of the field stops caring by the end of it.
The finals draw, by finishing position
FINAL 11 + 4v2 + 3
FINAL 25 + 8v6 + 7
FINAL 39 + 12v10 + 11
Top and bottom of each group of four partner each other, against the middle two. The pattern continues for as many players as you have.
Europa
8 or more · racket sports · runs over stages
Three leagues, each one run as an Americano, all feeding a single combined standing. Once the stage is done, the whole field is re-segmented from that one standing — the top group, the middle group and the bottom group become the new leagues — and the next stage is played there, where results carry more weight.
The effect is that you drift towards the people you are actually a match for, without ever being knocked out. Europa is not a court ladder. Nobody is defending a rung and nobody challenges anyone; the standing decides the re-segmentation, and everyone plays every stage.
One stage of Europa
LEAGUE 1LEAGUE 2LEAGUE 3
→
ONE COMBINED STANDING
→
TOP THIRDMIDDLE THIRDBOTTOM THIRD
Each league plays as an Americano. The three results merge into one standing, the field re-segments from it, and the next stage starts.
Mini Games
Team sports · basketball, football, volleyball, handball
Short games, stacked up, and you compose each one. Pick the sides, set how it ends — a length of time or a target score — play it, and go again. Nothing has to be decided up front: you can change the teams between games, or keep the winners on.
It is what a group actually does with a hall for two hours, and the point of running it here is that each short game still counts towards the record instead of being forgotten by the time you are back in the car park.
A session is a sequence you build as you go
GAME 1SIDE AvSIDE B· first to a target, or a set time
GAME 2SIDE BvSIDE C· re-pick the sides, or keep them
GAME 3SIDE AvSIDE C· and so on, for as long as you have the hall
Head to Head
Two sides · any sport
Two players, or two teams, one scoreline. The simplest thing there is, and the reason it has its own format is the record: play the same opponent again and the previous meetings are already there. A rivalry accumulates without anyone having to keep a note of it.
One fixture, and the meetings behind it
TODAYSIDE ONEvSIDE TWO
BEFOREevery previous meeting between these two, and how they stand overall
Round Robin
Small groups · any sport
Everyone plays everyone once, and the table follows from it. No draw, no luck, no easy half of the bracket — if you finish top you have beaten the field. It is the honest way to settle a small group, and the reason it is limited to small groups is arithmetic: the number of matches climbs fast.
Four entrants · every pairing played once · six matches
Av Bv Cv D
B v Cv D
C v D
Four entrants is six matches. Six entrants is fifteen. Eight is twenty-eight — which is where you want a group stage instead.
● Competitions
Formats run a night. Competitions run a season.
Everything above finishes the same evening it starts. A league or a tournament runs over time, and anyone in a community can organise one.
Leagues
Any sport · over weeks · fixtures and a table
Weeks of fixtures and a table that moves. Run it as squads, as duos, as singles, or across your whole community. Everyone knows who they play and when, the table updates as results come in, and a run of form actually means something because it is measured against the same field every week.
Tournaments
Any sport · one event · plays to a winner
Single elimination, or a group stage and then a knockout. Those two. One event, run to a winner, with the bracket drawn and advanced for you as the results come in.
What it costs to publish one
$15one-off · a league
$10one-off · a tournament
Paid once, by whoever organises it, for that one competition. It is not a subscription and there is nothing to cancel. Everyone who plays in it pays us nothing. Playing, joining and every session format above stay free.
Fees are in US dollars and are charged once, per competition, to whoever publishes it. If a facility is on a paid tier, leagues and tournaments at that venue are included in their subscription and cost the organiser nothing.
What everything costs, for players · For facilities
