Claiming your player record

Your organizer added you to the group before you had a PickleFriend account. Every game you've played has been tracked under that player record — ratings, game history, placement progress. Claiming the record attaches it to the account you create (or already have), so that history becomes yours.

How the claim flow starts

When you open the public ratings page from a score or schedule link, the page runs in a compact embedded view — the main site navigation is hidden and a banner appears at the top with a "Back to scoring" or "Back to your event" link so you can return to what you were doing.

If your player record isn't linked to an account yet, a second prompt appears in that banner: "Sign up to track your ratings →". Clicking it takes you to the registration page with your name and email already filled in.

The token behind that link is short-lived — it expires after one hour. If you open the link later and the fields are blank, go back to the ratings page and click the prompt again to get a fresh one.

Registering with a claim token

When you land on the registration page via the claim link, the name and email from your player record are pre-filled. You still need to choose a username, set a password, and accept the terms. After you submit, your account is created, you're logged in, and the player record is linked in the same step. Your full rating history — every game, every rating movement — is immediately visible.

If the name or email pre-filled isn't what you want, change them before you submit. The fields are editable.

Already have an account?

The claim link points to the registration page. If you already have a PickleFriend account, open the claim link but switch to the login page instead — the claim token needs to be present in the URL for the link to happen. Click the claim link from the ratings page, then choose "Login here" at the bottom of the registration form; that passes the token to the login page.

When you log in via a claim link, the player record links to your account, provided the email address on your player record matches the email on your account (or the organizer didn't record an email for you). If the emails don't match, the link won't happen silently — contact your organizer to update your player record email.

If you didn't arrive via a claim link, the rating history will not attach automatically. Contact your organizer — they can look up whether your account is already linked on their end.

What "already claimed" means

If you arrive at the registration page via the claim link and see a warning that the player profile is already linked to another account, the player row has a prior owner. The form still lets you create a new account — but that new account won't carry the existing rating history. Reach out to your organizer; they manage player records and can sort out the mismatch.

What history carries over

Everything stored against the player record before you claimed it:

• Your full rating and all the games that produced it.
• Placement progress (if your group uses placement games).
• Inactivity decay accumulated (or reversed) by past sessions.
• Ladder division placement and spare history (if your group is a ladder league).

None of that is duplicated or reset. The same row that the organizer created is now yours.

The embedded ratings view

Arriving from a /score or /schedule link puts you in embedded mode — the site header and footer are hidden, and a back banner at the top returns you to scoring or your event. Everything else on the page works the same as the full version. For a full explanation of what the ratings page shows — tabs, session deltas, decay markers, placement badges — see The public ratings page.

What's next

• Accounts and your data — what a free account saves and what stays in your browser.
• The public ratings page — how to read the leaderboard, session deltas, and ladder-specific badges.