Mixed doubles & gender balance
Keep every court mixed doubles, or run all-men / all-women courts — automatically.
Some groups care about gender on court — strict mixed doubles, separate men's and women's games, or a softer nudge toward more of each across the night. The Mixer builds any of those into the round. Set each player's gender once, flip on the rule you want, and the engine does the rest.
1. Set each player's gender
Open a player's menu from the ⋮ (three-dot) button on their roster row and choose Male or Female. A check mark shows the current setting, and you can clear it later if you set it by mistake.
Gender is optional and per-player. Players you leave unset are treated as "unspecified" — which matters once you turn on a gender rule (see the fallback note below).
2. Choose the rule you want
Open the Gender controls (the Gender button below the courts opens the Gender Controls panel) and you'll find two switches plus a weight that controls how hard the engine tries:
- Allow Mixed Doubles Courts — a court where each team is one man and one woman.
- Allow All Men/Women Courts — a court where all four players are the same gender.
- Mixed Doubles Weight — how strongly to prioritize the rule against everything else (fresh partners, rating balance, sit-outs). Higher means the engine fights harder to satisfy it, even if that means more repeats.
The two switches combine into the four arrangements below:
| Mixed allowed | Same-gender allowed | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| ✓ | ✓ | Either is fine — mixed or all-same courts |
| ✓ | ✗ | Mixed doubles only — penalize all-same courts |
| ✗ | ✓ | All-men / all-women only — penalize mixed courts |
| ✗ | ✗ | Nothing is allowed — every court is penalized (not useful) |
Don't want to tune the switches by hand? The preset picker ships ready-made gender presets — a gentle "play a few more mixed and same-gender games" nudge at one end, "mixed doubles only" and "force same-gender games" at the other. Each preset sets these toggles and the Mixed Doubles Weight for you.
3. Mix
Press Mix and the engine builds rounds that satisfy your rule while still keeping partners and opponents as fresh as it can. The Mixed Doubles Weight decides which wins when those goals conflict.
When the roster doesn't divide cleanly
Gender balance is a strong preference, not a hard wall. The engine scores each court and heavily penalizes ones that break your rule, then picks the best overall set of matchups it can find.
So if you ask for mixed doubles only but you have, say, ten men and six women, some courts can't be mixed — the math doesn't allow it. Rather than refusing to mix, the engine accepts the unavoidable courts and keeps the rest mixed. A higher Mixed Doubles Weight pushes the imbalance onto as few courts as possible.
One thing to watch: a player with no gender set can't satisfy either rule — they can't complete an all-same court or a mixed pairing — so they read as "wrong gender" everywhere. If your gender mixing looks off, the usual cause is a few unset players. Set everyone's gender and the rule lands cleanly.
How it plays with other settings
- Fixed partners — pairings you've locked together are kept as-is, so make sure a fixed pair already matches your gender rule (e.g. one man + one woman if you want mixed doubles). The engine won't break a fixed partnership to satisfy gender.
- Rating balance — gender and rating balance both compete for the engine's attention. If you run both at high weight on a tight roster, expect more repeat partners, since something has to give. Lower one weight if the matchups feel too forced.
Next
- See every knob in one place — Settings reference.
- Locking specific pairs together? Fixed partners.