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LADDER RULES AND POLICIES

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Moving Up and Down
Ladders are a way of ranking players. They are called ladders because the system is based on the principle of rungs - winning games moves you up the rungs of the ladder and losing games moves you down.
When you play a ladders game for the first time you are automatically entered at the bottom. Your goal is to climb your way up the rungs until you get to first place.
When you defeat a higher ranked player you move up half the distance between their rank and your own. The higher player that lost will move down one rung. Keep in mind When other players beat people above you and jump over you in rank you will slide down.
Example: Assume that Fred is at rung 10 and Mary is on rung 30. If Mary defeats Fred, Mary moves to rung 20 (because 20 is halfway between 10 and 30), and Fred moves to rung 11. The players who were at rungs 21-29 each move down one to make room for Mary. The player who was at rung 11 will move up to rung 10 to replace Fred.
Inactivity/Defense Rules
If you haven't played a match in 30 days you will be automatically removed for inactivity. Removal for inactivity is completely automated. No exceptions are made to this rule.
You must defend your rung against 14 lower rung players every 7 days in single player games. For games in which a player has multiple opponents, the number of required defenses is multiplied by the number of opponents (e.g. a hearts player must play 42 different opponents (14 games) in the last 7 days to be considered active). Note that this applies to the top 300 only, in order to encourage competition at the top of the ladders.
A valid defense range is from 100 to 300 rungs. For example, if you are rung 100 a game counts as a valid defense if your opponent is rung 101-400. You can play anyone you like, but only games in that range count as a valid defense.
The system daily runs a check to make sure you have met the above defense rules. If it finds you delinquent you will be demoted 5 rungs per day you are delinquent. This is totally automated and there are no exceptions.
Additional Rules for Top 100
Each time a game is started the system checks if you or your opponent are in the top 100. If so you may only play the same opponent once in 24 hours and have it counted as a ladder game. Feel free to play your friends as often as you like, but only one game per 24 hours will count on the ladder.
Game-Specific Rules
There are additional rules covered in our help section for free-for-all games (Hearts) and for partnership games (Pinochle, Euchre, Spades).
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