Assign tables and run several tables at once

How many tables can I run at once?

Running several tables simultaneously is not gated by plan — every plan, including Free, can set up as many tables as your club physically has. You set the number available in the wizard's Match Format step, in the Available Tables stepper card, or in the Ladder-specific settings if you're running a ladder night. There is no per-table cap in the app.

What is a paid feature is running more than one tournament (arena) at the same time — for example two separate club nights on two separate PingPong Arena events, side by side. That's a Club Pro capability, currently coming soon and not yet purchasable, and it's a different thing from multi-table coordination within a single event. If your club just runs one tournament with several physical tables, the normal case, nothing here is plan-gated.

Assigning a match to a table

In the group standings matrix (or the equivalent draw view for your format), tap a table cell for the pairing you want to send to a table. The match moves to the bottom strip, the Games screen, as a card assigned to that table number.

A freshly assigned match shows a Ready badge on its card — it is sitting on a table but nobody has started playing yet, so no timer runs. The Games screen gives you a single glance at every table in play at once: which are ready, which are live, and which are still free.

• Tap a table cell in the standings matrix or draw view for the pairing you want to send to a table.
• The match appears as a card on the Games screen, showing the table number it was assigned to.
• A newly assigned match starts with a Ready badge and no running timer.

Ready vs Live — starting a match

A match becomes Live — its badge changes, and an elapsed-time timer starts — the moment either of two things happens, whichever comes first.

The first is tapping the Ready badge on its card to mark it started by hand. This is the normal path for a club that runs without table referees: players walk over and report the score once the game is over, so nobody scores a single point until the whole match is finished. Tapping Ready tells the app this table is now occupied, even though no score has been typed yet.

The second is the first point being scored on it. If your club does score point-by-point live, via a scorer link, the match flips to Live automatically the instant the first point is entered — nobody needs to tap anything.

Tapping the match card itself opens the scoring view in both states — the badge is the only thing that decides Ready vs Live, not the card tap. A card showing Live carries a running elapsed-time timer next to it; a card still showing Ready has none.

Moving a match to a different table

In the group standings matrix, drag a table onto another match in the same group to swap which pairing plays where. You can also press Enter on a selected table to pick it up, then place it, without a mouse drag.

If the target table already had a match assigned, that match also moves — the app tells you this explicitly, with a message along the lines of "this match also changes: table {table} moves to another pairing," so you never lose track of where a pairing went.

A match that is already Live cannot be dragged, and cannot be a drop target either. Only Ready, not-yet-started, matches can be swapped between tables — this protects a game that's actually in progress from being rearranged by mistake.

Honest limits

• The drag-to-swap table exchange works with a mouse and keyboard on desktop or tablet. It does not currently support touch dragging on a phone.
• Because the Live lock is enforced by the app itself, not just hidden in the UI, an exchange request naming a match that's already Live is refused even if two organiser devices try it in the same moment.