Pick your game — Pickleball or Badminton (singles or doubles, up to 12 players and multiple courts). Enter names, choose who plays first, and you're off.
Halls hand you courts 3 and 4, not courts 1 and 2, so after the count Robn asks which ones you're on. Type the first and the rest follow; leave them alone for 1, 2, 3. Every game is then called by the number on the wall — on your phone, on the courtside TV, and on the results page you share afterwards.
Robn remembers your group — on the Names step, tap a player chip to add them instantly, or type to add someone new. A kickoff splash with the date and lineup sends you into Game 1.
Robn's fair rotation picks each matchup for you: it balances how long people have waited, avoids repeating partners and opponents, and rotates serve fairly. Nobody argues about who's up next.
It also picks even sides, using the same rating the 🏅 Players page shows, brought up to date with tonight's results. In doubles the two pairs are matched on their combined rating, so the two best players get handed each other rather than teamed up; in singles you are drawn against someone near your own level. Whose turn it is still comes first — nobody sits out to make a game closer — and a group with no history behind it starts everyone equal and sorts itself out over the first few results.
The following round is drawn the moment the current one starts and shown as Up Next — so everyone knows their next partner and court before the game ends. On multiple courts, rounds advance together: a court that finishes first sees its next matchup while the other plays out, and players keep mixing across courts — even fully packed, like 8 players on 2 courts.
On two or more courts with someone waiting, the wizard asks Wait or play on? — what happens when one court finishes before the other. Wait for the others is the round-by-round night above: everyone comes off together and the whole group is reshuffled, which gives the best mix of partners and opponents. Keep the court going means a court that finishes draws its next game straight away — whoever is waiting walks on and one of its own four sits down — so no court ever sits empty, you fit more games into the booking and a sit-out lasts minutes rather than a whole round. The trade is that partners change one player at a time instead of all at once. Up Next then becomes a line under the courts: who is on next, and how long until a court frees for them. If nobody is waiting, the courts wait for each other anyway.
A court that has finished also sees how long the wait is — “Court 2 · ~4 min left” — with the time that court has actually been playing shown beside it. Robn learns each sport's typical game length from your own finished nights, so badminton to 21 and pickleball to 11 are judged separately, and the estimate takes account of how long the game has already run rather than counting down to a finish it can't promise. A brand-new group gets the same estimate as anyone else: it's built on the clock, not on who's holding the racket.
When a tournament starts, a Share · CODE pill appears at the top. Tap it to copy the watch link — anyone who opens it sees a live scoreboard: current matchups, serve, leaderboard and recent games, updating in real time.
Tap 👥 Players above the courts to open the roster while the night is running. Somebody just walked in? Type their name — or tap them from your group — and they join the next round. Somebody heading off, or sitting one out with a sore ankle? Tap their name to take them out; tap it again when they are back.
A player who arrives at game 20 joins at par: the draw treats them as having played the same number of games as everyone else, so they slot into the rotation instead of hogging the next six games catching up. Coming back in works the same way — sitting a round out is a choice, not a debt.
Nobody loses anything by leaving. Every game they played still counts: they stay on the leaderboard, in the awards and on the results page. If they were mid-game when they left, that court is redrawn on the spot from whoever is free; if there is nobody left to fill it, that game is simply voided and the court pauses until the numbers allow it again.
Drop below four players and Robn says so rather than inventing a game — the moment a fourth is back in, play picks up.
Tell Robn when the court goes back — on the Courts step when you set up, or any time from the ⏱ strip under the courts — and it works out how much night is left: “Until 9:00 pm · 5 more rounds · ~5 games each”.
It sizes a round from your own finished games, the same clocks behind the waiting-court estimate, and a round is as long as its slowest court because courts start together. The gap between rounds counts too — and that is measured from tonight, from your hall, rather than guessed.
If you chose to keep the courts going there are no rounds to count, so it says “6 more games a court” instead, and calls the 🏁 Last game rather than the last round.
Not every court for the whole night? A hall will give you court 3 from seven and court 4 only from eight, or want one of them back early. On the Which Courts? step, tap Not every court for the whole night? and give each court a from and an until — leave one blank for “from the start” or “to the finish”. Robn then runs the night on the courts you actually have: at eight the second court opens and whoever is waiting walks straight onto it; a court whose hour is up plays its game out and quietly retires. The strip says what is coming (“3 more rounds · Court 4 from 8:00 pm”), a live court shows until 8:00 pm beside its number, and the ⏱ sheet lists every court with Open now / Close now for when the plan changes on the night — or Add a court when a spare one turns up.
When only one round still fits, the strip and the on-deck panel both say 🏁 Last round, so the night ends on a real final instead of trailing off when somebody checks their phone. Run over and it tells you that too.
Robn never ends the night for you. Pressing End Tournament is what sets the finish time, and a clock does not get to press it. The results page afterwards shows what you planned against what actually happened.
End Tournament locks the results and shows the final table, awards, full game log — and a 🎙 AI-written recap of the night appears on the results page. Changed your mind? End without saving in the same dialog discards the night completely.
Press End Tournament when you actually stop playing — that is what sets the finish time. If a tournament gets left open and closed hours later (or the next morning), Robn rebuilds the real end time from the games that were played, pricing each one by its score line, and marks it with a ≈ on the journal and results page. That keeps the night on the right date, but a rebuilt time is a good estimate rather than a record — so it is always shown as one.
Bad reception at the court? No problem. Robn is offline-first — scores save to your phone instantly and sync to the cloud whenever signal returns. Spectators catch up automatically. You can also install Robn as an app: "Add to Home Screen" on iPhone, "Install app" on Android.
The 🏅 Players tab in the bottom menu holds the group's all-time table — nights, games, wins and win rates. Tap any name (there or on a results page) for the full profile: per-sport records, an ELO rating with its history chart, head-to-head records, and doubles-partner win rates.
Been away? When you open the app, a toast tells you what you missed since your last visit.
Robn keeps a copy of itself on your phone so it opens offline. If a results page or the journal ever looks stale, tap below: it clears that copy and reloads the latest version. Your tournaments and scores are kept — they live separately.