Table Tennis Ladder

[Frankie T]

Hey all. I have what I think may be a fairly complex problem to solve, and I'm sure there are many solutions. I'd like your opinions. Here's the rundown. I'd like to create a "ladder" for a company table tennis league. This is how the ladder works:

[*]Players are, at first, randomly assigned a rank

[*]Players can challenge any player up to 5 ranks above them

[*]If the higher-ranked player wins, nothing changes

[*]If the lower-ranked player (the challenger) beats the higher-ranked player, the lower-ranked player takes the higher rank. The higher rank player drops down one rank

 

To clarify, an example:

[*]Molly (ranked 5) challenges James (ranked 3)

[*]Molly wins the match

[*]Molly is now ranked 3

[*]James is now ranked 4

 

How do I accomplish this? Should I store the ladder in its own table? Should I store players' ranks in their respective rows in the players table? Either way, I'll need to update every record in the table to reflect the new rankings. Is that a reasonable way of doing things? Is there a better way?

 

Thanks, guys.

[thehippy]

I had this bookmarked, its not a pure (Player, Rank) example but a (Player, Points, Rank) example, which may work for you.

[Frankie T]

Thanks. It seems like, then, that it's just a matter of updating every single row. There's no easy way around it. Anyone else have an opinion?