DUPR Confused! Pickleball Ratings explained with Rick Bigelow

What exactly is DUPR… and why is the entire pickleball world talking about it?

In this episode of Kitchen Conversations: Stories Behind the Paddle, Mike sits down with Kingston pickleball leader and founding Kingston Pickleball Club member Rick Bigelow for a deep dive into the evolution of pickleball ratings, the rise of DUPR, tournament play, sandbagging, reliability scores, and the growing pains of a sport exploding across the globe.

From the early YMCA days in Kingston… to today’s data driven world of ratings, ladders, and tournament algorithms… this conversation breaks down one of the most misunderstood topics in pickleball in a way every club player can understand.

Whether you are:
 🏓 brand new to the game
 🏓 curious about tournament play
 🏓 frustrated by your DUPR rating
 🏓 or simply fascinated by where pickleball is heading globally

…this episode delivers real insight without the noise.

Special thanks to Kingston Pickleball Club for continuing to help grow one of the strongest pickleball communities in Canada.

📍 Kingston Pickleball Club
 1050 Gardiners Road
 Kingston, Ontario

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And that wraps up this episode of Kitchen Conversations.

If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who loves the game as much as you do.

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That’s where these stories really come to life.

You’ll also find links and show notes in the episode description.

Until next time…

more than dinks, drops and drives…

these are stories from behind the paddle.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Welcome to Kitchen Conversations. We are a podcast whose mission is uh, well, it's quite simple. We hope that each episode inspires at least one person, and maybe that will be you. Maybe you're that person to get up, get off the couch, pick up a pickleball paddle, and try this game for the very first time. And uh we think today's guest will get you thinking about the game and thinking about it perhaps on a more serious level. We're talking today to Kingston Pickleball Club's Rick Bigelow. Now, Rick's a guy that everybody just loves. He's someone that is just so well known within the club and beyond. He and his wife Andrea are a huge part of pickleball, both here and in the U.S. Both are referees, both are passionate players, just terrific people, and really just they embody the essence of everything that we love about the game. Uh, they're good for the game. And uh we appreciate the fact that Rick came in and tried to clear the air on something that's been, well, controversial, I suppose at best, confusing in the least. And it is the rating system called duper, D-U-P-R. Our goal today is to try to explain to you, the average pickleball player, if you will, how the rating system works, why it's there, the history of ratings within the game of pickleball. You know, it's been called everything from stupor duper to pooper duper to uh maybe perhaps names we shouldn't and can't really mention on this podcast. But nonetheless, Rick did a great job of sitting down with me, chatting about the game, chatting about how he got involved in the game, and of course, diving into the world of duper. Let's get going with Rick Bigelow on this episode of Kitchen Conversations. Well, Rick Bigelow, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to Kitchen Conversations, and thanks for coming by this morning. We have uh we have a lot to talk about this morning. So yeah, I'm so glad you're here. You and I have been uh chatting courtside about this new thing called duper, D-U-P-R. And I think um, as pickleball fans, passionate players, and uh, you know, people that just love the game, I know through the Kingston Pickleball Club there's a lot of people chatting about duper, um, wondering about duper, confused about duper, maybe, uh, looking at the old rating system, Rick, and kind of trying to figure out where were we, where are we, and I guess kind of where are we going. So um, you know, your time this morning is appreciated. And uh I know you've been heavily invested in the game and a passionate player for a long time and you love the game, and uh, and we certainly do as well. So appreciate you being here. Thank you. Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, where do we start though, Rick? I mean, there's so much to dive into. I think if you don't mind, maybe you know, we'll break this into a couple of different rallies this morning to keep the theme of pickleball. Okay. Uh tell me a bit about you and your love of the game. How did you get started in pickleball? We'll start with that because I think everybody knows who you are at the club, but maybe there are those that don't really realize.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Well, I wouldn't say everybody knows me. A lot of people do. A lot of people do. Absolutely. Yeah. For good or for bad, I suppose. Uh well, once again, my name is Rick Bigelow. Uh I've been uh a founding member of KPC, the the building, since 2022. Uh prior to that, I was a member of the sort of virtual club they had. Uh I think it began in maybe 2015. Uh my story of how I got into it is pretty interesting because uh I was about to retire at the minister. I'm I'm an a previous a retired IT professional. And um I was about to retire, I think it was 2017 uh from the ministry. Uh and uh my manager at the time was Deanna Haynes. Uh-huh. Deanna Christie. Of course. And uh she mentioned in passing that she was a member at uh or actually I think she was the president of K Kings Pitball Club at the time. Yeah. And she said, you know, why don't you come try it out? And I said, Well, I've heard about it, but uh I've never actually played it. So um uh she said, Come down, I think it was next Wednesday, uh to the Y. Right. And Ryan was gonna give a demo and explain the game and sorry, that's her Ryan Haynes. Ryan Haynes, right? Of course. Yeah. And so I talked my wife into it. She was really more into golf at the time. Right. But uh and it was the summertime. So I said, well, let's just go try it out because you know, I'm all we're doing is golfing in the summer and maybe going to the club in the winter, uh the fitness club. So and we we both had uh previous racket uh experience. I was a squash player for 20 years, and of course, basketball and badminton.

unknown 4:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

So I said, okay, well, let's go try it out. And uh we had a great time. Uh interestingly enough, Kelly McGrobert was also there, who has certainly progressed in the in the in the pickleball world. And um so I so we had a great time. We learned the rules, they were a little bit complicated, especially the scoring.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

But uh we did uh you know have a good time. We rallied a bit. Ryan was trying to drill with me, but I wasn't able to keep the ball in place. So I think uh I think uh he hired uh Andrew to take my place and uh basically that's the way it started after uh we we were still playing golf a lot in the summertime, but in the fall we started going to the um the base. Okay, the base gym. Yeah, and you know you set up your own nets or you bring your own nets and uh it was a regular thing, I think, on Sunday mornings. Right. And uh and then we got a new tournament that uh that year. And basically the rest is history.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

We just yeah, but I think everyone listening to the podcast today definitely can remember the person that said, Come on out and try it. For you it was Dan or for me it was Pam, which is great. So well, listen, let's jump into this rating business and really I'm gonna open up the door on this, Rick, to you to kind of take this in any direction that you'd like. Okay. What I'm hoping today, and and hopefully we're successful, and I think we will be, when we get to the end of the podcast, the average person listening, the average player will get a better understanding of where did we start with a rating system? How has that evolved into something called duper? Again, D-U-P-R. What are the benefits of that? What are the uh the drawbacks to it from your perspective? And you know, where is it all heading? So let me just open the door to all of that for you.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Okay, well, first I'll explain sort of the history of ratings as I know them.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

That'd be great.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Um basically, uh nothing really happened. It was just until the early 2000s.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

It was basically just beginner intermediate and advanced, right? And you knew which category to fit into. There'd certainly be some growth between beginner intermediate and advanced, but uh there was nothing formal, right? You just sort of learned from your play where you fit in.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

So no numbers at that point?

SPEAKER_02 6:23

None at all. None at all, I don't think. Until uh the USAP may have formalized their organization in the early 2000s.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

And uh they came up with this rating system that was derived partially from tennis. Ah it's the 30, 35, 40, 45, 50.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Okay. So that came from the tennis world into pickleball. Yeah, it was derived from tennis.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Oh, okay. Uh I think they might have had a 2-0 as well. I'm not clear on that, but basically it was the same idea. Right. Three being um beginner, four intermediate, and five advanced. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Um and so uh they went that way for a while, but there was no, you know, tournaments at the time um were a lot of them were on paper, right? There was no recording of results. So nobody really knew from tournament to tournament who did what. Yes. Uh in about um I think it was twenty uh two thousand and five maybe or six, uh somebody got together with the USA USAP and uh created uh an app. Basically it was a web app right that ran tournaments so you could you know blog on online and and and participate, you know, and give you a drawing and that would record the results, right? So we were starting to have electronic results recorded. So that's a big step. That was a big step, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And uh it I think it basically uh went that way for a number of years. Um not necessarily ratings-wise, but at least we were recording uh matches. Right. And then in about I think it was 2017, uh the USAP decided to introduce and the USAP in this uh software, it was called pick a ball tournament, still around actually. Okay, that are pick a ball tournament, yeah, right. Yeah, uh they sort of uh worked together to develop the the platform. Right. Uh and uh in about 2017, I think, USAP decided to formalize uh the ratings and figure out develop a rating algorithm and publish it to their members. Uh so they did that. But I think the issue with that was um it only included uh uh sanctioned tournament results, right? Right. Other tournament results didn't count.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Uh and they wanted to uh I think monetize it some way. Yeah. Uh and and they also when they produce a rating, uh it would go to I think four dozen places, whereas it was just you know, two dozen places in the past. Right. And uh so they tried to monetize it and it didn't really work. Mostly because uh the accuracy of a rating calculated from all results would be more accurate than um just sanctioned tournaments.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Sanctioned tournaments, right? And sorry, Rick, just let me pause there for a moment because so I can get my head around it and so the listener can get their head wrapped around it. The intent of creating a rating system prior to just having beginner intermediate advanced was to try to ensure that at tournament play we had the right people playing against the right people. We didn't have blowout games where we were seeing teams blowing out 11-0, 11-2. We were hoping to improve the quality of play. Is that the general driver behind the concept, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yes, it was. I mean, sandbagging is still a problem.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah. I was hoping we can get into that a bit today.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

So that's a clear problem. It's still a problem uh today.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Um but you're right, uh not knowing the ability of players was affecting tournaments because typically people want to win that five dollar medal, so they'll come in at a lower uh level, right? And uh they'll do anything, Rick. That was the whole idea. Okay. And um it but we it's just focused on tournament players. Right. Because only tournament results counted. Sure. Right. So you've got a large section of the population that's playing, having a great time.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah. But they don't play in tournaments, so they don't have a rating. With all of your experience, Rick, in the game, do you have a sense percentage-wise? And I know this is uh like throwing a dart in the dark, but is there a sense, and maybe just look at Kingston Pickleball Club as an example. What's the percentage of club members that actually participate in tournaments? Are you talking 30% of the club members are tournament players, or what's your just your gut feel?

SPEAKER_02 10:45

It does well, you know, uh I think KPC is a bit different in that it is a very competitive club.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

I agree.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

We have the best facilities, I think, in uh in Kingston anyway, and probably in Ontario, right? From what I've seen.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

So that percentage of tournament players likely higher.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

They would tend to gravitate to KPC. Right. Uh so we do have a lot of them uh right now. And because you know the history of the club, yeah, players being competitive, like Deanna and Ryan. For sure. And uh, you know, the rest of us who had been competitive in other sports.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Uh there's a lot. So I would say maybe it might be KPC maybe 30 percent, but like overall, uh probably only about maybe 10 or 20 percent.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Uh pickleball players globally. Okay, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

But there are uh a larger number, maybe 30 or 40 percent that would play in uh local club competitions, right? For sure. And so that's really the um uh the demographic that uh duper wants to wants to attract, right? Right. And through uh you know some questionable well, some moves that may have been questionable, may have not been questionable, they have certainly penetrated that market.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

And that's the big deal, I think, in terms of what duper does, what duper offers.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Right. And we're gonna get into all of that hopefully because I think there's just a lot and there's a lot of nicknames for duper, and I hope you can share some of those. I know. Because they're kind of fun to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

But well, yeah, I know. But the the point of that is simply that a lot of people don't understand the algorithm. So uh and uh 90%, maybe 100% of the people complain about duper are the ones that think their duper is too low. That's right. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

So the interesting. Let's let's talk to before we lose track of the the the original system, the old system, if you will. Yeah. What were the faults of it? What were the benefits?

SPEAKER_02 12:32

What did it do well, Rick, and what didn't it do well in your Well, I mean, it did provide uh a an estimate of what your ability is related to other players, but only based on tournament play.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Uh so that's a good thing. And this is a bit debatable, but um they did provide separate ratings for certainly singles. Singles is a totally different game. So you play a different level of singles than you would doubles. Yes. But also it differentiated between mixed and uh regular gender doubles. Right. Right. So uh that's good and it's bad, I think, because one school of thought says, hey, we're all just pickleball players. And we all play at a certain level regardless of our age and our physical handicap. So um yeah, it's the jury's still in fact Duper may have wavered on that recently.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

In terms of that. Right. Basically the idea was just to get a a the main target was sandbag.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Right, right, right. Uh to try to make that, yeah. But again, if you're only talking sanctioned tournaments, you're only taking a slice of that entire ply. This was the problem.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

And also I think that USAP was restricting participation to um people that paid the membership for USAP, right? Right. And a lot of people didn't want to pay or they figured, well, I'll just play in this tournament that's not sanctioned because I don't have to be a USAP member. Right. So that breakaway sort of, I think, brought the hits of cards down.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah. When did that all start? When was the groundswell, Rick, when all of a sudden we started hearing about what when was the first time you heard about Duper, or maybe even not Duper, but an alternative rating system that maybe addressed some of the challenges of the original one? Was that something that's happened in the last year, two years, five years?

SPEAKER_02 14:11

When did it well I think it was along with that? Um I think that uh like there there there was another platform that added to the equation. It was called Pickleball Brackets. Right. Okay. First of all, in out of the world, there are many competitive platforms out there. Um one is Pickleball Den, which ran the US Open, and they're maybe moving forward with that one too.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Um but pickleball brackets happen to have it was a competitor to pickleball tournaments, and they attracted a lot of uh play, specifically in the east eastern area. So um they developed their own rating system. Gotcha. Right? Okay. And uh just given the volume of uh results they had, they started to attract some attention. Right? And uh in fact what happened, I think uh USAP was never involved in pickleball brackets, but uh pickleball Canada was. Uh uh because a lot of the Canadian tournaments were run under pickleball bracket software. Gotcha, okay. So they negotiated an agreement, I think in 2022, uh to uh have pickleball brackets uh calculate their own uh rating. Basically what happened, pickleball Canada formed a club, a big club.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

And all the members of pickleball brackets went to that club. And so they generated uh uh ratings based on the results of the players in that club. Gotcha. And that went on till almost the current day, maybe 2025, I think it ended.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

So there's that. Uh and you know, other competing platforms, there's still uh platforms out there that want to take over from Duper, but it's hard to imagine given the size of Duper as it is now.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Right. Yeah, I've heard of something called Vare.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Um yeah, VARE. Actually, I know the guy who's one of the principals of Vare.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Do you?

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Yeah, yeah, he's in Florida, okay. And uh he's keen, he's got a ways to go, but uh you never know.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah. So so for those listening, again, I want to go slow today because I want to make sure that we, you know, we're here today and I want to make sure we capture the the essence of what we're talking about. So there's there's a number of different rating systems in play now, in motion, right, that are all sort of competing to become the one rating system, Rick, if you will, that will govern pickleball ratings on a global level. Is that a fair way of saying it?

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Correct. Yeah, everybody wants to be global global, but uh a lot of them are going about it the right way. Okay. A lot of them are the the thing too, I think what killed uh uh the USAP rating was it was tied to a platform.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

A competitive platform. Right. So really what that means is if you want your ratings to count, you have to join a tournament that's hosted on that tournament platform. Gotcha. Right. Right. Duper has separated itself from the platform. Ah okay. So what that means is um sure the pickleball tournaments tournaments report to duper, but so do um you know other tournaments like the pickleball den, uh GPN.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Okay. So it's platform neutral then, is kind of what you're saying. It's a standalone rating system.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

What happened is uh you know, it's a standalone system, and if a uh platform wants to report results there, they just there's an API that interfaces with the two computers, talk to each other.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

You send the results in that way. So uh that's been uh a big step. What that means is uh uh duper isn't restricted to the competitive platform, so they're getting uh data from everywhere. Right. Right. So I think they might have more than a dozen platforms that are cooperating right now.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

That's nice.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yeah. And that kind of eliminates one of the biggest challenges, if not the biggest challenge, of the, if you will, the older system.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yeah. We're we're looking at a far broader uh the database is wider. So we're getting better results. Because so what I assume you and I played together yesterday, which is great. Enjoy those games.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Didn't count though.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Didn't count. Didn't count for duper. Right. How come?

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Because we didn't want it to. Right. We didn't talk about it. Right. But we could have. Well, you know the rule, right? I mean, you can uh uh if you have a duper account, you've got four players to play together, you agree beforehand that it's gonna count for your rating.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Okay, and you can manually put them in through the uh the app. Which we could not have done on the older system because it wasn't a sanctioned tournament.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Is that uh yeah, yeah. I mean uh it possibly in the other platforms you could put them in manually. Right. But uh it wouldn't be uh classified as a as a sanctioned tournament. Gotcha. Right? So uh but but they uh you know uh the old USAP system made it pretty hard. Right. Uh U USAP did uh after their uh their failed rating system uh after the rating system failed, they tried uh tennis rating. Oh, because there's a UTR, if you're in UTR, it's a universal tetting tennis rating. It's pretty popular for tennis. All right. And they tried to roll out a pickleball version but it wasn't well implemented. And at this time Duper probably had a big lead anyway in terms of the roster size and the number of results. So it was it was tough, it was tough for them to begin with. But they made some missteps in terms of what they they wanted to rate people from 1.0 to 10.0 or something. So they ran tournaments based on everybody's new rating, which was typically a point or two higher than their old one. Right. So everyone was confused and and and the and the the software wasn't that great either. So it it's it just kind of went nowhere. It's now officially gone because uh USAP, I think 2025 has uh authorized uh duper as their official rating system.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yeah. And that's it.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

So it's hard to imagine any other uh ratings platform overcoming that because Pickball Canada, uh Australia, they've all authorized uh Duper as their official rating system.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Rick, is there any part of this movement, for lack of a better description, that is tied to the Olympics and the goal of getting this great game to the Olympics in any way? Is it important?

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Well, uh are you aware of the GPF pickleball federation?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

I talked to their president a couple months ago on his podcast.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Now you probably know more about them than I did.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah, but we didn't specifically talk about rating systems in that podcast. And I and you know, I regret that because I should have, I had the chance, I was talking to Javier and uh and his uh his episode will be up in a month or so. But um yeah, I mean I understand the premise of what they're doing. They're on a three-year plan. We need 64 countries, I believe, in order to be there. We need, you know, we need some continuity and some sort of you know base agreements across all of those, whether they be rules, score, paddle technology. There's a lot, a lot of you know, balls in the air, uh no pun intended. But trend testing? Yeah, Rick, there's a lot to it. And you know, I think we're all hopeful as pickleball players and fans, and and you know, we have such a passion for the game. I think we all want to see it at the Olympics, but yeah, it's a high mountain to climb. But does duper play a role in that, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_02 21:06

I mean, certainly in terms of the Olympics, uh, we need a global federation that represents the sport.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

And it's been sort of fragmented for a while.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

I think now maybe GPF has still ITF or I don't know. I don't know. It may still be two. Yeah. But GPF seems to be the uh the prevalent one, the one that's really going after the Olympics. So um I think they'll succeed. I don't know. They've got a lot of uh member nations together, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:34

What is it about duper that you personally like? And why are we hearing so much chatter about it that isn't necessarily favorable? And maybe that's not a fair thing to say. Correct correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm hearing, at least at the level that I'm plugging into, is a lot of confusion about duper. So what do you like about it?

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Well, uh for one thing, speaking of GPF, the GPF has did have an agreement with Duper. Okay. Uh For various uh aspects of uh algorithm and you know distribution, member participation in that. Uh so uh I like the fact that they've aligned. Now the problem with duper is it is a private enterprise. There's people with money invested, so uh they're typically in trying to get as much money as they can within limits. You know, I believe there's some billionaire money behind it as well. Oh okay. You maybe heard the sort of the two billionaires.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah, big money, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

Right. Uh and one of them I believe is uh a principal with Duper. And they've got other investors, like I know Andrew Agassiz is there, and I don't know what their list is, but they do have some uh uh important figures behind it. So yeah, the risk there is simply that um they're going to start charging money for it. Or you know, right now there's a free tier. Yeah. Uh it is ad supported. Uh but uh it's you can as a player you can join for free and uh and and participate in the ratings, you know, without any uh membership to any governing body.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Sure. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Uh so uh you know the the the I think the biggest appeal to Duper is simply that because it's standalone, uh you're not tied to a platform and all your results could go in. They're not filtered by a governing body. Okay. Right. That's well said. It's good, but it's bad because obviously there's an opportunity to cheat and people are on record as cheating. Really? But yeah, there's apparently there's some uh competition in Asia, I don't know where it is, maybe it's Vietnam. Where uh it uh there's a money bracket as long as you're below a 3.0 duple rating. So these guys are you know, they're winning the gold medals of prize money, but then their subsequent uh results put them back down below 3.0. So there is a bit of a I've been involved actually in some of the chats about that. That's interesting. Because um it's it's that open.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

So let's let's let's let's create this real life example around that point, because that's a great point. So yesterday we're playing, you and I with a couple other guys, had we have agreed off camera to say, listen, I need to lower my duper rating because I like to compete in a tournament that's coming up in two months. Let's get into this game and I'm gonna make sure I don't win, and you guys are gonna help. So that's the opportunity that could exist.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

You don't even have to play, really, if you just agree to that. Just plug in the numbers.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

You don't even really have to go out and waste your time hitting the ball.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

You don't have to, but wow. You know, uh that would probably be that works both ways because there are some people that want to keep their rating low. Right. And some that want to move it up. So if you're one of the low people, you can just agree with the high people to lose a lot.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Right. So here's the devil's habit quite a tough question. I don't know if you can answer this, but what's your confidence in duper today, percentage-wise? When you look at a duper number, if you were to look at, you know, 10 duper numbers, are you confident that they're accurate?

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Well, you have to check the reliability. Uh there's a reliability factor there, it goes to 100%. Right. Uh, and that just tells you how confident duper is in your posted rating. All right. So you would have to look at that. But uh there is no real control over well, there is control, but uh uh over the uh manually entered matches.

unknown 25:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Uh first of all, uh everybody needs to be a duper uh member and every uh player is supposed to verify before it goes officially on the database. Right. So there's that control, and there's also the fact that the weighting is much different for manually entered games than tournaments. Oh. It could be only a fifth of the uh weighting of matches. Right. So it's it would take a lot, it would take five times more matches for you to influence your uh rating.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

So if you and I are to play in a true North tournament, those results get entered into duper. They're going to carry far more weight towards the tournament.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Right. Where whereas we do a match and we enter those scores, legit legitimately, they simply don't impact the duper number as much. And is that then, Rick, some of the is that part of the the the the answer to the confusion over why my duper number moves up or down and I can't, you know, talking as a player, I'm talking in third person here, but right. Why why is my duper number? I won both my matches, yet my duper number didn't move or it went down.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Yeah, I've seen that question a lot.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Um it has to do with a number of factors. Uh the major one, I think, is your um your reliability.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Your index. And if it's low, it means you don't have many matches in the system anyway. So you're gonna have quicker swings than if you have a hundred matches.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Right. That's my case. My my reliability, because I don't do a lot and I haven't participated in a lot. And uh I think I'm on I've I've I've got single-digit reliability. So basically that's useless. I think it was at 3% the other day.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Yeah, but what's your actual rating?

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Well, that was interesting because when I started, I I joined a ladder recently. I've been playing in it for maybe a month, and so I needed a duper account. That's the reason I went in, and then I ended up with double duper, which you helped me resolve. I had another issue. I had the double duper and I reached out to you, and that's kind of what led to this podcast, quite frankly, Rick, was me struggling to figure out, oh my gosh, I've got two dupers now. How did that happen? I didn't realize at a tournament I had done with Ryan Haynes and True North about a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, that there had been something set up and I I'd either forgotten about it or lost track of it, or but I had tournament results in there when I played with um a mixed doubles partner, uh, and we had a favorable tournament. So I did okay. So when I looked at the one duper, it was 4.12, which I know who knows. Who knows? But then as I lost a couple ladder events recently, um quite I choosing yeah, if that's being generous to say lost, I was buried in these. Uh it's now it's now down to a 3.78. Okay. And the interesting thing is a friend of mine uh has been asking me to play in a tournament in Coburg, uh, an APA tournament that's being organized up there in June. Uh, and he and I could not play together based on that original duper rating, but now that the latter results have been kicked into duper, now it pulled it down. So we actually registered uh two days ago. So we're we're excited about the chance to do that. Three and three five? Uh yeah, three five and up. Yeah, three five to three five to three nine nine nine or something.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Yeah, that's just basically three five. I mean you do know the way the ranges work, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

I mean, explain it.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

No, just to make sure it's pretty straightforward, but some people do get confused because they don't you don't round up or round down. Basically, a three five rating is from three five to just below four, right? Right. So it can be anywhere in there, right. And you qualify as a three-five. It's the same thing with all the other ones.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Okay, perfect. So that's that that's the reason why we're able to get into three five event, because I'm at that three seven or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

That's a scenario where you might, if you were feeling dishonest, you might cheat your way down into a three point five. So there's there's the it's not really uh Interesting. You've got to sort of go into this thinking the majority of players are gonna be honest. I agree. And they want a true rating, they may be unhappy because it's too low.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

That's okay because um to let me just that could be duper on the phone, they hear what you're saying. I think duper's calling saying, Rick, go slow. Yeah. Well, you know, listen, there's so many sports, Rick, that you're self-policed yourself, and honesty and integrity are an important part of the world of sports, as they are in life. And I think there's always going to be that component of people that are just gonna they're gonna, you know, sh do what they can to do what they need to do to somehow make themselves feel better. And look at golf, for example.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Golf, you mean you can put any score you want in there.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

But if it's a tournament score, it's weighted more.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

I understand. So there are some parallels between the two ideas.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Yeah, actually, I like golf. Well, golf is a lot simpler to uh I just turn this off somehow.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Well, you it does, it's not bothering me. No, I especially if it's duper, I think we should take the call.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

That's right. It's not a call, it's just a text, but there we go. That's all fixed.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Yeah, no, it's perfect. But you know, I think I think that's you know, part of the challenge right now with all of this is exactly that the fact that you know there are people that are trying to get into a tournament perhaps that their rating is is either too high or too low. Yeah, those that know it's too low, I'm not sure what they do about that except try to play and and and improve on that, I suppose. But yeah, what what is that biggest pitfall then? We've talked about some of the things. Is it that? Is that sort of the biggest pitfall is the opportunity for people to take advantage of duper and therefore the tournament the tournament play becomes a little less equitable?

SPEAKER_02 30:28

As I mentioned, it is harder because of the reduced weighting and the verification part of it. Uh you need four people to cheat instead of just one. Yeah. So that makes it harder. Okay. And also the fact that it's not weighted as much as uh regular tournament matches. Uh I I think there is one uh kind of a flaw with duper, and that uh the way it works is everything that is sent in from a a different platform is treated the same in terms of weighting. Okay, right. Right. It means like um, you know, just a club uh ladder that comes in through a platform, not uh manually entered. That's the same as the US open in terms of weighting. Wow. So they could okay, they could uh improve that.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

But that gets to be a bit political because everybody wants their results to be weighted the most. So uh it is a factor and it's something they might want to look forward to in the future.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

So right now it's a two-pronged approach. Either the numbers are coming in through a legit tournament or they're coming in through one of these other platforms, uh, they're getting weighted the same. Yeah. And then the manual stuff is weighted much less, which makes sense to me. Is there a Rick in your mind as a player of the game? Is there a difference between if you're playing at a club level, and let's just say we're playing in a weekend ladder together, and we're generally playing with the same group of people, we get to kind of know that you're a little stronger on the left than the right, so on and so forth. We identify player weaknesses because we play together. Is there a difference in your mind as a player, Rick, when we go out and we play against people we've never met? And do those results, you know, are those more accurate? Are they tougher, easier? Like, because I had somebody say recently on the podcast that they think that one of their struggles with duper is that when you go out of town and play against people you've never played against, that the results of that can be dramatically different than club play. Exactly. Because you know the people you're playing against. Is that do you agree with something?

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Uh yeah, well, there's another aspect there too of regionalization of ratings, right? Because if you're just a rec player and you don't travel for tournaments, you're gonna get a rating based on players in your area. Right. Right. If you go down to Naples or I don't know, Phoenix or someplace where there are a lot of accomplished players, the regional rating is going to be different. So what they depend on is people traveling back and forth between cities to sort of mix the ratings up so that you get a global rating. I mean, we're never gonna compare ourselves against people in Vietnam unless we go over there and play in a tournament.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

So there's a lot of regionalization, uh, but I think that's basically ingrained in it. Yeah. You know, just just like the concept of you know that people are saying duper is a problem because it doesn't have uh age-related or uh sex-related uh ratings.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Well, I have introduced something recently, but uh you still get the one core rating. And the one core rating is supposed to say, you know, this is how I compare against the rest of the world. Uh well, it's gonna be impossible to get that perfect because you're never gonna play against the rest of the world. Right. But uh you know interesting. It's a step. And I think one of the good things about duper you look at uh a lot of other competitive recreational sports out there, there's very few that offer a good rating for just lower level players. So I think it's you know, it's quite a uh task that duper is accomplishing here with when you look at a duper rating.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Are we talking about a 22-year-old duper rating against a 70-year-old duper rating as being all in the same bucket?

SPEAKER_02 33:57

It's just supposed to evaluate your ability to play. As a player, regardless of it. It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter uh what gender you are. So I doesn't matter what physical handicapped you have. Okay. Although I think wheelchair ratings are probably different. Sure. I don't know how they do wheelchair ratings, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

But we'll park those to the side. But yeah, I think so. What you're saying, what I'm hearing is that if I have a duper rating, let's just pick a number of 3.7, and I'm playing Probably I should go in and play against somebody that has a 3.7, regardless of age, I should be able to compete with them. Yeah, that's what duper's telling us. That's the idea. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

But it doesn't take it on like styles of play and stuff and shoot me and be better against a banger than a than a dinker, right? Right. Right. It's hard to measure that stuff. All they can really do is measure on uh on match results, right? That's all they've got. So uh that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

That's awesome. Well, listen, I think we've we've covered that fairly well this morning. I think it's starting to make sense. And and I think the other thing, Rick, too, is that we have to, you know, and I think you're making that point now, and I want to emphasize it, is that there is no perfect solution to almost anything in any sport, no matter what angle you're coming at, and there will always be detractors to whatever that may be. Uh and I think we just have to block out some of that white noise. I mean, the goal of the podcast is, you know, ultimately, Rick, is to inspire someone that's never played to come into the game. And I think as as there's more confusion around the game, you know, that might hinder that, you know, in some way. And I hope it doesn't. I just hope that through all of this, that you know, the recognition that you can come into pickleball, as we said earlier, and plug in. And really, if you don't even want to keep score, then don't. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

No, that's fine. I mean, if the other three people are typically gonna want to keep score, but you don't have to I don't want to take it any further than that. So I agree. I mean, and really in terms of just getting into the game, you shouldn't have to worry about your rating. Exactly. Right? You just go out there, you find three players that uh you can play with, you have a good game, and you laugh and enjoy yourself. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Yeah, and that's the point I was trying to make there is you know, this is such a great game. And I think for you know, you're gonna hear about ratings as you begin in in this game. You may be hearing about them now. You've been playing as I have for a couple of years, and uh, you know, the goal this morning uh ultimately was to try to talk about where did the rating system start, where did it come, how has it evolved, and what is this duper thing. And what I'm hearing this morning is it's the best that we've had yet. Uh there's a bit of room for improvement, which I think there always could be and likely will be, but in your opinion, it's doing a pretty good job.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

I think it's certainly penetrated the market and it is global. Yeah. So uh sure it's got its problems, but uh it's the best we got.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Yeah, I love it. If someone wanted to take that next step, Rick, they're they're not a tournament player. And this, you know, we're getting a little off topic from ratings, but I'm interested in your insight in this while I've got some time with you. But you know, I'm a player that's you know come into the club, uh, I play at a social level. I've signed up for some of the social events. I've got a couple of guys that we play maybe a private game now and then with. But if I want to start in a tournament, how do you what's your advice to someone that's thinking about tournament play? How do they get involved?

SPEAKER_02 36:50

Uh it's probably a good idea to talk to people that know uh what the levels are. Right. You know, maybe you're pro or somebody that does play in a lot of tournaments, and they can evaluate you just in a general level. Uh typically you're gonna come in at the lowest level, which can be as low as two five.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

I don't think they have any tournaments with brackets lower than two five. Right. Yeah. Um but definitely they're two fives I've seen more often.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

And just get an idea. If you if you're uh like a former pro tennis player, maybe you could come in a little higher than that. But uh really uh you probably don't want to come in too high. Yeah. I think that's the the worst thing. But you don't want to be labeled a sandbag, too. So you can normally get a good impression from people around you. Yes, how you're gonna advise.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

And so if you're that person you haven't set up a duper account, you can go and do that. You're going to join a tournament, then do you self-assess then in duper? Is that how how that's a good thing?

SPEAKER_02 37:47

No, there's no well, there is self self-assessment, but you need uh to get a coach. Or you can get a coach and they can and they can rate you. You gotta pay money, I think, for it. Right. Uh if the coach does rate you, then you do have come in with a self-rating. Okay. If you're just someone who just wants to start playing, um there's no self-rating. So you basically start at zero. Gotcha. And that's where people get a little bit upset because it could be really good players and have a couple of bad matches to start off their duper career. Right. And they they oh they're a 3-0 or something when they're playing with 4-5. So uh a lot of the uh complaints I've seen about duper are simply that. I mean, they're just starting and they're saying that like rating is way too low, you know, that it's terrible, it's duper, not duper, yeah kind of thing. But if you give if you if you get up to 100% reliability, you can pretty well assure you're with within at least 0.5 of your true uh target rating.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

So you can't really sign up for any tournament, uh, regardless of who's running it, without a duper rating.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

At this point, as I think that's a good point too, because you may know that uh as part of Pickleball Canada's uh approval of Duper as a rating, yes, uh they now uh I don't know they're I would say obliged, but uh Duper expects all Pickleball Canada members to have a duper account.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Right. So that's pretty well covered for Canada. It's not the same in the US, mind you, but Pickleball Canada's basically gone full throttle with uh duper.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

So those listening that have not done a tournament but are thinking maybe 2026 is the year I'm gonna jump into the tournament pool, I'm gonna give this a go. I've got a buddy of mine that's bending my ear and telling me they want me to come and play tournaments. I am going to have to set up a duper account if I haven't done that.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

You probably have one. And that is another uh consideration because as you experienced what happened was when Duper merged a lot of when when the billionaires bought out uh pickable tournaments, pickable brackets, pickable central, yeah, um, they inherited all these match results. So they combined them, right a lot of them, right, and they automatically created accounts based on uh your name and maybe your email. Right. So a lot of people don't know that. Yes. So when they uh register for an account, they don't bother to check to see if there's an account there already. That's where a lot of the duplicates happen.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Well, that's what happened to me then because I just went in to set up for this ladder event that I signed up for. Um and there all of a sudden I had double duper. Yeah. Double duper, double duper. Sounds like it should take a person.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

And that's another issue too, uh double duper with with duper, is that uh their data quality could use some improvement. Okay. There's definitely some uh accounts out there which are bogus. You know, there's accounts with the name XXXXXX.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Yeah, for sure. So uh they knew you'd clean that up, but yeah, unfortunately those players aren't playing, so they don't really Well, you you've been in the world of you know IT and Daddy for a lot of your time, Rick. You you understand how that works probably better than most of us. But I think for me it was surprising that I could go in and the email I'm using today to set up that duper account today would have been the same email that I had when the original one was set up. So you would think that as I enter that info, it would flash and say, already an account existing if you've forgotten your login, you know, one of those kind of steps. But that that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

I just I think the only thing you can do is do the search first. If you see that your name, you can pick it up.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

That's good advice. Because I didn't realize that, but hopefully through the podcast we can share a bit of that. And yes, go in and search for yourself before you set up your account if that's something that you're thinking of doing. And uh yeah, it was really interesting. Well, that's great. Was there anything else about duper, Rick, you wanted to touch on that we didn't get to? Because I have a couple closing questions for you that have more.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Okay, let me think. Um Yeah, I mean, my biggest concern with Duper is because it's a private enterprise, they're going to they're already now bombarding you with ads in the free version. Yeah. And it's uh I just dealt with a person yesterday that couldn't get in because it wanted them to subscribe to the full membership. Right. So we had to do a workaround just to get to their free account. Gotcha. Uh there's that, and they could potentially reduce your services of the free tier. Yeah. They could take away access to other people's ratings. So uh I'm worried about that. I'm worried about the fact that uh the governing bodies aren't really controlling the algorithm that much. There's a general agreement with GPF about uh algorithms, but I don't think it goes on specifics. And that's another important thing, too, because you may know originally their algorithm was based on uh more point differential than wind losses. Ah, okay. Right. And they changed um maybe two years ago to uh win just win loss. Right? And then they've now gone back to to point differential as a winning factor. So that's confusing a lot of people because I see posts all the time I won a bronze medal, my rating went down. Yes. Why did that happen? Well, because uh the um people you beat, the point differential was low, and you should have beat them by more.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Right. Point differential should have been higher. So to put that in real numbers, you may have won eleven nine, but you should have won eleven three.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

If you look at your ratings, you'll see uh your games, you'll see a lot of times where you win, but your rating goes down.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

What's interesting, I was playing with the app the other day because you know, I'm keen, I'm trying to learn, I'm doing this podcast, so I should know something about it, and that's part of why you're here this morning. I'll know a lot more today, and I do thank you. Oh, good. But you know, it's interesting. I went in, I put in the four people that I was playing with. Uh, I knew who the two partners are going to be, and I asked Duper to give me an expectation, and it'll do that. Yeah, yeah. It was fascinating. It's a good way to forecast what you need to do. It was really cool. It said the other side should win, you know, that if we get to 7.5 points in a game to 11, that we've done well. And I think our best game, we did win one match uh out of that uh morning, uh, which I think was more luck than good planning. To be honest, we got a couple of net balls that went our way, and you know how that can go. Yeah. Um, but I think if I look at the other games, uh, you know, the prediction was pretty close. It was pretty close to what actually happened in that particular match with the four of us. So that's a really fascinating part of duper. I found that interesting.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Yeah, and I think, you know, uh you don't want to underemphasize the fact that this is having a an accurate rating system is good just at the club level because you can find people at your level a lot easier than if you don't know anybody.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Yeah, we know when I first started Rick, I got some of the best advice as we all do as new pickleball players. And KPC is just rich with, you know, there's a lot of depth and breadth to the people that play there. Definitely. And there's a lot of knowledge inside that building and within that club. And it goes back historically, as you say, to that sort of outside club that played at different various locations. And Pam and I talked extensively about that in her podcast. And it was great for me to hear that history because it I came into the game late. I came when all the heavy work was done.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Don't worry, you're still pretty young. So you be alright. You guys have done it all.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

I just walked in and said, How do I play? But um, you know, it it's uh yeah, it's it's interesting um advice out of the gate. And and I think the one that really resonated with me, Rick, was no one enjoys winning 11-0 and no one enjoys losing 11-0. And and there was a message in that. And I didn't necessarily understand that. But what that person was trying to say to me was, you know, there's no sense in you getting in a game that you know you're gonna pound the other side and and pickle them because and it happens, and we all get pickled periodically for reasons that we can't figure out, but that that's that there's no enjoyment in that, Rick. In my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

It's gonna happen once in a while, but if it happens frequently, you've got a problem with the level of play.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Exactly. And hopefully something like duper can help, you know, navigate uh and and get us into the right bucket. I think it will. Yeah, that's terrific. Well, listen, that's great. I love all of that. I think you did an excellent job. You did an excellent job with duper, and it's confusing. And um, the question on duper is a final question before we move on to just a couple final things, Rick. Is if someone playing pickleball at Kingston Pickleball Club today is confused and needs a bit of help, can they reach out to you? Is there someone at the club that you'd direct them to? Go to a website. Well, how do you if somebody's listening and said I want to learn more, what's their next one?

SPEAKER_02 45:47

I would say just go to www.duper.com. Okay. Uh I'm certainly willing to ask or to answer any questions that you've got. I can't promise an answer, but certainly that book of the count thing is no problem. Right. Uh because uh because I requ I run it all the time. I I I run my own duper round robin on Sundays.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Right.

unknown 46:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

So anybody that joins, I I make sure their duper is accurate and you don't have two or three or four of them.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

That's great. Uh so but the duper website's a good next step.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

In terms of the detail of the algorithm, I can explain how the point differential works. That thing about the forecast is great. Yeah. That really helps, you know, if you want to know what your expectations are. But really, it's just join duper, uh get some duper matches in there, whether it's a tournament level or the club level. Yeah. Uh we currently have a Wednesday uh round robin as well going on. Those results also go to Duper. Great. So just try and get as many matches as you can in and uh and and you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Well, I would say, yeah, well it's and Rick, that's all great. Thank you. I think um from my perspective, as a casual rec player that has done a few tournaments, I would encourage everyone to try a tournament. And I would also say on the heels of that comment that you're it's either going to be for you or not for you. I think there's a love-hate relationship with tournaments, it's a completely different strategy, in my opinion, going into a tournament. It's a long day. You've got to be very mindful of nutrition, hydration. You've got to pace yourself. There's I always say that it's far more like we had a great game. I love playing with you guys, and yesterday's game was no exception to that. It's a great group of guys, and I love every minute of it. But there's no stress in it, in a sense of I'm just enjoying myself. But I find the the few tournaments I've done, and it may be three, maybe four. And I've been lucky enough to step on the podium, more to the credit of my partner than me, but nonetheless, I've done it and it's it's thrilling, it's fun, but it is a completely different game. And I always say there's more mental uh I'm more tired mentally coming out of a tournament weekend than I am a game on a Tuesday with a bunch of guys I think the world of at the club, you know, and uh I'm sure you'd echo that. So I think try it as a player. Get out there, give a tournament a go this year.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

Yeah, really the tournament uh situation is great. You get to, for one thing, off and play uh different uh players, players you never played before. Yeah. Uh but the intensity factor, I think, is it both it's certainly it's a tournament uh uh environment, but yeah, uh a lot of the intensity comes from the fact that this uh result is being recorded somewhere. Right, right, right. And people play differently. They would probably target a weaker opponent. They do things they wouldn't do in rec. And that's fine. I think you you should if you want to be competitive, everybody needs a balance of those. You can't play tournaments all the time, right? Can't play rec all the time. If you want to do well, you want to play seriously. Uh so it's tournaments are great, but it it's also the the the aspect of uh a result being recorded.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah. Well, I just encourage anyone that's playing the game or thinking of playing the game to consider tournaments at some point because it is a big part of what the pickleball experience is. And and the other neat thing is, you know, I think the thing I love about the game, Rick, so much is the people I've met. And I've met so many people that have become very good friends with with both me and with Fran. And and I can't give enough credit to the game for that. But what happens in a tournament situation is I've got friends all over Ontario now that I've met through tournament play. Yeah that if I hadn't done tournaments, you know, I wouldn't have known. And many of those are are are being so supportive of the podcast and connecting me with people that quite honestly have no business talking to. But but you know, I really have, you know, and you're doing great. Well, the broader picture really of it all, I think, Rick, for me is just the social side of the game. And and there, you know, you've got the club level where you meet the people, you play with them all the time, and you get to know them well. But don't uh don't limit yourself. I'm really encouraging people to try a tournament here. That's the goal of this conversation uh as well, is explaining duper is uh I think it's an important part. And I think you'll either enjoy it and you'll want to do more, or you maybe it's not gonna be your cup of tea. Well, Rick, I've enjoyed all of this this morning. Appreciate you being on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

And uh thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

And I would um ask a favor, and that is I want to keep you on my short list of people to come back. I think you've got a you've got a lot to offer uh with respect to your your your thoughts on the game. And I think as duper develops and as more and more of this becomes kind of commonplace and we get more comfortable with it, I think there'll be more to talk about. So uh appreciate you being here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Happy to return. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

Have a great day, you too.