Richardson..... At the beginning of this session, we had a bye in one of our divisions. I decided to put a team together to fill that bye. Of course, one reason I did this was that it keeps from having one team each week who isn't playing (and paying). I always try to fill these byes with players who, for some reason, aren't playing on other teams or were too late to get on teams. It just so happens that our home location allows under 21 players to play, so the first person I enlisted was my daughter. She is 10 and is a skill level 2. So, we had a 7 and a 2 to start. I had a couple that always played but whose team had taken the session off. They were a 5 and a 3. From there we chose our players carefully, but like I explained to them, when it comes to any higher level tournaments, I was not going to be able to play, so we HAD to have another 7. We picked one up the next week. We also picked up a 6 that we knew at some point would be a 7. He did - went to a 7 in like 5 weeks.
So, to answer your question - our team looks like this - 7,7,7,5,3,3,2,2. We can play 7-7-5-2-2 or 7-5-3-3-2 or any other combinations. When we pay attention to our matchups we do well. We try not to put our 7's in situations where they must match up badly. We do not sacrifice our 2's.... we try to put them in positions where they can win or at least get a good nights play. This has been a very successful lineup for us. It is "do-able" if the teams are realistic when choosing their lower skill levels. Don't try to sneak someone in as a 2 that you really believe will wind up as a 4. That is where most teams get in trouble.
It can be done.....
