Latest News - Advice released 30th June 2025
Advice to Tournament Managers for TIME-LIMITED ADVANTAGE PLAY GAMES
It has recently been brought to the Management Committees attention by the WCF Advantage Rules Committee and Golf Croquet Rules Committee, that the current GC rules do not adequately cover how to determine the winner of Time-limited Advantage games if play is stopped before either side has reached its target score.
The intent is that this omission will be addressed in the next edition of the GC Rules. In the meantime, we advise National Governing Bodies to deal with this by releasing advice to the managers of their tournaments.
The GCRC recommendation is to use the concept of ‘Scoring Fractions’ to determine who has won once play has stopped, as defined by Rules19.1. Stated simply, this means dividing the number of hoops a side has actually won (when play has stopped), by the total number they needed to win at the start of the game.
Example:
Side A: started on -1 and therefore needed to score 8 points to win a typical 13-point game.
Side B: started on 2 and therefore needed to score 5 points.
If the score was 4:5 when play was stopped,
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- side A would have won 4 - (-1) = 5 hoops with a scoring fraction of 5/8 = 62.5%, and
- side B would have won 5 - (2) = 3 hoops with a scoring fraction of 3/5 = 60%.
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Therefore, Side A wins the game, having achieved the higher scoring fraction.
Unless the organising body has stated that tied games are allowed, if the scoring fractions are equal when play is stopped, play is to continue and the side that wins the next hoop is the winner of the game.
This advice only impacts Rules 19.1.4, 19.1.5 and 19.1.6.
Advantage GC Committee
On 22nd February Members voted to approve the set-up of an Advantage GC committee. This is a sub-committee of GC Rules Committee. The WCF Statutes were amended to include a new clause 133.9 which defines the structure of the committee.
The current members of the committee are listed below. They will serve a four year term ending on 21st February 2029.
Roy Tillcock (Chair)
Chris Roberts
John Borner
Robert Ey
GC Rules Committee representative: Ian Shore
Management Committee representative: Roberts Stafeckis
2024/25 - Minor amendments *December 2024 update*
Now that Advantage GC has been launched for a couple of years, Roy Tillcock has kindly reviewed the data and has produced improved Starting Tables. The WCF Management Committee have reviewed these with Roy and believe that these represent an improvement on the previous tables.
One major change is that the tables now have starting scores in the previously blanked out grey section. These games are unlikely to be played often, being games where the standards of the players is very different, but have been included for completeness. The tables include a warning that games in this grey area “may involve either excessively long or very short games”.
We appreciate that the time uncertainty may cause concern, particularly with respect to Managers and the scheduling of these games in their tournaments. The use of time limits has been proposed as a possible solution. The WCF recommend Managers consider the likely disruption these games might cause and plan accordingly.
To avoid distribution of out-dated documentation you are strongly advised to publish a link to this PAGE and not links to individual FILES. The most recent version of Advantage GC will always be accessible here.
How-to-play-Advantage-GC-Complete 2024-25 revision (Dec 24)
If you've not tried this variant yet, then we invite you all to give the game a try and, if you wish to, please send us feedback. Please let us know your impressions and observations and also provide game results which show the handicaps and/or DGrades of the players. Please use the dedicated email address set up for this purpose – advantagegc@worldcroquet.org
History of Advantage GC
The existing form of handicap GC uses extra strokes and is played mainly in Australia, England, and New Zealand and almost nowhere else. It is not generally regarded as the optimal way of allowing players of different abilities to compete on equal terms.
In 2020, the WCF Management Committee (“MC”) obtained details from the Croquet Association of Ireland of a form of handicap GC that it had used successfully in recent years. This did not use extra strokes but instead gave the weaker player an advantage in the form of a certain number of hoops. Unlike the current form of handicap GC, this version did not require different tactics from the level game and it was believed that this made it easier for new and improving players to develop.
The MC then established a Working Group with representatives from Australia, England, Latvia, Uruguay and USA with the task of coming up with a statistically sound and yet simple-to-use algorithm which would give both players a 50/50 chance of winning a game through an adjustment of the number of hoops that needed to be scored by one or both players to win a game.
The Working Group developed a form of GC which was named “Advantage GC”. After exploring options, the MC decided to work with Roy Tillock from the Southern Federation to run a series of trials starting in 2021.
2021 Official Trial Results
An official trial took place during the English CA's Southern Croquet Federation (SCF) 2021 League season.
The MC are pleased to report that the trial was completed successfully, with both good data and subjective feedback received.
Roy Tillcock, who organised the trial, has analysed this data and it is extremely encouraging. We know that many clubs around the world tested the new variant, and their feedback was also extremely favourable. We thank everyone who has helped test the game and submitted their data.
The full results can be seen here > SCF 2021 Advantage Trial Report
2022 update - amendments identified
The trial showed that most people felt this game provided a closer experience to level play GC than using extra strokes. The data showed that this variant provided closer matches than the use of extra strokes. Previous analysis has shown that extra strokes generally favours the stronger player, however, data collected over some 836 games of Advantage GC, showed that in some cases there was a slight advantage for the weaker player. To correct this, the Starting Scores Table was been amended.
2023 update - further amendments identified
After capturing further data during the 2022 season, amendments to the tables were approved by the WCF GC Rules Committee in July 2023. Please ensure you use the file at the top of this page which includes the latest information.
2024 update - amended with:
- how to score timed games, and
- the addition of starting scores in the 'grey section' of the table.
2024/5 Advantage GC Starting Scores Table - First to 7 Points
