Alleviating Stacking Confusion

Stacking is such a different way to align teams that it is very hard for some to grasp. I hope that the reasons for stacking were clarified in yesterday's post One Way to Play with Lefty. I tried to explain how stacking works in my post Stacking. But it is always a good idea to have more than one point of view on a complex topic. Therefore, I will highlight the RV Pickler description of stacking appropriately called Pickleball Stacking 101: If You Are Confused.

Pickleball Stacking 101: If You Are Confused

I was refereeing a beginner’s tournament in The Villages. The concept of stacking is new to many players, and that was the case this particular day.

A female team (right and left-handed) were playing two right-handed male players. When the female team was down 4-9-2 they decided to stack for the first time. The guys across the net, both looked confused and one finally said to me, “What are they doing?….Can they do that?”

I answered “Yes” and offered to explain it to them after the game.  If you are new to pickleball, or have not been exposed to pickleball stacking, read on.

What is Stacking

One Way to Play with Lefty

Yesterday, we talked about the difficulty of playing with a lefthanded partner in the post Playing with Lefty...or Not. One way to handle it is to stack, meaning players stay on the side of the court that takes advantage of their strengths. Stacking is vary specific strategy that I discussed only once - in my post Stacking. First, I will highlight Sarah Ansboury's discussing stacking called Stacking: When and Why. Then, I will show a Mark Rennson video also conveniently called Stacking.

Stacking: When and Why

I have received a number of questions from readers about stacking. I have also heard it can stress you out.  If you have questions about stacking strategy, this is for you!

Why do we use stacking?

Stacking

Several months after I started playing pickleball I was ready to serve when I saw something like this on my opponents' side.

Since this was a social match, I stopped before serving to tell them I was ready and they should get into position. They told me they were ready as well and to start the game. I didn't know what to think so I just played my normal game. That was my introduction to stacking.

Stacking is a positioning strategy where players on a team stay on the same side - right or left service court - throughout the game.  To be clear, the rules state that players must receive and serve in the courts in a specific rotation or lose the point. But there are no rules about the positioning of players not involved in the service. Nor are there rules about where the players may go after the first hit ball on each side. This results in some odd positioning and movement compared to the normal player rotation described in the Doubles Scoring and Player Positioning post. Players will be positioned side-by-side or on the same side of the court. Players will run diagonally across the court. It seems like mass confusion.