If you’ve played some Pickleball, by now you know that officially you can play Pickleball doubles and singles. Sometimes, however, you can only recruit two other players for your Saturday afternoon game. If this is you, you might have even thought about cancelling because you couldn’t get an even number of friends to play… well don’t!
Many other team sports have ways of playing casually with an uneven number of players. Basketballers play 21 when there are just 3 players for example. Pickleball is no different. There are ways to play Pickleball with just 3 players. Let’s take a look at a few.
King of the Hill (1 versus 1)
King of the Hill is probably the best way to play Pickleball between a group of 3 looking for a more casual day of Pickleball.
In this version of King of the Hill, whoever wins the point both gets serving priveliges and gets to stay on the court. The loser of the point is replaced by the 3rd player waiting in the wings.
To determine who the first two players will be, you do rock paper siscors between all three players. Whoever wins 2 rock paper siccors gets to serve to the player who wins 1 rock paper siscors game. Once you determine the serving player, here is how the game goes:
- The player 1 serves to player 2. If player 1 wins the volley, he gets a point and player 3 steps up to player 2’s court.
- If player 2 wins the volley, player 2 gets serving privelidges, and player 1 is replaced by player 3. Player 2 now gets a chance to win a point by serving to player 3.
Whoever gets to the determined point total (usually 11 points) wins the game.
King of the hill (2 versus 1)
Two-vs-one King of the Hill is slightly different, in that all players are playing all the time. It is one player (the serving player) vs two on the other side of the court. If the first player wins the point against the other 1 players, then a point is awarded to that player. If the serving player loses, then the players rotate around and whoever is next up to serve gets a chance to win a point. The rotation is sort of like 4-square where everyone gets an equal shot at winning points via the serving side of the court. Play this version if you want some non-stop intense 3 player pickleball action!
Playing normal 1v1 games (and winner stays on)
You could also just play regular Pickleball games to 11 points and winner of the game stays on. Pickleball is played to 11 points, win-by-two. This might be the best option if you want some time to rest between games, just make sure your not that much better than your competition or else you’ll stay on the court the whole day!
Playing quick games to 3 or 5
Another option is to play quicker games to 3 or 5 points and whoever wins the game gets to stay on. This is a little bit higher intensity and is a good option for groups that don’t want too much idle time.
Conclusion
There are many ways to play Pickleball with only 3 players. All we have to do is use our imagination. I am sure there are other ways to engage an odd number of Pickleball players, so if you have any other cool ways to play Pickleball with 3 players, then drop a comment!