What Is VAIR? A Guide to Ratings, Scouting, and More

02

Why Most Ratings Get It Wrong

Most rating systems work backward. They look at match outcomes, wins and losses, and infer how good you must be. But outcomes depend on a lot more than skill. Who your partner was. Who you happened to play. Whether you were grinding out close games against strong opponents or coasting against weaker ones.

Self-assessment has the opposite problem. Players rate themselves once, often optimistically, and that number follows them around long after it stops being true.

VAIR takes a different path. Instead of inferring skill from results, it measures skill directly, with a trained human watching you actually play. That is the difference that runs through everything below: measurement versus inference.

03

Start Free: The Recreational Rating

Most players begin with the free recreational rating.

You start by assessing your own level. From there, the rating adjusts over time based on the actual point scores of the matches you log, not just whether you won or lost. Losing 11-9 to a strong team tells the system something very different than losing 11-2, and your rating reflects that.

The recreational rating gives you a baseline and a way to start building a profile. It is honest about what it is, though. It is still built on results, so it reflects how your matches went more than how you actually play. When you want a rating that carries real weight, that is where VAIRified comes in.

04

The VAIRified Rating: Verified by a Human Who Watched You Play

The VAIRified rating is the core of the platform. It is not calculated from outcomes and it does not rely on your own opinion of your game. A Certified Rater watches you play and evaluates what they see.

Here is what the process looks like. You book a session for $59. For about an hour, you play real games while a Certified Rater observes. The rater scores your play against a 41-point checklist, a structured evaluation that covers your game in far more detail than any win-loss record could. When the session ends, you receive your VAIRified rating. If there is no Certified Rater near you, you can submit video of your gameplay and be evaluated the same way.

Because a trained person directly observed your play, the rating is verified. That word matters. A verified rating is one a tournament director can seed with, a club can group by, and an opponent can trust.

The VAIRified rating is built for players who want a credible measure of their level, clubs that need trustworthy ratings for grouping and events, and organizers who want brackets that are decided on the court instead of at signup.

05

VAIR+: Tools for Players Who Want More

VAIR+ is a membership for players who want to use data to improve and compete. It costs $49 per year and unlocks:

• AI video analysis that gives you feedback on your own gameplay
• Match predictions that show how a matchup is likely to go before you play
• Opponent scout reports, so you can pull information on any player you are about to face
• Rating progression and opponent analytics to track how your rating is moving and who you have played
• Player search to find competitors and partners at your level
• A faster path from provisional to VAIRified for players working toward a verified rating
• Priority support

You do not need a VAIRified rating to join. VAIR+ is open to any player, and many use its tools while working toward their verified rating.

06

Fairer Games Start with Better Measurement

When ratings are guessed, everyone pays for it. Open play gets lopsided. Brackets get predictable. Improving players cannot see their progress, and honest players get stuck cleaning up after inflated ones.

When skill is measured, the whole picture changes. Games get closer. Events get easier to run. And your rating becomes something you earned on the court, not a number you picked from a dropdown.

If you are ready to find out where your game really stands, book a VAIRified session and get rated by someone who watched you play.

Frequently asked questions