Soft cap and hard cap

What is a hard cap in ultimate frisbee?

A hard cap is a time limit that ends a game as soon as the current point finishes, whatever the score. It exists so that a tournament schedule survives contact with reality: without it, one slow game delays every field for the rest of the day.

The soft cap comes first. When the soft cap horn sounds, the target score is lowered to the current leading score plus one, or plus two in some formats. A game to 15 sitting at 11-9 becomes a game to 12 or 13, so it finishes soon rather than eventually.

The hard cap then acts as a backstop. When it sounds, the point in progress is completed and the game ends there. If the score is tied when the hard cap sounds, one more point is played to decide it.

Both caps are settings in Score All alongside the target and the halftime score, so the app ends the game where your tournament director said it would rather than where the rulebook default says.

Where it applies

Related: Ultimate frisbee scoring

This rule is a switch when you set up a game, so the scoreboard applies it for you. All scoring rules →