---
title: "Basic Badminton"
url: https://perrotta.dev/2025/10/basic-badminton/
last_updated: 2025-10-30
---


[Previously]({{< ref "2025-03-28-badminton" >}}).

When playing badminton, the serving side (left or right) depends on the current
score of the serving team:

- Left side: 1, 3, 5, ...
- Right side: 0, 2, 4, ...

For many months (years?), I kept confounding the two.

Even field experience would not make it any easier to remember which one is
which.

At some point, I devised the following mnemonic:

- **B**adminton <-> **B**asic. Both start with a **B**.
- Basic => Visual Basic => Counting starts from 1 (not 0).
- As such: Left is 1.

This way I can always remember[^1] that Left is 1 (odd), Right is 2 (even).

[^1]: Sometimes this information is cached, sometimes it needs to be retrieved
    from """disk""", but this mnemonic never fails me.