i want it to create multiple arrays with names $court_1, $court_2, etc. what am i doing wrong?
That is the first thing that you are doing wrong :p
Instead of having arrays named $court_1, $court_2, etc, have a two dimensional array named $courts (or $court, your choice).
Though I do not see a point of using a 2D array in your example, it might be rewritten along the lines of:
if (isset($_POST['chck']) && is_array($_POST['chck'])) {
foreach ($_POST['chck'] as $key => $val) {
$courts[$key] = array($val);
}
}