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the chess group at the Concordia Club in Kitchener, ON is preparing for its first CFC rated tournament in years. We’re helplessly behind the latest procedures and software. I found out that the CFC has licensed SwissMaster software to be used in rated tournaments but one needs a registration key from the CFC. Does somebody here have an idea whom to contact to get said key?
The tournament is going to be a five round swiss with classical time control. First round is planned for the last Thursday in May. I’ll update this group when we’ve fixed the date.
Did you hear back from the CFC on this? I had used SwissSys a few times before and used Swiss Manager the first time in Collingwood earlier this month. After getting a handle on it, I liked Swiss Manager quite a bit. As far as I know (if you haven't already gotten a license) the unlicensed/demo version can be used to experiment with, up to and including importing the CFC and FIDE databases
Yes, I did.
Thankfully I got a time-limited license for our tournament in June.
Somebody also donated a license for SwissManager. I tried both programs and found SwissSys of better quality. SwissManager seems to have more features but the documentation doesn't always match the features and I had a hard time doing something simple like adding players to a tournament. So far I'll stick with SwissSys.
Oddly, it took me some time to get the hang of registering players. But once I had that down (and Omar Shah around to help), I found it pretty simply. The integration with chessresults was a particular highlight for me. But comfort is often king with this sort of thing - don't want to get a couple rounds in and discover there's something poorly documented that you need to do!
My problem with registering players was/is that it doesn’t work as described in the help file. When entering a name you magically have have to click with your mouse inside the name field to trigger the search. Then the name will somehow transferred into the read/only list in the top half of the screen. I couldn’t find an easy way to delete a player, sometimes players showed up twice in the list etc. i stopped trying at some point. The software is around for decades by know and has never seen a thorough overhaul. The GUI and user interaction is non-intuitive (at least for me who works in software since the mid 80s ;-)) The documentation is outdated (also very common in the industry). I don’t blame the author as it was designed for the austrian chess federation with additional features added along the way. It’s a product for a very small market niche which doesn’t yield much revenue (i guess at least).
SwissSys seems to be a bit newer, was designed with FIDE and USCF in mind. The author published a series of youtube videos in which he shows how to perform the major tasks. It doesn’t support the automatic upload to chess-results though and I haven’t found a way to do it without SwissMaster, grrh.
My problem with registering players was/is that it doesn’t work as described in the help file. When entering a name you magically have have to click with your mouse inside the name field to trigger the search. Then the name will somehow transferred into the read/only list in the top half of the screen. I couldn’t find an easy way to delete a player, sometimes players showed up twice in the list etc. i stopped trying at some point. The software is around for decades by know and has never seen a thorough overhaul. The GUI and user interaction is non-intuitive (at least for me who works in software since the mid 80s ;-)) The documentation is outdated (also very common in the industry). I don’t blame the author as it was designed for the austrian chess federation with additional features added along the way. It’s a product for a very small market niche which doesn’t yield much revenue (i guess at least).
SwissSys seems to be a bit newer, was designed with FIDE and USCF in mind. The author published a series of youtube videos in which he shows how to perform the major tasks. It doesn’t support the automatic upload to chess-results though and I haven’t found a way to do it without SwissMaster, grrh.
Interesting experience. I had an opposite feeling that SwissSys was so complicated :)
Best way to enter players in SwissManager is to get their CFC #, and then use 'i' with the CFC # like my is 147050 >> i147050 in the search field to get a required player. Then double click.
As for the software - I would say it is widely used in chess world. The Olympiads are done with it, thus it is a good sign :) From the main page in the last twenty minutes about 50 tournaments were updated.
While ago someone posted a FAQ page for tournament directors. Maybe it is time to bring up the thread.
The double click into the field in which you just entered the data is a (not-so-)funny feature. Especially if the documentation says "Press Enter". But I'm sure as soon as one has some experience with the quirks it will work just fine. I'm just not there (yet). For example: I have a list of players and want to add a new one. There's no empty line from which I could start. I have to change the last player's line and then somehow add him/her to the tournament's players list. Now "Zeromskis" is on the top of the list and at the end of the list. Now I have to add the other player I changed in favour of you. At the end I have to delete the last line because that basically became the working line.
so, there's a way to achieve what I need. It's just arcane and reminds me of Bycantine :-).
SwissSys seems to be a bit newer, was designed with FIDE and USCF in mind. The author published a series of youtube videos in which he shows how to perform the major tasks. It doesn’t support the automatic upload to chess-results though and I haven’t found a way to do it without SwissMaster, grrh.
The last in the series of youtube videos featured on the SwissSys website deals with using their own "chess-results" website.
AFAIK, it does everything chess results will do, just nobody knows about it. I wish somebody would use it and give me some feedback.
The double click into the field in which you just entered the data is a (not-so-)funny feature. Especially if the documentation says "Press Enter". But I'm sure as soon as one has some experience with the quirks it will work just fine. I'm just not there (yet). For example: I have a list of players and want to add a new one. There's no empty line from which I could start. I have to change the last player's line and then somehow add him/her to the tournament's players list. Now "Zeromskis" is on the top of the list and at the end of the list. Now I have to add the other player I changed in favour of you. At the end I have to delete the last line because that basically became the working line.
so, there's a way to achieve what I need. It's just arcane and reminds me of Bycantine :-).
You always should enter players in Input / Enter Players.
In the lowest right corner is a small "search" field "Name or Code". Type required name or CFC # (with i) and you'll get entries in the top part. Choose the required name with up and down arrows (click ENTER, it works :) or the double click with mouse. Then look for other player.
If the player is new (no CFC or FIDE), you would enter manually by typing all required info, at least name, last name.
You might edit player names, ratings, group (section) other stuff in Input / Update Players.
You might create a special txt file with CFC # and import into the SwissManager and then update for names, ratings, clubs, etc. Though this might be too advance.
In the lowest right corner is a small "search" field "Name or Code".
Wow! That was the best thing I've learned today!
Again, it's an unexpected UI feature :-D. That field doesn't look like any other field on the screen. Who would have had the idea one could enter something there. Now I know, Thanks to you.
The last in the series of youtube videos featured on the SwissSys website deals with using their own "chess-results" website.
AFAIK, it does everything chess results will do, just nobody knows about it. I wish somebody would use it and give me some feedback.
I have used the website for a couple of recent tournaments - super easy,super quick.
Today we've finished the 2nd round of our tournament. I paired the next round (3. round). After that one player came and told us he won't play the next round but will be back for the 4th.
I can't find a way to repair the 3rd round while excluding said player. Is there a way to delete the 3rd round and start over? Right now the "exclude player" entry in the pairing menu is not available.
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