Is there an online source for Excel spreadsheets for 1) tournament crosstables, 2) submitting rating reports, 3) wall charts?
Thanks,
Angelo DePalma
We do not accept rating reports on spreadsheets.
It is possible to create the 3 DBF files we need with Excel, but it is NOT very easy.
For small events, it’s not difficult to use the online editing form and enter the data by hand.
For larger events the many advantages of using a pairing program far exceed its cost.
Thanks, Mike.
I was hoping that someone had figured out how to use Excel to generate wall charts, etc. The problem we have encountered is that every tournament each “entry” consists of numerous data (name, rating, opponent, color, game score, cumulative score). I can’t figure out how to link all the relevant cells (usually two-vertical) to the two important cells (cumulative score, rating). Seems like it should be do-able, but I can’t figure it out.
I find the pairing programs to be unintuitive. The Hackettstown Club has 4 TDs, going on 5. I would almost certainly forget how to work the programs between one tournament and the next. The software may be cost-effective, but $100 is a barrier for small clubs.
If anybody out there knows what I’m trying to do with Excel please respond here or to angelodp@gmail.com.
Thanks.
I dont have excel sitting in front of me, so I can’t be precise, BUT:
- highlight all the cells that have data about players.
- sort be whatever column has total score. (descending)
- sort by whatever column has ratings. (descending)
That will turn:
Player ID Rating Score
john 123 1600 1
mike 345 1800 2
bill 456 2100 2
into
Player ID Rating Score
Mike 345 2100 2
bill 456 1800 2
john 123 1600 1
I’m not sure what you mean by “generate” wallcharts. From what input? You can certainly type wallcharts in Excel, which might save a little time over hand-writing them but doesn’t really seem worth the effort. Since you can’t use it to pair or generate rating reports, I don’t quite see what you’re trying to accomplish.
Excel’s VLOOKUP functon could be used to consult a database of players in the tournament (separate worksheet in same workbook) & create a dynamically updatable crosstable.
But I would bite the bullet and learn the software.
I haven’t used it, but Vega may be a lower-priced option than either WinTD or SwisSys, especially as the Euro continues to decline against the dollar. It is supposed to be capable of generating the three upload files the USCF needs.
Why do you want to use Excel. I have always been an Excel hater. The little boxes freak me out. Excel has it’s advantages but it’s many features overwhelm me. 
VLOOKUPs could handle the static data, and PivotTables could probably handle generating a dynamic crosstable. Or one could use the PivotTable to hold the data and then have a static crosstable using the GETPIVOTDATA function to extract current results.
A series of macros would almost certainly be able to do pairings. Though writing routines in VBA to handle recursion for transpositions would be a challenge.
But I know that using WinTD is a darn sight easier than trying to program all the above, especially in Excel. (I’d rather attempt it in Access if I were to try it at all… which I don’t think I would. 
)
And if you’ve ever tried to use WinTD, you know that’s not saying much.
If you want easy and intuitive, use SwissSys.
Allow me to plug Tim Just’s web site, The 80/20 TD. There you can find free “how-to” videos for both SwissSys and WinTD that will teach you what you need to start using either program competently.
I’ve done something for a couple on non-USCF-rated events with a significantly different tie-break structure. I set up a spreadsheet with the following columns
A) team number
B) school name
C) round one opponent number
D) game points earned in the match (weighted match - 8 boards - 68 points) (manually entered)
E) match points earned (manually entered - normal 34.5-33.5 or better is needed for a win, but a double-forfeited board 8 could result in a win at 32-31)
F) opponent’s total match points cell (I have to key in the "=xW to tie to the cell in the row x that is for the opposing team - this is a pain, but otherwise the tiebreaks are onerous rather than merely tedious)
G) tie breaks for that opponent (F+1)(F+1)(D+10) (set by the IHSA - a bit different than USAT and it often, but not always, results in the same sequence)
H-L) for round two opponent
M-Q) for round three opponent
R-V) for round four opponent
W) E+K+P+U (school team’s match score)
X) F+L+Q+V (school team’s tie-breaks)
I actually make the pairings in WinTD, but you could use cards. I keep the spreadsheet alpha and print an alpha cross-table to make it easier entering columns F, J, O and T. For a 38-team event it takes 3-5 minutes. Any sort sequence would be fine as long as the one for the cross-table is the same one for the spreadsheet.
Entering the game points and match points may take another 3-5 minutes. I do all the additional entry once the next round has started, thus avoiding any unnecessary delay in getting the rounds out.
Because I use WinTD for the pairings I don’t need a color column (all I’m worried about from the excel is the wall chart). If you add a column for color then adjust the calculations accordingly).
[quote=“billwong”]
I dont have excel sitting in front of me, so I can’t be precise, BUT:
- highlight all the cells that have data about players.
- sort be whatever column has total score. (descending)
- sort by whatever column has ratings. (descending)
This only works if you have one vertical and one horizontal set of cells per entry. If you have two vertical groups of cells, e.g.
John Doe a b
3
It will not work. What I need is a way to link all relevant horizontal and vertical cells for each player to ONE or TWO cells (total score, rating).
BTW, I would be surprised if the pairing programs are not based on some sort of spreadsheet model.
We actually have a pairing program, for which we paid about $100 several years ago. It’s very difficult to use, and the help function is almost useless to me. I played with it for a few hours and gave up.
Ok, then, I guess my question would be, why does any player need more than one row?
Why would a player need more than one row? Probably for the same reasons that it occurs with pairing programs: double round robins, merged sections and withdraw/re-entry.
none of those examples requires another row. re-entries could be treated as separate rows.
I’m still puzzled as the point of this. It won’t make pairings and it won’t produce uploadable rating report files. I suppose given enough effort in writing spreadsheet formulas it could update both players on a wallchart for printing with only one keystroke input. But a) the formula-writing would be non-trivial, and b) for a small tournament, how much are you saving over filling in the wallchart by hand? This seems like a solution in search of a problem.
maybe its a large tournament?
A TD’s options are generally between a one-time expenditure of maybe $100 for a pairing program (I’m not sure of the amount) and doing an upload to TD/A, sending in a paper rating report, or keying everything by hand into the TD/A.
The pairing program becomes cheaper than the paper report (looking at just the difference in rating fees) once you have even a single event that approaches 200 games (4 rounds, 100 players). That does assume you have a computer available, but if you are planning on using Excel then that requirement is met. For years I’ve used WinTD on an old Pentium II to run 700+ player tournaments, so a high-end PC is not necessarily needed.
If a TD plans on keying everything into TD/A then it becomes a matter of how much is the TD’s time worth to the TD.