Rating Reports with MacIntosh

Running Chess Tournaments
1

My husband, Lou Friscoe, runs the Central Chess Club. He submits
tournament results each week by hand/paper. I want to help him and save the club some money by recording results on disk.

I am a Mac user. Is there compatable mac software for rating reports?
Tournament software would also help.

2

Well, I’m running a Scholastic Affiliate and we are tight on funding too. So I can’t purchase SwissSys or some other software. Further, we could barely afford the $5 per event minimum rating fee and now its going up to $8???

Is there a free program for Windows or Linux (preferable Linux and not DOS, please) that will allow me to submit my Tournament reports on disk cheaply and easily? I thought I heard about such a program, but fear that its for DOS.:frowning:

TIA,

3

I am actually working on a program to do this, either directly or by converting the output from ChessEvent (a free Macintosh program that does Swisses under the FIDE pairing rules). Two obstacles:

(1) I cannot find a copy of the format specification, other than that it’s “dbaseIII”; anyone have a copy?
(2) The USCF still specifies floppy disks (as opposed to e-mail or CD-R) as the medium of transmission, and no new Macs have floppy drives anymore.

4

There are three files required, I can email you the specs on their structure and work with you on testing your output files with our system.

We currently have a problem with accepting reports on CD-R or through email - the system will only accept reports from a floppy drive. I’ll see what we can do about accepting CD’s soon.

Laura Martz
USCF

5

Thank you. I presume as the admin, you can see my email address?

6

Isn’t there some free software available for non-MACs already? Where do I get it?

TIA,

7

dbaseIII??? Who uses that anymore? Sheesh, I haven’t seen dbIII in decades! What about mySQL or M$ Access?

Arg,

8

There is a program called Tournament Administrator. It’s a DOS relic but can still be used on Windows ME. No pairing program there, but you can still use it to build Rating Reports and send them on disk.

I found a link (don’t know if it works, as I didn’t try it) at: mywebpages.comcast.net/rccc/USCFStuff.html

And I don’t know this site personally so can’t speak to it’s safety, but you can try it or write to USCF and ask for a copy of their Tournament Administrator program. The instructions given on the above site appear to be correct as to installing and running the program.

My personal advise is that if you plan on running lots of scholastics, purchase WINTD from estima.com/chess/. The program is $90, which should be paid for after a couple of 40 player scholastic tournaments. May be a bit pricy if you’re gonna run small attended tournaments, but in the long run, it’s most valuable.

Good Luck,
Terry

9

See, I knew there was a DOS program out there somewhere! I’m doing to see if I can run this on my Linux box with DOSEMU as I don’t use DOS or WIMPdoze anymore.

I’m looking into SwissSys as it looks more user friendly to me and can take read USCF member database as well as make tournament reports. I seem to remember SwissPerfect was intereseting too…

Thanx,

10

I tried TournamentAssistant.exe with dosemu+freedos as I only have Linux boxes and no access to any WIMPdoze boxes with native or real DOS mode. The program would not run, however.

OK, so I got SwissSys to run on my Linux box using WINE.

Regards,

11

As part of a general rewrite of the USCF’s computer systems, there will be a new file format standard for reporting tournament results created and published either later this spring or in early summer.

The authors of both Swis-Sys and WinTD have been advised of this and I believe they will update their programs to add the ability to prepare the new format soon after the standard is published.

There are currently no plans to rewrite or update the Tournament Administrator program. There may be a web-based interface for creating the new reporting file(s), though I suspect it could be a bit time-consuming to use for events larger than about 10 players.

We should be able to accept rating reports using the new format early this summer and will be able to accept them either via e-mail or using a file upload interface from the USCF website. The goal of the rewrite is to provide a quick response back (within minutes) as to any problems with a report, as the TD is always the person best able to address any such questions.

Once the report has passed validation checks, including the TD responding to any questions raised, we hope to be able to rate it within 1-2 working days of when it has been submitted. (We may be able to do it much faster than that, but at least initially we will want some review capabilities.)

Mike Nolan, USCF Database Consultant

12

I’ve always been a PC user, but I know the problems that Mac users can have with commercially available software. One suggestion is to try and obtain a DOS/Windows emulator for your Mac and that opens up just about all commerically based software to you. Swiss-Sys says it will run on a Mac with an emulator, and Swiss-Sys is a good program. Apple I believe has an emulator and there might be others available from third parties.

13

Jorge,

There is free pairing software available for both Linux and Windows. It is called Vega by Luigi Forlano. The site is: vegachess.com/en/index.htm

He offers a free version and also a pro version. The pro version is also free on Linux and has some hooks into the USCF ratings list.

Unfortunately, the software does not write out the dBase file formats but it sounds like the USCF is rewriting its software and will utilize a more open format.

Steve

14

Hello,

Let me ask you to email me the format of these files.
Thank you very much for your collaboration,

Luigi Forlano