That would be harder to do with zero time between rounds.
Richard,
I became a TD for the same reason and have no regrets. Had I not done this I would be playing a lot less chess, as would some of my Thursday night regulars. Start small, keep it under 12 players or so, and enjoy. If you are trying to draw 20 players or more then I suggest that you not play.
I’m one newbie who pairs by hand. However, I am fortunate in that someone with a pairing program is often there to check my pairings. I still pair by hand first but verify the pairings before finalizing them. The computer and I usually agree. When pairings differ, I sometimes can see my error immediately, sometimes need to check the rulebook, and sometimes insist that I am right even after checking the rule book. Just last week I overruled the pairing program as it didn’t pair the two leaders in the final round, but instead had them both playing down.
Hmm. Was it really just two leaders, or were there more, but only two of them were high-rated? What was the situation in the next score group down, into which they were paired?
Bill Smythe
Looks like
main.uschess.org/assets/msa_joom … 2-20049809
with two 2.5-0.5s, 1 1.5-1.5, 2 1-2s, 1 0-3 (already played both 1-2s).
I’d be curious to know what the program settings were because I can’t see any reason to do anything other than pair the two 2.5-0.5s, the two 1-2s and the 1.5-1.5 vs the 0-3.
I wonder if there were significant color issues that the program thought prevented one of those pairings.
I have organized/directed and played in a few tournaments, even a couple of Grand Prix events. The tournaments had 40+ players, there was no computer pairing program to use. In some of the tournaments, especially the Grand Prix events, I had entered in advance. On the tournament weekend, the TD called off sick, or had an emergency and could not make it. I was the only one available to TD.
I adopted the following “rules” for myself if I was playing and directing:
- I asked the players if there was any objection to my playing in the event. By playing it created an even number so that no byes would be given.
- When there were pairings where each of us were due a particular color, I gave the other player his due color. Or I took Black, giving him two Whites in a row.
- I never stopped my clock to deal with rules issues. During round 1, I wrote up the crosstables, dealt with squaring up the money and entries, filled out USCF memberships, and other TD chores. All this without stopping the clock. Sometimes I even was able to do some pre-round pairing for the next round.
- I allowed players to watch me pair the event and explained why I was pairing a certain way. It was educational and let everyone know that things were being done fairly.
- After posting pairings, I filled in the crosstable with the pairings and then started my game.
Mind you, the time control was 40/2 or 50/2, which provided enough time to do the TD work. In all cases, I opted for inconveniencing myself as the organizer rather than the players. No one objected to my playing. Well, that is not true. One much higher rated player did object as he wanted to win easily, but he was booed and razzed by the rest of the players. It was tiring. I would not do it with faster time controls or events with more than two sections or if there were more than 50 players.
I disagree with this one, just stick with the pairing rules. Sometimes due color is disadvantageous, sometimes the opponenent may have prepared for a line with the black pieces, sometimes the color in the next round means a lot more than the color in the current round, and the good-intentioned gesture backfires.
I don’t recall anyone ever complaining about getting White twice in a row, and quite a bit of grumbling about getting Black in consecutive rounds. In most of the tournaments that I played and directed, I ended up getting Black in 3 of the 5 rounds. Typical would be WBBWB. That third round, in the evening, was usually murder to play. The last round, with me playing Black, was usually against another master.
When I would be clearly the highest rated player in an event, I would not play and only direct. I did play and direct a couple of Grand Prix events when there were a couple of players who were a 100+ points above my rating. Won one, too.
Be assured that if you play and direct, you will usually be the last game to finish. You get to pay out the prizes and then be the last one there in the club to put away the table and chairs, clean up, and turn out the lights.
2013 BWB 2.5
2012 xWB 2.5
1919 WBW 1.5
1953 xBW 1.0
1697 BWW 1.0
1709 WBB 0.0
I was pairing with published ratings, but listed pre-tournament ratings here for reference to the crosstable. I can’t speak to the settings, but perhaps there was a data entry error when he entered round 3 results; its happened before. However, I expect that he would have told me if he found that he entered it incorrectly.
I tried reproducing the reported problem in both WinTD and SwissSys. Both programs paired the two players in the 2.5 score group for the last round. In particular, note that the SwissSys version was 8.84 (the latest available).
My first thought was that the pairing software might have had a hissy fit because the bottom player (with zero points) had already met both players in the 1.0 score group and had to be paired with the player in the 1.5 score group. But both pairing programs handled this just fine.
Doggoned if I know.
I will say, though, that the second-best pairings make all colors alternate perfectly.
Did the program know this was the last round? If it thought there was another round coming up, it might have wanted to save the top pairing for later.
Bill Smythe
My apologies to Richard for derailing his thread with this tangent.
SwissSys, older version, I don’t know how old. My version at home (8.71) did not have the issue.
Richard,
If you do not have pairing software then I recommend that you get SwissSys - even if you will be pairing by hand. It saves a lot of time when preparing tournaments to upload for rating. It runs about $100. I paid for it and then slowly collected money left over from entry fees to reimburse myself.
Is there a preference for SwissSys vs. WinTD? In going over the pairing instructions in the USCF rule book (v. 5), I can see where software will be much more convenient, especially if I plan on playing myself.
Richard
The both work. WinTD in used for the National Scholastics and the National Open. SwissSys is used by CCA. I used to use SwissSys (last century) but have been using WinTD since shortly after it came out. General consensus seems to be that WinTD is better for individual/team events (and thus has a big scholastic following), SwissSys makes prettier wall charts, and both pair just fine.
If the club has SwissSys 8, I would strongly recommend using the latest version (8.84). If it’s older than 8.71, I know there are numerous pairing bugs that have been fixed since then (since I reported them 
).
I’ve been on record before that, in an ideal world, I would combine the pairing engine of WinTD with the user interface of SwissSys. SwissSys does indeed pair competently, but sometimes I think the pairing algorithm WinTD uses must be pure magic.
I think SwissSys is a little easier to learn to use, but WinTD is not that difficult. When I was learning SwissSys, I just had a feeling that, if I made a mistake, I would be able to figure out how to correct it. I didn’t quite have that feeling with WinTD.
One issue I have with WinTD is that it will assign the bye to a player other than the lowest rated in the lowest score group if that improves color allocation. (For example, in the zero point score group, you might have three players, of whom the top two rated are due white and the lowest is due black. Instead of giving the bye to the lowest, WinTD will give the bye to the middle player and pair the other two.) I believe this directly contradicts rule 28L2, which is surprisingly clear and straightforward in its wording. When this happens, I just correct the pairings manually and move on, but I wish either that WinTD would get it right or that there would be a setting to control that behavior.
Whether you choose SwissSys or WinTD, I would suggest checking Tim Just’s The 80/20 TD web site. He has very worthwhile instructional videos that will get you started with either program.
I have long felt that this anomaly in 28L2 is simply an oversight in the rules.
Assigning a bye in the lowest score group is entirely analogous to the odd-player situation between two score groups. In the latter situation, colors can often be improved by dropping a player other than the lowest into the next group. This is an extremely common practice, endorsed (or semi-endorsed) by 29D1b.
I cannot blame WinTD at all for wanting to use the same algorithm in both cases.
Bill Smythe
Scheduling the next round “as soon as possible” means as soon as I am ready - which means as soon as I have reviewed everything and am happy with the results are recorded correctly and happy with the pairings.
I agree with Jeff’s assessment. Since I do more scholastic events, and since a group of us in our area trade data files regularly and most TDs in our area use WinTD, I use WinTD.
I went with WinTD simply because that’s what the person I knew I’d be calling the most for help was using.