Team Tournament in WinTD

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I am having difficulty in running a team tournament in WinTD. I follow directions from the help menu to no avail. I set up the team tournament but when I try to add teams as players and then try to add players to the teams as it suggests. I does not work. When I add individuals and try to pair a round I get an error message that tells me that I need to correct it because I have mixed indiviudals and teams. When I pair manually, it does not recognize the round when I try to go to the next round. Is there anyone out there with experience that might be able to instruct me on how to do this?

Mick

2

I have run team tournaments with WinTD many times with no problem. It sounds like you are setting up the teams correctly. The one time I had a problem was when I tried to add an extra games section (with individual pairings). WinTD really didn’t like this mixture of team and individual sections; the pairings for the team sections started having errors like those you report. I finally had to create two separate tournaments, one for the teams and one for the extra games.

Was the tournament you set up all team sections, with team vs. team pairings only?

– Hal Terrie

3

When you add the teams do you have them coded as a team, or as a player? Depending on the version of WinTD you have, that code may be in the upper right corner when you bring up the details of the entry. If they are not coded as a team then you cannot put players on the team.

4

Yes, it was teams vs teams only. Yes, I did have the teams coded as teams.

argh!

Mick

5

When I had an individual section and a fixed-board team section, I always had to treat them as two seperate tournaments. An individual/team section is easy to run as a section in the same tournament as a purely individual section, but I haven’t been able to have a fixed-board team section and an individual section in the same tournament.

Once, in a fixed-board team tournament, somebody else’s computer was being used and the program crashed whenever you tried to edit a player on a team. A viable work-around at that tournament was to edit a player in a .ppl (player) file and then drag the player to the team. I have never had a problem on my computer (only a pentium II) with editing a player on a team and I still don’t know what the problem was in this case, but using the work-around allowed the pairings and tie-breaks to be run.

I’ve always added players to the teams before doing the pairings. Occasionally I have had to override a team’s rating (our high school team tournaments are no longer USCF rated and need some variations).

Whether or not the tournament was USCF rated, and whether or not the boards had differently weighted values, the program functioned fine.

6

Mick,

First add the teams to a section, like you would normally do for individual players but coded as teams with the radio button in the upper right corner of the player entry window. Sounds like you’ve already got this far.

Next, double click on the team you want add a player to and the Edit Player window will open.

Then select the Edit Team button at the top of the Edit Player window to open the Team Setup window.

In the Team Setup window, select the Add Player button to open the familiar Add Player window. Players added will then appear in the roster. You can also move players up and down in the board order and check them in and out if there are alternates.

When you set up the section, be sure to indicate it is Team vs Team and the number of active boards.

If tiebreaks are needed for titles or awards, be sure to use the appropriate ones in the Tournament Info (File/Edit Information) and select the USCF Team Tiebreaks radio button. A good discussion of the team tiebreaks is used in the Help screens. My preference for tiebreak order is:
Performance Index
US Amateur
Game/Match Points

The last is what people like because its easy to keep track of manually, but it really lacks a lot in terms of being a tiebreak. Pardon this mention and I hope this doesn’t turn your thread into another lengthy discussion of tiebreaks.

One last comment, about the pairing charts. They are produced as a report. So, if you want to look at them on the screen before printing them, select from the menu Reports/Output To Window. Now open the pairing chart as you normally would and you’ll see the team pairings, but not the individual pairings. With this window open, from the menu select Reports/Show Team Results Sheet and check both boxes when prompted for all matches and player names. Please note that the team with white will have all players on that team shown as playing with white pieces. Actually, the team color goes to board 1 and the color then alternates for the remaining players. It would be helpful if the WinTD folks would correct this report.

To enter results from a round, open the pairing screen as you normally would. Double click on the team pairing to be entered to raise the Game result window. Then select the Board Results button to open the individual Board Results window for results entry.

I would suggest playing with this a bit before directing an event. To see a WinTD file for a team event, you can have one of mine at swatek.com/TeamChamp2004.pto

If by chance you have an individual event going in parallel, it probably is best to set it up as its own event in the software. In fact, if both use tiebreaks this is an absolute necessity.

Hope this helps,

Mike Swatek
Senior TD

Ps: I’m surprised that directing one of these isn’t required for ANTD certification which I plan to achieve Summer 2007 :smiley:

7

Mike,

See 38c on page 253 in the tournament Director Certification chapter in the 5th edition. Or, check out the new posting on-line of those same rules.

The new stuff addresses the IA and FA requirements plus limits TDs to claiming only one section of a tournament per event as an experience requirement.

Tim Just
Chair TDCC
5th edition editor

8

Mike,

Thanks this is helpful. Is there a way to manually change the color in a team tournament. I noticed this problem of color when I entered the results by board but since I was doing a two round touranment where the same players played each other twice with a change in colors, it did not seem to matter. But I’d like to know if there is a way for future events.

Thanks,

Mick

9

Something you need to be on guard for when running team events with WinTD is that it is sometimes possible to get the wrong event name in the upload file.

Instead of your event name, you get something like this:

TEAM STANDINGS:HS

10

Mick,
The only way I know of is to edit the text file that is produced when you view the pairing charts on the screen, and then print the edited file. Not very graceful, but it works if you have the time.
Mike

11

Tim,
I see it as a NTD requirement, but not for ANTD. It just seemed like something an ANTD should know how to do. Maybe for ANTD the size of the team tournament could be 8 teams of 4+ and 3+ rounds.
Just my 2 cents worth,
Mike Swatek

12

Mike,

But this would not allow you to submit the tournament on line. Or am I missing something.

Thanks,

Mick

13

Mick,

The pairing chart reports are only software output in the form of paper printout or the same in a separate text file for screen viewing. Editing them will not modify the information in the pairing software itself or the USCF rating report contents.

The bug Nolan mentioned didn’t happen when I submitted a team vs team event from WinTD (11 teams, 44 players and 3 rounds). However, now we know to watch for that and edit the event name if it is needed at the time the rating report upload is reviewed online before submitting.

Cheers,

Mike Swatek