English Chess Forum

Michael Flatt wrote:As mentioned previously the ECF Master Grading List (.dbf) is only made available to registered ECF graders for use in conjunction with the BCF Checker program for the validation of grading submission files prior to sending them to the ECF database administrator.

Mentioned previously, but incorrectly. The Master List is provided to graders to enable them to do grading. The most recent Graders' Guide that I can find explicitly states that the Master List is used with:

• Checker program
  Congress Program (if the Master List is suitably reformatted)
  League Program
  Tournament Director
  Excel

and other, unspecified, programs.

As the OP said they were using Tournament Director to do grading they are clearly making proper use of the Master List.

ECF Graders' Guide wrote:The master list is used by the Checker and other programs, but can also be opened (with eg Excel) and inspected directly.

Actually, the main point is that the Master List is only made available to registered graders and although the contents of the database may be inspected by importing it into Excel or Open Office, the grader should he elect to edit or save it in another format is on his own. Anyone doing so would need a certain amount of technical knowledge and ability.

This particular topic is really only of interest to ECF graders and it is unfortunate that the ECF lacks a private forum in which technical issues such as this can be discussed.

Michael Flatt wrote:This particular topic is really only of interest to ECF graders and it is unfortunate that the ECF lacks a private forum in which technical issues such as this can be discussed.

That one failed horribly.