Swiss Pairing Cards

Provide a description and system requirements and/or condition etc.
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Kevin Thurlow
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Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:28 pm

Swiss Pairing Cards

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Tue Nov 04, 2025 9:35 am

I don't suppose anybody uses these any more, but I have a (maybe) 10 cm thick bunch of them. Either they go in the recycling or if someone wants them, PM me. They're free unless you live somewhere where the shipping costs are astronomical...

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Swiss Pairing Cards

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Nov 04, 2025 10:13 am

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Tue Nov 04, 2025 9:35 am
I don't suppose anybody uses these any more
Some organisers use a program to calculate the pairings, but then pairing cards and a pairing board to display them. It avoids relying on a printer or monitor. If names on the pairing cards are written with a wide tip pen, they can be visible from some distance. Old habits die hard, so they probably put opponents, floats and cumulative scores on the cards as well.

Mike Gunn
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Re: Swiss Pairing Cards

Post by Mike Gunn » Tue Nov 04, 2025 10:21 am

We use them for internal club events (I have PMed Kevin offering to take some/ them all).

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John Upham
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Re: Swiss Pairing Cards

Post by John Upham » Tue Nov 04, 2025 10:59 am

I use them and pairing boards for my school chess clubs.

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Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Swiss Pairing Cards

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Tue Nov 04, 2025 11:25 am

Mike got in first - they're in a box and ready for me to go to the Post Office!

Jon D'Souza-Eva
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Re: Swiss Pairing Cards

Post by Jon D'Souza-Eva » Tue Nov 04, 2025 11:28 am

I still use pairings cards for the Cowley Blitz tournaments. The pairings are done by hand, partly because there are a lot of entries on the day, and I'd struggle to enter everyone into a computer pairings program, but more importantly pairing cards can be displayed on a large pairings board on which all the players can quickly find their table and opponent for the next round. In larger tournaments you are likely to have big screens which work as well as or better than pairings boards. The other advantage of pairings cards is that they do away with the need for results slips - the players just tell me the result of their games and I enter this directly onto their pairings cards.

Paul McKeown
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Re: Swiss Pairing Cards

Post by Paul McKeown » Tue Nov 04, 2025 4:42 pm

If anyone uses pairing cards regularly, they can use the Richmond Juniors design, and get a printer to print them on A6. 220gsm or heavier card works well.

Pairing Card [A6].pdf
(119.05 KiB) Downloaded 149 times

If you find them useful, do please let us know.

Please do feel free to change the branding to suit your own purposes.

You can treat this as Richmond Junior Chess Club's public domain contribution to the chess community.

We also have designs for branded A5 scoresheets, A5 continuation scoresheets, A5 double-sided score-sheets, A6 results slips and other chess stationery, as well as experience of the best options for printing, if anyone would like to get in touch. A circular email to local printers will get prices liable to beat any retailer's.
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GrahamStuart
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Re: Swiss Pairing Cards

Post by GrahamStuart » Tue Nov 04, 2025 5:17 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Tue Nov 04, 2025 11:25 am
Mike got in first - they're in a box and ready for me to go to the Post Office!
Kevin's use of pairing cards in the wild! (HCA Congress). Although we have now moved to using a printer and QR codes (but I like the old school method and I sill have these and the pairing boards stored)
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