English Chess Forum

Does anybody know of a free (simple is fine) chess pairing program suitable for use in an internal championship or club night of some description? I'm looking for any program that can pair people according to a Swiss system for a simple tournament (under 30 players), and possibly print out a crosstable and current standings sheet.

Thanks in advance - and if nothing exists for free, at least I've tried and asked!

Cheerio,
John

John Sargent wrote:Does anybody know of a free (simple is fine) chess pairing program suitable for use in an internal championship or club night of some description? I'm looking for any program that can pair people according to a Swiss system for a simple tournament (under 30 players), and possibly print out a crosstable and current standings sheet.

Thanks in advance - and if nothing exists for free, at least I've tried and asked!

Cheerio,
John

If you have some language skills there are some here

http://www.schackportalen.nu/English/emjukvara.htm

http://www.chess.com/download/view/ches ... sh-version

http://www.twinfeats.com/tf/twinfeats/J ... /index.tfs

I have used "Sevilla" published by JBF software regularly for several years now for NJCA junior events (and the UKCC Megafinals). It is free and very convenient. However it is important to check through all its options before using - else you might find some rather odd pairings - especially if it using the 'random' option rather than 'weakest' for picking the bye. It fulfils all your demands about printouts and will also give you gamefile of all the rsults suitable for your grader.

It works for Windows XP and vista, but I believe users of Windows 7 have problems.

Try learning how to do the pairings manually. It's far more rewarding.

Alex Holowczak wrote:Try learning how to do the pairings manually. It's far more rewarding.

It is, but the publishing options are very valuable even if you are doing manual pairings.

Alex Holowczak wrote:Try learning how to do the pairings manually. It's far more rewarding.

I couldn't agree more, pairing (by hand) is one of the parts of running a congress I enjoy the most.

Interesting to note is that when I worked on the Norfolk Open one year with the late, great John Robinson doing another section he used a computer to do his pairings but always checked them by hand afterwards before putting the pairings up.

Does SwissPerfect work with Windows 7?

Actually, ignore the last post, I have found this: http://www.tournamentdirector.co.uk/

Laurie Roberts wrote:Actually, ignore the last post, I have found this: http://www.tournamentdirector.co.uk/

I use that. Beware of the pairings, they're not always correct - particularly with floats. I believe Dave Welch is/has been working with the programmer though to make improvements to that. It's ideal for the ECF grading list though, and produces a grading file that you can send off to the ECF. It's much easier than wading through pairing cards!

SwissMaster.

I use SwissPerfect. It's not perfect (despite the name), but it does an adequate job and is very easy to use. A lot more people would be needed at our Megafinal if we tried to do all the pairings by hand. With SwissPerfect one person can enter the results and print the pairings for the next round of twelve sections in about ten minutes flat, provided his printer doesn't run out of ink (whoops).

Does anyone know of a pairings program that works on a Mac? We Mac users are the poor relations of the chess world. I could use SwissPerfect by simulating Windows on my Mac but I'd much rather use a native program.

James Toon wrote:Does anyone know of a pairings program that works on a Mac? We Mac users are the poor relations of the chess world.

I'll take your Mac, and raise you an Ubuntu.

The only Fritz I could get to work on Wine is Fritz 6, and I can't get any tournament/pairing software to work at all.

I use ubuntu on my netbook. For chess database and playing against the comp, I use SCID but when you download it through the software centre you won't have an icon, you need to go to the command line and type "SCID" to get it to work

Laurie Roberts wrote:I use ubuntu on my netbook. For chess database and playing against the comp, I use SCID but when you download it through the software centre you won't have an icon, you need to go to the command line and type "SCID" to get it to work

Many thanks for this; I didn't know it existed! Will try it out properly later on.

There is a way to add an icon to your menus. Right-click on Applications, and click "Edit Menus". Choose where you want it to go on the screen that appears, then add a new item. Where it prompts you for a command, type in "scid", and the other fields can be whatever you want. It should then appear in the appropriate section of your menus.