ECF IT wish list : Internet deliverables?

[John Upham]

If I was to provide this I would charge pro rata on a per tournament usage.

All you'd need was a browser and Internet connection.

What do you think would be a reasonable charge?

Lets say for a one day rapid play?

John

[Sean Hewitt]

Dont know what someone would pay for a one off useage.

Swiss Master charges €50 whislt Swiss Perfect is about $50. I think tournament director is poorer than both of these, and costs about £100.

So the market for your potential product seems very limited. Anyone running a few events (like me) is going to buy one of the aforementioned programs which has unlimited use for life. How many people run events, but so few that its not worth spending $50?

I guess they might be prepared to spend $5-$10 if you can find such people?

[Neill Cooper]

I have used Swissperfect for 5 years now and find it brilliant. I have used it for about 40 tournaments by now - so at a cost of £29 that is below a pound a tournament. However, I don't use the garding options. I use it for ungraded events where quick turnaround is important. So for instance a junior Saturday afternoon event with 5 rounds in 4 hours, it takes 1 minute to do all the pairings for 5 separate sections.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Last time I saw Swiss Perfect in action, it produced some very bad pairings. In particular, its round 9 pairings avoided giving a colour-transfer to a player whose sequence had been WBWBWBBW; instead it gave it to a player whose colour sequence had been BWBWBWBW.

[Sean Hewitt]

You'd need to see the whole pairings to make a judgment on the accuracy of any set of pairings.

I do know that Swiss Perfect and Swiss Master are supposed to pair to FIDE rules rather than ECF rules though (for obvious reasons).

[IM Jack Rudd]

There was specifically a complaint about the pairings in round 9 in the event in question, so the arbiters and I made pairing cards for the score-group in question and paired it manually. We tried two separate rules for who got the upfloat, and in neither case got the same pairings as Swiss Perfect.

(The Chief Arbiter went with Swiss Perfect's pairings anyway, on the grounds that he had said beforehand that that's what would be used. He also said that he would rather not use Swiss Perfect's pairings for next year's event.)

[Neill Cooper]

I should have made clear that my comments were based on using Swissperfect for informal junior events, where rapid turnaround is the highest priority. Swissperfect might not be suitable for 'serious' tournaments. I know that there are special conditions for last round pairings (which I now avoid by stating there are more rounds than there will be).

[IM Jack Rudd]

I should have made clear that my comments were based on using Swissperfect for informal junior events, where rapid turnaround is the highest priority. Swissperfect might not be suitable for 'serious' tournaments. I know that there are special conditions for last round pairings (which I now avoid by stating there are more rounds than there will be).

Yeah, Scott Freeman uses the same avoidance tactic for last-round pairings. And yes, computer pairing programmes are very useful for events with short between-round times. I wouldn't try pairing blitz events manually.

[Mick Norris]

Would it be possible for a small number of experienced organisers and controllers to get together (not physically, by email or conference call) and reach agreement about which of these programs is best? And if none are good enough, agree what is needed and get someone to write a program?

Then the ECF could buy a copy and then licence it to (English) organisers for a small fee

[Alex McFarlane]

A small group of experienced arbiters are currently looking at a standardised pairing system for use throughout Britain. It would be nice if this could then be programmed but the costs may be prohibitive unless someone does it as a labour of love rather than a commercial proposition.

Tournament Director is the only one to attempt ECF pairings but can do odd things at times.

Swiss Master comes closest to doing what it claims but even it does not always produce the correct pairing and is certainly quite 'unBritish' in choosing the player to change colour if one is needed (due to not counting a balanced colour history back beyond the previous round).

Swiss Perfect just isn't!!!

I haven't used any other programs recently.

[John Upham]

unless someone does it as a labour of love rather than a commercial proposition.

Is Geoff Jones minded to approach anyone to have this developed commercially?

[Sean Hewitt]

A small group of experienced arbiters are currently looking at a standardised pairing system for use throughout Britain. It would be nice if this could then be programmed but the costs may be prohibitive unless someone does it as a labour of love rather than a commercial proposition.

Swiss Master comes closest to doing what it claims but even it does not always produce the correct pairing and is certainly quite 'unBritish' in choosing the player to change colour if one is needed (due to not counting a balanced colour history back beyond the previous round).

Herein lies the problem. Why don't we Brits pair according to the official FIDE swiss pairing rules, as the rest of the world does? That's what we should be doing! Of course, if we think the FIDE rules are non-sensical or can be improved, then we should put such a proposition to change the rules. But that way, such a change applies world wide, not just to us. We should not be doing our own thing!

[IM Jack Rudd]

A small group of experienced arbiters are currently looking at a standardised pairing system for use throughout Britain. It would be nice if this could then be programmed but the costs may be prohibitive unless someone does it as a labour of love rather than a commercial proposition.

Swiss Master comes closest to doing what it claims but even it does not always produce the correct pairing and is certainly quite 'unBritish' in choosing the player to change colour if one is needed (due to not counting a balanced colour history back beyond the previous round).

Herein lies the problem. Why don't we Brits pair according to the official FIDE swiss pairing rules, as the rest of the world does? That's what we should be doing! Of course, if we think the FIDE rules are non-sensical or can be improved, then we should put such a proposition to change the rules. But that way, such a change applies world wide, not just to us. We should not be doing our own thing!

Because this is not something that needs to be standardized across the world. Indeed, it does not even need to be standardized across the sections of a given event. (At Yeovil this year, the Open was an accelerated Swiss; the Intermediate and Minor were standard Swisses.) Unlike the Laws Of Chess, which have to be the same everywhere so that players can compete abroad without learning completely new rules, the pairings for a tournament only affect that tournament, so the organizer should (within reason) be able to choose whatever pairing system he likes.

Indeed, there's an argument for saying there should be a large number of systems in operation, so that someone who wants to set up his own tournament can look at them all and find the one that best suits his purposes.