I am starting a new scholastic club next week. I have never been THE coach before, only assisted. I am looking for an inexpensive (or freeware) chess ladder software. I looked at Think Like a King, but I don’t want to spend $100, especially since I just became a TD and will be investing in WinTD or SwissSys.
Any ideas? Or, does anyone have a simple way they do this on a spreadsheet? This should be a pretty small club. There are only 125 kids in the school, and we think the club will probably be 10-20 at most.
If you are going to get SwissSys you could simply use it by using a club file and using whatever ratings you want to use with it. What I do is load two sections, one of which is the club file, then simply drag and drop the players that show up into that nights’ section. I find this works easier than simply loading the club file and deleting those that don’t show up. Invariably someone shows up late. Using the two section method it is easy to pull them in even if they are late.
We have a little more complicated Ladder with different weights for different time controls. See gpcf.net/ladder/ladder.htm and I sometimes supplement the useage with a program of my own. (It also creates the web page for me and gives me and easy way to to input one or two games. )
But there really is no reason why you couldn’t do something just using SwissSys. I would imagine WinTD would be able to do something similar also.
As a brief follow up: After you run a tournament you simply export the post ratings back to the club file, Updating, not overwriting. Then if you wanted to you could reimport the club file and save the results as a HTML page.
At my son’s school, we simply use WinTD with normal Swiss pairings, do one round per week and run a few different non-rated ladders per year.
At my own chess club (A6002200) for our non-rated ladder we use excel, have a row for each player (name, score, games, 4 cells with one for each of the last four opponents), do 1-2 pairings each week (manually), and avoid pairing players with any of the players’ last four opponents.
Maintaining it after the meeting requires doing a control-C copy of the name from the player to the end (fifth cell) of the opponent’s opponent-list, doing a control-X shift of the second through fifth cells in the opponent’s opponent list to the first through fourth cells, and manually maintaining the running score and number of games. It is a bit of manual work (we generally run 2 or 3 dozen players on the week’s meeting night), but since the ladder season runs for about 35 weeks and since most players will miss some of the weeks, it seemed a straightforward excel application.
The top eight on the ladder at the end of the season play a rated round-robin for our traveling Knight’s Cup, the second eight for our traveling squire’s trophy, and the rest play a 5-round rated Swiss which generally has attendance varying from week to week (in the Swiss we only pair the players actually there for the meeting night).
If you opt for a challenge ladder then you don’t need any software. When my club had that format we actually had a challenge pyramid and you could challenge anyone on the level above you (or face challenges from anybody on the level below you). Because of some problems we had with that format, we opted to change to our current format.
Thanks for the responses. I was thinking about doing a challenge ladder. In my previous clubs, we broke the kids into a few groups by rating and had them play within their group as much as possible.
How would you recommend calculating ratings? Just a simple ±16 for win loss, with a few bonus points for a big rating difference?
I would download the trial versions of both SwissSys and WinTD and play around with both of them. SwissSys will let you pair up to three rounds in the trial version. I’m not sure about WinTD trial limitations.
I think the programs are probably pretty much equally good, it is just a question of personal preference.
Have you considered doing it the old fashioned way, with pairing cards and round robin charts? My junior high club is usually 15-20 players each year and it really works out well for that size of a group. Also, it’s a great opportunity for the club member elected as Club TD to learn the Swiss pairing system and do the pairings each week (with decreasing supervision as they learn and demonstrate responsibility).
For the first in-club tournament of the year, a round robin can help you sort out the player skill levels. If you have some known to be advanced, others known to be beginners, and another group that seems to be somewhere in between; you can split the club into 3 round robins for these groups. You’ll get through the tournament pretty quickly if you let the kids play as many games as they can finish in the tournament each week. Color can be assigned using alternating squares on the round robin chart(s), or by having the players draw for color each game. Color really doesn’t make that much difference in the result at this level, so it’s probably not worth the added time to have a double round robin.
Based on each player’s performance against the others in the round robin(s), estimated club ratings are assigned and groups are formed for appropriate training. I use a club rating floor of the USCF rating for those with one, and then base the range of ratings in the club on these. If none of the players are rated, maybe you can get an appropriately rated player to visit you club and do a simul with a few of the most experienced players to help establish a reasonable top rating for the club’s range. Or even better, have a few of the top players participate in a rated scholastic event as a team.
After you’re able to sort the players, each player has a card, with name, USCF rating and club ratings indicated on the card. Then you sort by club rating to get the player number order. Now you can do Swiss pairings for whatever number of sections makes sense. Absent members are pulled from the cards before pairing each week and given a bye (½ point for the first absence in a tourney and 0 point for any additional).
After sorting the players with the round robin(s), my club members play a single Swiss tournament round at each club meeting. Any who finish their game rather quickly are usually asked to first go over why the game was so short (what was learned), then swap colors and play a skittles game with the same opponent to keep them busy while others finish their tournament round. Players write their game results on the cards and the Club TD verifies the entries are correct (add up to 1).
This weekly tournament game(s) approach creates structure for the club meetings, causes them to play more of the club members and prepares the players for possible scholastic tournament play against players from other schools. Also, the pairing cards available from USCF Sales are more budget friendly than pairing software
I’ve used magnets on a magnetic white board, then put each student’s name on a magnet. They are easy to move around, is very low-tech, and the kids themselves can do the moves. Then just leave them on the board at the end of the club meeting until next week.
