Crosstable Formatting

Running Chess Tournaments
1

When I first saw the title of the thread, “Optimal table width and spacing between players”, I thought “table width” referred to crosstables, and “spacing” referred to the distance between round-by-round results on the crosstable.

When I saw that it was about the size of tables in the tournament room, I was underjoyed. I have a few opinions about crosstable formats, and was hoping for a chance to jump in.

So here I am anyway (in a new thread, wisely moved here by the moderators or somebody). I find this topic more interesting, and I see there have already been several replies.

There are two crosstable formats in common use: wallchart format and single-line format. The former is often seen at tournaments, and is used on MSA. The latter is used in publications (especially state bulletins), and sometimes at large tournaments to show standings (in order by score).

The single-line format has the advantage of taking up less wall space, fewer pages in the state bulletin, or less space on the computer screen. However, it has one serious disadvantage: colors are not shown.

Why not add a “colors” column to the single-line format, like this:

[code]1. Doe, Jane 12345678 1872 3.0 wbbwb W10 L15 D24 W19 D21
2. Public, John Q. 13456789 1748 2.5 bwbww D18 W16 L20 L13 W22

(Please pardon my use of the “code” feature to line up the columns. Imagine the whole thing in a more standard print, more like the rest of this post.)[/code]
The colors column should be in lower case, to better distinguish from the uppercase letters W,L,D in the results columns. An x or hyphen in the colors column could be used when there is a bye, forfeit, or unplayed game.

(Note: I have no particular opinion as to whether the “score” and “colors” columns should go to the left or right of the results columns. I suspect there are good arguments both ways.)

This change would eliminate the one disadvantage of the single-line format, and pave the way for more compact and informative crosstables.

I am proposing this format for:

(a) posting at tournaments (at least for standings), and
(b) state publications, and
(c) MSA.

At tournaments, seeing the colors on the standings sheet would make it easier for pairings-kibitzers (i.e. most players) to predict what the next round pairings might be. Putting all the colors together, as in “wbbwb”, would make it easy to see the color sequence.

In the state bulletin, the addition of the colors column would provide useful and interesting information not currently available.

On MSA, the single-line format would make it possible to see more of the crosstable on the screen at a time, compared to the present three-line format, and would waste far less paper when printed.

Just think of the increased ease with which all of us could argue about pairings, color transpositions, etc, in this Chess Tournaments forum. :slight_smile:

Bill Smythe

2

Instead of adding the “bwbww” column, why not boldface each game result in which a player had the black pieces? Instant visual cue.

3

I think Bill’s idea is to be able to see without looking very far for the color sequence. I think seeing wbwbb is easier to read quickly then L32 W40 W15 L10 D33

4

The additional information provided by a colors column seems to add enough benefit for the space that it requires. Are colors reported when events are submitted for rating?

I agree on the benefits of a single-line format. The three-line format also shows the player’s state, regular post-rating, quick pre-rating, quick post-rating, has enough space to display most unusually long names without distorting column alignment, and has extra spaces around the results in order to maintain column alignment in tournaments with a large number of players. The state takes minimal space, and HTML tables could be used to address column alignment. Would you adjust your proposal to include post-ratings and quick ratings, or does your proposal remove those from MSA?

5

We don’t currently collect color information, it’s not in the DBF file that TDs submit for events and it’s not in the database that we use for ratings or for MSA.

If we were to add color information, we’d have to redesign the DBF files (or go to some other file structure), the programmers for the pairing programs would have to change their programs to support the new format, then we’d have to change the upload program, change the change the database tables for pending events, rated events, and MSA, and change the editing forms for editing events before they’re rated.

The updated editing program will have to support events without color information as well as those that include it, because it will take years before TDs stop using older versions of the pairing programs.

Once all that’s been done, the final step would be what Bill is talking about here, modifying the programs that create crosstables for MSA. There are also two programs that would need to be changed that send out a crosstable by email, one in TD/A for events that are pending and one for rated events.

We’ve actually gotten as far as designing a new DBF format, and I think WinTD can generate that format, but there was some mis-communication between myself and Tom Doan on that and I think he used a draft format that may not have everything we wanted to add to the upload files.

6

I want to be able to instantly see the color sequence. “bwbww” does it best. Bolding, in addition to being harder to read, might present formatting problems in some contexts.

I suppose, instead of having a separate colors column, the color could be tacked on to each round’s result:

1. Doe, Jane 12345678 1872 3.0 W10w L15b D24b W19w D21b 2. Public, John Q. 13456789 1748 2.5 D18b W16w L20b L13w W22w
– but this, too, would be inferior to “bwbww” when it comes to seeing the entire color sequence all at once.

At this point I’m just brainstorming. Of course, MSA should retain all information it presently has. If pre- and post-ratings for both regular and quick make for too long a line, perhaps a compromise, 2-line format could be used, such as:

[code] rtg:pre:post score colors rd1 rd2 rd3 rd4 rd5

  1. Doe, Jane R:1872:1903 3.0 wbbwb W10 L15 D24 W19 D21
    NJ 12345678 Q:1765:1787
  2. Public, John Q. R:1748:1741 2.5 bwbww D18 W16 L20 L13 W22
    IL 13456789 Q:1699:1692[/code]
    Details would have to be worked out. Above all, get rid of those artificial broken horizontal lines (hyphens) and vertical lines (“|” symbol) and simply align things. A variable column width might work, e.g. in the results columns, use 3 characters (W99) for up to 99 players, 4 (W999) for up to 999 players, etc.

Yes, MSA crosstable design would have to be the last step in a long process. But it’s already on the table, isn’t it, because of FIDE requirements?

Bill Smythe

7

The USCF rates around 7500 events a year, less than 200 of those are FIDE rated. Should changes that impact less than 3% of the events the USCF rates be the controlling factor here?

8

The controllng factor should simply be that it would be a huge improvement to have the color information displayed.

Once the capability is there, more and more organizers would submit crosstables with the color information – and this would be a Good Thing, regardless of FIDE.

Bill Smythe

9

I wonder how many TD would pay to upgrade their pairing software just so they can upload color information?

10

They would probably get a free upgrade (maybe even an automatic one) from the programmers of SwisSys and WinTD.

Bill Smythe

11

Even if they’re on a version of the program that’s 6 or 7 years old?

Gee, I wish Microsoft worked that way!

On the other hand, maybe I’m glad it doesn’t since I’m a Microsoft stockholder.

12

If MSA used Bill’s compromise 2-line format, then the color information could be included in a way that should please most people (except Mike, who would have to program it :slight_smile:).

                    rtg:pre:post  score  rd1  rd2  rd3  rd4  rd5

1.  Doe, Jane        R:1872:1903   3.0   W10  L15  D24  W19  D21
    NJ  12345678     Q:1765:1787         w    b    b    w    b
2.  Public, John Q.  R:1748:1741   3.0   D18  W16  L20  H    W22
    IL  13456789     Q:1699:1692         b    w    b    -    w

As far as uploading color information in the tournament reports, it could be incorporated in the game result codes without having to change the format of the dbf tables: T = won playing white, V = won playing black, W = won - no color information, J = lost playing white, K = lost playing black, L = lost - no color information, A = drew playing white, C = drew playing black, D = drew - no color information. These codes would only be used internally in the database for upload to MSA, and would never appear in published results.

Obviously this would require significant re-programming for MSA, but not quite as much for the pairing programs, and it wouldn’t break the existing format. That being said, IMHO the time and expense wouldn’t be justified unless the MSA software were already being updated for other reasons, and the color upgrade could be incorporated at the same time.

I am personally more interested in having the color information on the printed one-line-format standings tables from SwissSys and WinTD. I’m not sure which format more players and spectators (non-TDs) would prefer: the color for each round separately, or a bwbbw history. As long as we’re re-programming SwissSys and WinTD, we might as well make both formats an option. :slight_smile:

I like anjiaoshi’s idea of using a bold font for black. Space is frequently at a premium, and this takes advantage of the fact that we really only need an on-off indicator. I would make the slight change of only bolding the W, L or D (and not the opponent number). People who are looking for color can find it, but it’s subtle enough that it doesn’t distract from the rest of the information.

But SwissSys - not sure about WinTD - has options to set the font, including the weight, for each type of table column (name, score etc.). This would probably make using bold font as a color indicator difficult to implement. The color information would also be lost if the standings were exported to a text file. Another option is the W113w D48w L29b format. That’s clean and intuitive, but it uses a lot more space.

13

Swiss-sys can do the wall chart view sorted by standings with tiebreak and show the colors. I’ve altered the following by changing the players name and removing his USCF ID, but this is the basic format.

Wall Chart. GPO08 (standings)

Name/Rtng/ID Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Rd 4 Rd 5 Tot

2 John Player B 11 W 9 B 10 W 8 B 1
2032 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 4.0 4.0

14

I doubt that one crosstable format is going to be that much more work to program than another format. But most formats that include color information are likely to take up more than one line per player. However, so does the current MSA crosstable format, because it’s a character-mode format. That may, however, be one of the more space-efficient formats.

15

Another thing Swiss-Sys can do is
(from the help file)
Pair Chart Formatting

This dialog page controls the appearance of the pair chart, Here are the options you can set:

Extra player info – This group box allows you to append an extra bit of information about players to their names in the pair chart: Ratings, scores, a package of details including rating, score, and color due, or nothing at all, For the package option, color due ranges from “BB” (strongly due black) to “WW” (strongly due white.)

16

That might be just the ticket. Since no other information (except spaces) appears between the characters of wbbwb, it’s still (almost as) easy to see the color sequence at a glance. And it puts each color with its corresponding result, and saves a little space on the top line.

My only (slight) concern would be that, with a full second line, it might be a little less visually intuitive (when viewing the middle of the crosstable) to tell whether this “second” line goes with the line above it or the line below it. That’s probably how MSA got to be a 3-line format – the line of hyphens separates each player from the next. Still, with only the first line beginning with the player number, and with the second line being indented under the first, the format should be pleasant and readable.

Not such a great idea. It would be way harder to see the color sequence at a glance, and would simply look ugly. And the bolding could become obscured under certain conditions, depending on what other software is used with it.

MSA already takes up multiple lines. As to the existing single-line formats (such as those used in state bulletins, or for standings at tournaments), I doubt whether color information would stretch the existing single-line formats significantly. In a 5-round tournament, for example, a colors column would add only 5 characters (plus a couple of spaces).

Bill Smythe

17

I don’t see the formatting as a major stumbling block. In fact, multiple formats might be the way to go, that way the reader can select the format that best suits his or her needs.

Writing that code would probably be a heckuva lot more interesting that what I’ve been working on for most of the past 15 hours, getting some data ready for the auditors.

18

That’s for sure. Ugghh.

Bill Smythe