Hi, I am a new Club TD, and I was looking at different software options for running the chess tournament.
I am a Linux user, and my laptop uses Linux, which I use for my work. I understand that there are several Windows options available, but I don’t have a Windows laptop.
In the interest of saving money for myself and my chess club, e.g., not buying a Windows laptop, and not buying TD software, I see that options are somewhat limited.
I did look into Chessmanager, which is all online based, and it does have a free option, but it is limited to 20 players for a Swiss tournament (for free), or you have to pay $45 annually for the full features.
I did find Vegachess 9.1.1, which I then researched here on the forum, but found very few hits, and most were for Vegaschess 7, or from several years ago. It is free for Linux users.
I downloaded Vegaschess, and it seems to work fine. I figured out how to download the Golden Database files and insert it into the software, and did several mock pairings/tournaments for my learning. At the end, I was able to use Vegaschess to create the needed 3 DBF files to upload to USCF.
I have some questions:
Does anyone here use Vegachess?
Do the three DBF files created by Vegaschess still work in 2024? E.g., has the requirements for the DBF files changed since Vegaschess 9.1.1?
The DBF file formats have not been modified since around 2013, but I don’t know whether Vegachess is using the original DBF format or the more recent one that includes color information.
A new upload format (possibly a different API) could be developed as part of the project to rewrite the ratings system, but that will require the third party software developers to update their products to support that new format or API.
Okay, I have emailed Vegachess about the color codes for the DBF files and am waiting for their response.
However, in the mean time, I think it does work, because I cross referenced tournaments that also posted their results on Vegaresults with those posted on the USCF website. I simply chose to filter Vegaresults to USA, which only showed three tournaments from this year.
I found that one of them, the Almaden chess club in San Jose, CA used Vegachess for their swiss tournament:
Which was also in the US Chess MSA as a rated event:
The link has the results but not the colors, so it would be consistent with the original .dbf (both formats can still be uploaded and the original is more appropriate for things like double-round blitz events).
Vegachess responded and confirmed that they follow the original format, and not the colors format.
But as you mentioned, that is still a valid input format for upload. Is there any downside? Is there some kind of award for playing as B or W? Or is it used in statistics for win rates of B vs W? Or is it just a knowledge thing?
As I recall, it was an implementation issue with a pairing program, but I don’t recall which one. Look to see what the codes available for entering the results of a double RR pairing are in Vegachess.
WinTD lists the results the way they are entered (with games expanded so two results need to be entered). I enter: 2-0 as (first player’s) W,W; 1.5-0.5 as W,D; 1-1 as W,L; 0.5-1.5 as D,L; and 0-2 as L,L. It requires an extra key and it does not necessarily properly define each game’s result.
When using a single result with five different keys for 2-0, 1.5-0.5, 1-1, 0.5-1.5, 0-2 (maybe SwissSys) then I can see the pairing program defaulting 1-1 to D,D (no game is entered more than a half point from what actually happened while my personal default to W,L risks being totally reversed from what actually happened).
There is no reward for playing white or black for rating purposes. The rating system does not care about colors. It is most likely “just a knowledge thing.”
The results sheet reads (at the top of the columns), “White then Black” on the left and “Black then White” on the right. Whether the players actually do it that way is a different question.
I am greatly saddened that the issues seem to be whether Vegaschess can download and upload various database files and not how good its suggested pairings are. FWIW, I suspect that most tournaments in Fairbanks are small enough that a TD can look up ratings, pair the tournament, and enter the results on the online form by hand.
FWIW, if only three tournaments last year in the U.S. used Vegaschess, it is unlikely that the software has been optimized for U.S. Chess pairing rules and it may not even be able to be programmed for them.
But do you realize how boring it is to manually enter results into the online form? Maybe it is fine to do it occasionally but it easily becomes annoying with repetition. It is much more convenient to submit the files generated by pairing software.
Or you can treat a program that has unknown pairing abilities as tournament assistant software and [A] do the pairings manually, [B] adjust or enter the pairings into the software, [C] let the program print the pairings and charts, [D] let the program generate the dbf files to upload. With the exception of [D] that is what we did back in the late 1980s before the pairing programs came out and were more or less decent in making the pairings.
You bring up a good point, that I, as a new Club TD don’t have much knowledge about, to be honest.
I did want to correct one thing, though, There are likely more than 3 tournaments that used Vegachess last year alone.
The three that I found were tournaments who used Vegachess AND published the results on Vegaresults.com. It is difficult to determine how many people used Vegachess last year, and I will be first to admit that it is probably significantly less than those who used the other TD software that is linked in the TD software purchase portal of USCF. However, there is no need to publish the results on Vegaresults, so I don’t know why those three tournaments did. I would imagine most tournaments just didn’t also post to the Vegaresults website, since there is no reason to.
Certainly not defending Vegachess, just pointing out that the three tournaments on Vegaresults were not conclusive of all Vegachess users. Vegachess is actually sanctioned by FIDE and appears to be the official TD software of Italy and several European countries, according to their website.
In the Vegachess app, you can choose USCF swiss pairing rules, or several others, such as FIDE, and multiples of each type. According to their website, Vegachess lists it as a feature:
Registration up to 1200 players and evaluation of 23 rounds for swiss system;
Round Robin system up to 24 players;
Automatic pairing due to all FIDE swiss system (Dubov, Lim, Dutch variant, Burstein), swiss USCF, single and double Round Robin;
Manual pairing;
So I’m sure that it was programmed per the regulations or they would not list it specifically as a feature.
I do not wish to start a TD software war. I’m also sure that there are pros and cons to each TD software used. And I am sure that in some ways there are better (or worse) programs to use. Just looking for a viable option for Linux users like myself.
