I just recently applied for a club TD certification. I am planning to organize an scholastic tournament in our area and probably will be needing the help of a pairing software. Though, I think I understand the system enough, it’s still a good idea to let the computer do the pairing. As a parent of a chessplayer myself, I often encounter some parents complaining about the pairing but when told it was the computer who do the pairing they seem to be ok about it.
Can anyone give me an advice, suggestion or opinion on which software I should acquire. I will be needing one that can distinguish players by their team. I expect attendance of 50+/- students.
SwissSys and WinTD both have full support for club/team pairings – you can add or remove pairing restrictions by club, team, ZIP code and several other fields no one ever uses. I prefer SwissSys, but that’s just a matter of taste; in terms of functionality there’s little to choose between them.
However, both of them are commercial software, and fairly pricey. I’m not sure they’re cost-effective for a small club or tournament. There are some shareware programs floating around, but as always you are trading cost for support and reliability.
As a fellow tournament director who was first spoon-fed his pairings by a computer (PairPlus then WinTD), I can easily agree with the sentiments you express. However, I would make this challenge (also a suggestion) to you. Once you have your pairings posted, at the first opportunity, also do the pairings by hand. See if your results matched the machine, and if not, why not. Though helpful, you do not need to use the USCF’s pairing cards. I’ve paired tournaments tearing up pieces of scratch paper. If small enough, I’ve even paired tournaments in my head (not recommended).
The point is: you never know when you get to a tournament and something malfunctions. Be prepared.
Believe me, ChessMama, the use of pairing software will not eliminate complaints from players (and parents) about pairings. Now the players will simply complain that the TD blindly posted the computer pairings, without even looking at them, and that a good TD would have made a better pairing.
If you don’t believe this, look at the conversation What is the Correct Pairing in this Tournament Direction forum.
It is risky to change computer pairings. Only the best TDs should do this. The average TD is likely to overlook something, and come up with pairings much worse than what the computer did.
For the best TDs, it is best to inspect the computer pairings BEFORE posting them. Pairing software allows its pairings to be overridden by the TD, and then the players will be none the wiser that the computer pairings were changed. Not all the pairings need to be inspected – only in the last few rounds, and only in the top 2 or 3 score groups.
