I’m a newly certified Club TD and am trying to decide which system to use to run my first tournament.
As far as I can tell the to two contenders that don’t require a big non-refundable upfront cost are ChessNut.club and Tornelo.com
Anyone who has used them have any comments? Are there any I am missing?
I’m leaning towards Tornelo as it looks like it handles more of the complete life cycle of a tournament. But I also have a Square account so could use that plus ChessNut.
Thanks,
-Danny
Acknowledging that this may not be what you want to hear, you get what you pay for.
You really need to purchase SwissSys or WinTD. Or both. Or pair by hand.
At least Tornelo seems to be used for some big tournaments. What makes the other pieces of software so much better?
There’s a ‘program name’ field in the header for one of the upload formats, here’s what’s in that field for events rated since January of 2023:
program count
------------- -----
CAISSA 1335
CHESS NUT 53
CHESSMNGR 76
CHESSPAIRINGS 10
CHPAIRINGS 13
SHRTCSTLE 56
SSCH.1.0 21
SWISSSYS 1575
SWISSSYS10 7678
SWISSSYS11 8719
TOM2166 1
TOM2194 207
TOM2197 24
TOM2201 109
WINTD4.10 28
WINTD4.11 100
WINTD4.20 1218
WINTD5.00 3174
none 6965
The ‘none’ entry could represent events entered online, ones that used the older (v1) upload format or ones where the program creating the upload format doesn’t supply that information.
It isn’t obvious to me that Tornelo is being used to submit US Chess rated events, though I don’t know what program the’ TOM…’ ones used.
The more established pairing programs have several factors in their favor. Longevity means they’ve been battle-tested over time, and there will also be a large pool of TDs familiar with those programs.
I think it is important for a TD to understand what the pairing program is doing, including any variable settings used. Otherwise, when a player asks about pairings, and they WILL ask about pairings, how can the TD defend those pairings?
Danny,
I am not going to say anything bad about other software, there are lots of good ones out there. I will note that I now use Chessnut.club for all of my events. Personally, it is the easiest one I have ever used, but I have only been doing this for 10 months, so, take it with a grain of salt.
What I like about Chessnut is that it isn’t just tournament software, it is club software. If you have the pro package, it is easy to manage everything. I can add users linked to their email and be able to send out messages to my club members, or just to event members. It has integration for paying registration fees, and the moment I add someone new, it shows if they exist in the US Chess database, so I can link their name to their USCF ID number. It tells me if someone is signed up for a tournament and their USCF membership is expired, or will soon, etc.
As for tournaments, it does roll call, so you know who is there or not, it can do advanced pairing, works for swiss, round robin, quads, etc., with all the outcomes, win/draw/loss/forfeit/byes of zero/half/full/etc.
Also, if you use Chessnut, your club members or event members can log in and sign up for tournaments themselves, pay the registration fees themselves, etc. They can also track their games and even upload PGN files of the games they played, so their opponent and them can look over their games, too.
You also can use a different device to project the pairings or standings on projectors, etc., or print them on paper and post them, if you prefer.
I really like it, but that’s just my 1/2 cent. 
US Chess pairing algorithm, for one (the FIDE-required algorithm is not quite equivalent).
Mike Nolan provides some stats I find useful. I do not know if ChessNut has the US Chess algorithm or not, but I stand by my statement that SwissSys and WinTD are standard in the United States, and they are standard for a reason.
The leading products are time tested, the pairing processes are proven to conform to US Chess rules, and the tools in the programs have been shaped over time by the experiences of most of the leading TDs in US chess. In other words, you get what you pay for.
The US Chess pairing algorithm is not actually an algorithm as multiple possible pairing results are almost always possible for a given tournament round (indeed, the rules themselves prescribe 2 different methods for switching pairings to improve colors [29E6a and 29E6b]) and, while describing one method as producing “often inferior” pairings the rules do not explain how to evaluate two different sets of pairings for superiority.
FIDE is at least mostly* deterministic.
*Acknowledging Tom Doan’s notes regarding some failure cases for the FIDE algorithm, in particular How to determine the "best" pairings - #25 by wintdoan
Thanks for bringing up all these issues to look into. The one that seems like a possible showstopper for Tornelo is if it can do the US Chess format ratings reports. So I’ll look into that.
For small tournaments I think you can enter the results directly into the interface (still being charged the lower rate). The dbf upload format is easier for a TD to use when it is available.
Direct entry into the interface is what I have done when I have found myself pairing by hand (which one should be prepared to do).