Using WinTD to run FIDE events

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I’m hoping there’s a way for me to use WinTD’s “Make FIDE Report” tool to generate a FIDE report that US Chess would accept. At present, WinTD 5.0 outputs rating reports as .trf files. US Chess would prefer those to be .sjson. Both files are readable by text editing programs and, with a lot of manual labor, you can convert one to the other using your keyboard. I’m curious about two things,

  1. Is there a way to get WinTD to spit out .sjson, or another program to convert .trf to .sjson?
  2. Why does US Chess require the .sjson file format for its FIDE reports when FIDE itself requires .trf?
2

Estima’s site (www.estima.com/chess) would be better for WinTD support questions, as to why a particular format is required for FIDE reporting, I’d suggest sending email to fide@uschess.org.

3

Thank you! I do have an email out to Estima Support. As for fide@uschess.org, I’ve received the impression based off prior correspondence that that is not an avenue for support issues or procedures questions. Posting here because I’m curious if any other members had insights or experience to share.

4

FIDE rating regs call for TRF. While TRF has issues similar to the US Chess submission (in their case jamming section and player/game information with very different formats into a single file; in ours, requiring three separate files to keep the formats separate), I haven’t heard anything from FIDE about any changes to that that are in effect or even upcoming.

5

USCF rating regs for FIDE call for something from Annex 3 of Chapter 04 of the FIDE Handbook, though, rather than a TRF file.

6

I’ve made my displeasure known about that decision. Getting a program on the FIDE list requires that you prove that it can accurately do FIDE Dutch pairings, not that it can actually be successfully used for running FIDE tournaments.

7

Would it be possible for a future WinTD version to output a .sjon file for FIDE, or is that a proprietary format?

Still curious too why US Chess requests .sjon instead of .trf, when .trf is what FIDE wants.

8

US Chess doesn’t require a .sjon file, it requires the final tournament file from the endorsed FIDE pairing program you used. Of course, the most popular program that does both the US Chess rating reports and is FIDE endorsed is SwissSys, which means the most common file submitted to accomplish this task is a SwissSys file.

One of the main reasons that a .trf isn’t accepted is because if there are errors when submitting the file, then there has to be a back and forth between the submitter and US Chess. US Chess produces the .trf file in a consistent format and if US Chess has the final tournament file, most of the common issues, such as missing/incorrect FIDE IDs, ratings, federations, titles, etc. can often be corrected within the FIDE endorsed program by US Chess and a revised .trf file produced without the need for a constant back and forth.

1 Like