Swiss Manager Program

[David G Congalton]

The swiss manager program and chess results.com website/server seem to be much utilised resources by tournaments abroad.

At first glance the arbiters seem to benefit by having a computer program generate the draw, which apart from anything else removes the possibility of accusations of favouritism or whatever the opposite of favouritism is. Gotitinformeism?

Tournaments also appear to benefit by having results available online extremely quickly which may generate interest during the event.

Would the 199 Euros a full version costs be money well spent if the resource was available to every suitable event?

There may be other programs/facilities out there that do a similar job and it may be that this sort of application has major drawbacks or hidden costs but I’m not aware of them.

Were it suitable and of benefit to arbiters and organisers alike, I would suggest that Chess Scotland could make the purchase and make it widely available to Scottish tournaments.

[Andy Howie]

The day I am forced to use a computer to make a draw is the day I stop arbiting

[David G Congalton]

Andy, was just a suggestion. I did have you down as someone who would be in the for camp, so I am a little surprised you're so against it. I can only guess that part of the enjoyment in arbitering is derived from solving the sometimes complex pairing puzzles.

I was thinking of things that I like about tournaments and one of them was the availability of results shortly after the completion of each round, as was done at the Scottish this year. I am conscious that there is a lot of admin and effort put into weekend tournaments and time is a factor, so it's difficult to add to tournaments and not increase the workload of those involved in organising and running the events.

[Andy Howie]

David,

There are many skills that the Arbiter used to have that have been taken away. The draw is a traditional skill and I would hate to see it taken away by computers. That and the fact that they can't do a correct draw after all this time!

Andy

[Alex McFarlane]

Hi David,

In my opinion FIDE uses an inferior pairing system to that used in Britain. But I would say that wouldn't I?

Swiss Manager got round 2 of the European Championship wrong. Even though this was spotted they went ahead with the wrong draw anyway as they say they had stated that program would be used. I find it incredible that that was the case. Having examined Swiss Manager I can understand why they wouldn't have wanted to enter the corrected draw into the computer.

Swiss Master is easier to use and produces the output at the Scottish but I have twice had it downfloat two players from a scoregroup rather than change the person who had already floated into that scoregroup from the one above.

Tournament Director is having work done on it. It may become an acceptable alternative.

[Mike Scott]

I have used computers to do draws at local Lothian junior events and would agree that they do offer many practical advantages, especially when 90% or more enter on line and the entries can be imported directly into the software. So for example once up and running the new draw can be made very quickly, wall charts generated and results generally made available to the outside world very very quickly. By the way I do think that knowing the context of live game makes it all the more interesting.

The but is that in my experience there always glitches e.g. 'funny' draws (top seeds paired far too early or two byes being given in a round :-) ). These have occurred so frequently that I feel that a fully computerised draw is a bit of an ideal that is not actually achievable - a bit like the promise of a 'paperless office'. As the software I used allows the draw master to manually override its decisions then perhaps that is the best way to go?

However as I do not know much about the art of manual draws I am not sure how easy it is in practice to do a draw on the screen rather than by shuffling the draw cards around.

[David Deary]

The but is that in my experience there always glitches e.g. 'funny' draws (top seeds paired far too early or two byes being given in a round :-) ). These have occurred so frequently that I feel that a fully computerised draw is a bit of an ideal that is not actually achievable - a bit like the promise of a 'paperless office'. As the software I used allows the draw master to manually override its decisions then perhaps that is the best way to go?

The same can be said for glitches in human draws as well... it happens. I personally think all draws should be computerised for the benefit being that results are available so much faster and the draw doesn't take as long. Also there can be no complaints of any bias in the draw.

However, I accept that there should be manual intervention/checking to ensure the draw is correct.

Its also nice to know who you are playing the next day before turning up to the venue. (well at least I think it is... )