The Swiss Pairing Committee met at the 80th FIDE Congress in October 2009. Tournament Director for Windows was considered for Endorsement. Unfortuately, as the committee members had not finished their testing, TDW was not endorsed. The Swiss Papiring Committee members will continue their testing and, if happy, Christain’s can approve the software proir to the next 81st FIDE Congress.

As the software is being considered for Endorsement, I have received several requests to make this version of the software available for evaulation. Over the Christmas period, I will create an install of the software, as a beta release, which I will make available for people to download.

The Swiss Pairing Committee members have a agreed a couple of changes to the FIDE Swiss pairing rules. I will update the rules on this site shortly. I will also review these changes and consider the impact these changes have on the current swiss pairing processing that is currently being tested by FIDE.

Over the last year I have been working on Tournament Director for Windows to add functionality to fully support FIDE. TDW already handles FIDE Ratings list and the FIDE tournament performance ratings. The software has been extended to support Swiss pairing based on the FIDE Swiss Pairing rules and to support the FIDE Data Exchange format.

I have recently completed the testing of TDW and it has been submitted to FIDE for accreditation. The FIDE Accreditation process is in three stages. Stage 1: The software is tested based on two sample tournaments to ensure it can reproduce the standard pairings. TDW has passed this stage of testing. Stage 2: is to provide the FIDE Swiss pairing committee with copies of the software so that it can be assessed independently be several members on the committee. TDW was send to the FIDE Swiss pairing committee in August and TDW has been passed to two members of he FIDE Swiss pairing committee for assessment. Stage 3: If the software passes stage 2, a recommendation is submitted to the FIDE General Assembly for accreditation the the software. I am hopefully that TDW will gain FIDE accreditation at the November FIDE General Assembly meeting.

Once TDW has been accredited by FIDE a Version 7 of Tournament Director for Windows will be released containing the full FIDE functionality.

A number of install problems have been reported recently. It looks like Microsoft has changed what system files are included as part of a standard Windows XP and Windows Vista install. This means that the Tournament Director for Windows install is failing when it tries to install these files. The install has now bene updated to correct these problems. So, h0pefully, the install should no longer display any error messages.

At long last I have published the latest update to Tournament Director for Windows. Version 6.5 is now available. All existing registered users have received an email containing a link so that they can download and install the latest update.

The main enhancements in the latest release are:

• Accelerated swiss pairing
• Ability to load the ECF Grading list from the ECF Website
• Ability to compare manual pairings with automatic pairings

I had hoped to published this release much earlier, but I had numerous problems with the installation process. Microsoft no longer supports Windows 95, 98 and ME. This means some of their technology can no longer be installed on these operating systems. Unfortunately, this mean that Tournament Director for Windows can no longer be installed on Windows 95, 98 and ME. However, Tournament Director for Windows does work on Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista.

I hope to test Tournament Director for Windows on Windows 7 shortly.

I will now start work on Version 7 of Tournament Director for Windows, which will be focused on getting Tournament Director for Windows accredited by FIDE. This means that if will include:

• Swiss pairing in accordance to the FIDE Swiss pairing rules (in addition to the ECF swiss pairing rules)
• All FIDE recognized Tie Break methods
• FIDE data exchange format to export and import tournaments

This is likely to take a considerable time. I will keep you updated.

I am currently working on the next release of Tournament Director for Windows. The next release will introduce some new facilities as well as fix a number of bugs. The main enhancements will be:

• Accelerated swiss pairing
• Ability to load the ECF Grading list from the ECF Website
• Ability to compare manual pairings with automatic pairings

The main bug fixes that will be included in the next release will be:

• Correct the calculation of FIDE rating peformance for players scoring less than 50%
• Allow a default grade of zero for tournaments when using automatic swiss pairings
• Change the ways the scores are shown for byes

I am currently fixing a few remaining bugs and will then start testing. I hope to complete the testing by the end of November.

In parallel to this fix release I am also working on the next major release. This release will include FIDE swiss pairings. I am currently working with FIDE to sort out the remaining issues. It will be early next year before this version is ready for release.

After a delay for holidays and after I have sorted out a few problems with Joomla. I have now published the new website. I hope you like the web site. If you find any problems or if you have any comments, please let me know.

The aim of this blog is to keep people up to date with developments and current progress with Tournament Director for Windows.

I have spent the last few weeks developing this web site. For the technically minded, it has been developed using Joomla, a free content management system. At present it is just a converstion of the existing web site, with very few changes. In the future I hope to add more to the registered users area including:

• fix release
• additional downloads
• forum

But that is in the future.

The next development for Tournament Director for Windows is to add functionality to support Swiss pairing according to the FIDE pairing rules. I am currently working with the FIDE Pairing committee to try and resolve the outstanding problems. I hope to submit the software to FIDE for their assesment later this year. This release will also include a number of new facilities. More details to follow.

Neil