User guide

Practical how-tos for the things tournament directors do most. Skim the table of contents or read straight through.

Getting started

1. Configure your club in Settings. Pick your federation, fill in the federation defaults the rating files need (USCF affiliate id, chief TD id), and set your localization (date format, currency, name display). 2. Connect a payment provider if you charge entry fees. Stripe Connect and PayPal Commerce Platform are both supported. You can run free events without either. 3. Create your first tournament. The Rated under field on the create form is the tournament-wide default. You can override it per section later. 4. Add sections, set entry fee tiers if paid, then open public registration. 5. Pair round 1 from the workflow page. The platform takes you the rest of the way.

The tournament workflow console

Every tournament has two TD-facing surfaces: - /tournaments/[id] is the editable detail page. Use this to fix metadata: typos in the name, wrong start date, missing section descriptions. Stays accessible at every status. - /tournaments/[id]/workflow is the run-the-event console. Open it from the Run button on the tournament list, or from the detail page header. The workflow page is status-aware: - Draft: publish checklist. - Registration open: eligibility check card, late-entrant deep link, start-tournament CTA. - In progress: three sub-modes (Between Rounds / Round In Progress / Final Round Complete). The mode is derived from round state. No separate column to flip. - Completed / Archived: post-event summary and rating-report links. Key controls during a live event: - Pair round N. Runs the pairing engine, opens the editor for review. - Quick result entry. Per section, type board number + outcome (7-1 for board 7 white win, 7= for draw, 12claim to log a claim, 4undo to drop). - Close round. Modal confirm; locks every result in that round, advances the tournament. - Late entrant. Add a player mid-tournament with the right byes for missed rounds automatically attached. - Print pairings, standings, blank result slips. One click each, section picker modal, browser-native Save as PDF.

USCF membership eligibility

For tournaments rated by USCF (the Rated under field set to US Chess or USCF + FIDE), the platform enforces an active membership at play time. This follows the rules USCF publishes: you do not pair players whose membership has expired against the tournament end date. What happens at each step: 1. At registration. The form does NOT block expired members from signing up. The success page shows an amber warning telling the player they will be zero-byed every round unless they renew before round 1. 2. Before any round can be paired. The pre-round gate checks every player whose section is rated. Players whose USCF expiration is on or before tournament end are listed in a red Eligibility panel above the Pair CTA. The Auto-pair / Save pairings actions refuse to write until every flagged player is resolved. 3. Resolution paths from the gate panel: - Refresh from USCF. Live MUIR lookup. If the player renewed since we last cached, this clears their flag. - Apply zero-bye for this round only. Drops them from this round's pairing, leaves future rounds in play. - Apply zero-byes for all remaining rounds. Use when you know the player isn't renewing. 4. In the rating submission. Players with all-bye rounds are still in the DBF. Their byes don't affect ratings per USCF rules. Sections you've overridden to Not rated are excluded entirely from the submission.

Per-section rating overrides

The tournament-level Rated under field is the default for every section. Each section can override that default from the Sections list on the tournament detail page. Open Per-section overrides (advanced) on any section and you get three rating-related fields: - Rated under. Inherit (default), Not rated, US Chess only, FIDE only, or USCF + FIDE dual-rated. - Rating type. Inherit, Standard, Quick, or Blitz. USCF derives this from time control on their side; keep on Inherit unless this specific section needs a different category. - Federation. Inherit, USCF, FIDE, or CFC. The common case is a scholastic event: tournament-level Rated under = US Chess covers Open / U1200 / U800; the Booster section overrides Rated under to Not rated. Booster players never trigger the eligibility check, and the Booster section is omitted from the USCF DBF download automatically.

Editing tournament dates

Tournament Settings tab has a Tournament dates card. Click Edit dates. A modal lets you change start and end dates. When you submit, the platform re-validates USCF eligibility against the new end date. If pushing the end forward makes any player's membership expire before tournament close, they're listed in the modal as newly affected. The pre-round gate will block them on the next pair attempt. Dates are locked once the tournament is completed or archived.

Printing pairings, standings, and slips

Three printable views live under /tournaments/[id]/print/: - Pairings. Per-section page break, portrait, hand-write-in result column. Section picker modal before download. - Standings. Per-section page break, wallchart-style per-round shorthand (W7 = won vs pair 7, L1 = lost vs 1, D3 = drew vs 3, B = full bye, H = half bye, U = unplayed, F = forfeit win, vs7 = game in progress vs pair 7). Score column shows +N when player has N games in progress. - Blank result slips. Two layouts: 4 per portrait page (default) or 2 per wide page. Per-print modal lets you switch and remember the choice as your club default. Use the browser's Print or Save as PDF (Ctrl+P / Cmd+P). No PDF library is needed: the system relies on the OS print driver.

USCF rating report (DBF download)

When the tournament is closed, the Reports tab on the detail page shows the USCF download card. It produces a zip containing the three DBF files MUIR expects (THEXPORT, TSEXPORT, TDEXPORT). What the platform handles automatically: - Per-section rating system letter (R / Q / B) derived from each section's effective rating type. A tournament mixing Standard and Quick sections submits each section correctly. - Sections you've overridden to Not rated are omitted from the zip entirely. - For events that merge a 2-day and 3-day schedule into one section at the merge round, the zip carries a Regular sub-folder and a Quick sub-folder so you upload them as two separate jobs in MUIR. What you handle: - Make sure every player has a USCF id on file before downloading. MUIR refuses to submit unknown ids. - Renew any expired memberships, or use Membership Correction Allowance for previously-active players, BEFORE upload. The platform's pre-round gate has already kept expired players from playing rated games, so their rows only contain byes.

Grand Prix series

Season-long points races that span multiple tournaments. Each tournament you include contributes points and (optionally) a slice of every entry fee toward a shared prize pool.

Open the Grand Prix guide

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