Generating Reports with tsh

How to list standings, pairings and more using tsh.

Updated Fri Apr 8 15:59:16 EDT 2005 for tsh 2.810.

tsh has a number of commands for listing information about what's going on in your tournament. All of this information is listed on your screen when you ask for it. Some of it is also saved to HTML and text files that you can print for the players.

Pairings

Before each round begins, you need to print up pairings, showing who is playing whom where. If you are using Fontes Swiss pairings, these pairings will typically be available sometime in the middle of the preceding round, as soon as you have finished entering and checking the second preceding round's results. You should post them as quickly as possible, so that anyone who finishes their game early will know right away who their next opponent is.

If you are using automatic pairings (and you should be), there may be a slight delay when you first display the pairings for a round, as tsh computes them. It is also possible that tsh might tell you that it can't yet compute the pairings for a round, because all of the results it needs have not yet been entered. If you are not using automatic pairings, then see the section on manual pairings before displaying pairings.

You show pairings using the "showpair round division" command. To list pairings (e.g.) for round 5, division C, enter the command "sp 5 c". (If you have only one division, you must omit it, so you'd enter "sp 5".) This will display on your screen who is playing whom where, and update a text file called 'C-pairings.doc' and an HTML file called 'C-pairings.html'. You can then either open the text file with a word processor, format it if necessary and print it, or open the HTML file with a web browser and print it directly. (If you want to tweak the formatting of the HTML file, do so using the 'tsh.css' stylesheet file.) If you have enabled the "track_firsts" configuration option, games where tsh knows either who should go first or if a draw is required say so.

If you are using OS/X, you can open the documents from a second Terminal window using the "open" command. You can also print them directly to your default printer using the "lpr" command, though CSS formating may not apply.

If you are using Windows, be sure to close whichever files you opened, or else tsh will not be able to update them again. Remember too that the files contain whichever pairings you last asked for, so if you go back and look at round 3 pairings to check something, that's what will be in the files, and it probably won't be what the players want to see printed.

Standings

You can show current standings using the "standings division" command. Entering "st c" will give you the current standings for Division C, which you may want to print up once all the scores are in. As with pairings, two files called 'C-standings.doc' and 'C-standings.html' are updated whenever you use the "st" command.

The "ratings division" command is a new command that does what the "st" command does, but also includes estimates of new player ratings. "rat a" will tell you what Division A ratings would be if the tournament ended right now. The rat" command does not yet generate printing files, nor does it split-rate or 1/3-rate tournaments, but it will do so as soon as someone asks me to implement these features.

The "rat" command requires the presence of two software libraries called ratings.pl and ratings2.pl in the tsh directory.

You can show standings from earlier rounds using the "roundstandings round division" command. Entering "rs 4 d" will give you the standings as of round 4 for division D. This command does not generate printing files, as it is used mostly to check past pairings, and because you will typically already have printed copies of the standings for previous rounds.

If you have the optional "tourney.pl" program (which will eventually be integrated into tsh), you can produce an NSA ratings data submission by typing "tourney.pl -n a.t" (in Unix). You should double-check the resulting files to make sure that all player names are as listed in the ratings list. You can also estimate new ratings and produce a detailed final tournament report by doing the same without the "-n".

Prizes

You can show standings based on a range of rounds using the "resultsbyround firstround-lastround division" command. Entering "rbr 1-7 b" will give you the standings based on the first seven rounds for Division B. No printing files are generated. This command is typically used to compute "best result day n" prizes.

There are separate utilities for computing high win and high loss, which I can either make available or fold into tsh on request.

Checking Scorecards and Wall Charts

tsh includes commands for producing electronic versions of player scorecards and tournament wall charts. These were originally intended to allow you to check these documents and correct your data. As of 2005, the only official version of the tournament results is deemed to be the data that you entered from the result slips, so these commands should be used only to point out and explain errors in the printed documents.

You can show a scorecard using the "showscorecard division player" command. Entering "sc j 5" will give you the scorecard for player J5. No printing files are generated. Scorecards are also displayed whenever you use the "editscores" command.

You can show a wallchart using the "showwallchart division" command. Entering "wc g" will give you the wall chart for division G. A printing file called "G-WC.doc" will be generated.