Generating Reports with tsh

How to list standings, pairings and more using tsh.

Updated Mon Sep 17 10:08:04 EDT 2007 for tsh 3.190.

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. Most of it is also saved as a printable HTML file in an automatically indexed web directory, and optionally as a printable text file.

config no_text_files” controls whether or not text files are created, “config html_directory” controls where HTML files are created, and “config html_in_event_directory” creates an extra copy of HTML files in the event directory (up to version 3.170, this was standard behaviour). To adjust the formatting of the HTML file, edit the “tsh.css” stylesheet file.

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 or default 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 “ShowPairings 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 may omit it, so you’d enter “sp 5”.) As noted at the beginning of this section, this will display on your screen who is playing whom where, create two printable HTML files called “C-pairings-005.html” and “C-alpha-pairings-005.html” and optionally create a text file called “C-pairings.doc”. 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 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 specify “config player_photos = 1” in your configuration file, tsh will display photos of each opponent in the alpha pairings file. To fetch a copy of the photo library, use the “update-pix” command. (This may take a while on a slow Internet connection.) At present, the photos used come from the National Scrabble Association’s player database. Directors from outside the NSA’s jurisdiction who would like to provide access to a separate photo library are invited to contact John Chew.

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 formatting may not apply.

If you are using Windows, be sure to close whichever files you opened, or else tsh may not be able to update them again. (Apparently this may be an Internet Explorer bug, if you want to leave the files open, try switching to Firefox.) Remember too that the files in your event directory 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. The files in your web server directory (if specified) record information for each round separately, and keep track of the last displayed version of the pairings for each round.

As of version 3.150, you may also use the “ShowManyPairings r1-r2 division” command to produce pairings reports similar to those used at the U.S. Open.

Standings and Ratings Estimates

The “RATings division” command shows current standings with estimates of new (Elo/NSA, Elo/NSA-LCT or ABSP depending on the value of “config rating_system”) player ratings. “rat a” will tell you what Division A ratings would be if the tournament ended right now. If the previous round’s results are available when this command is used, an extra column will show who went first against whom and the game score unless “config no_show_last = 1” was specified If the next round pairings are available when this command is used, an extra column will show each player’s next opponent. You should use this command when all the scores are in for a round, and print its report. Files are created as with pairings.

You can show standings from earlier rounds using the “RoundRATings round division” command. Entering “rrat 3 c” will give you the standings as of round 3 for division C.

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.

The now deprecated “STandings division” command does what the “RATings” command does, but without the ratings estimates, and is kept largely for use at nonrated events. Entering “st c” will give you the current standings for Division C. Files are created as with pairings.

If you used the “classes” configuration command, then the class to which each player belongs will be shown in standings and ratings reports.

If you are using the team” extension field in your “.t” file, you can use the “TeamStandings division” command to list team standings.

The “tourney.pl” program can be used to produce detailed tournament reports which combine standings, estimated NSA ratings and scores of all games. In Unix, enter “tourney.pl a.t > a.txt” or “tourney.pl -d 10 a.t > a.txt” (to split-rate after 10) to create a file called “a.txt” containing a report based on the data in “a.t”.

Ratings Data Submission

tsh creates ratings data files in three different formats, depending on which rating system you will be submitting your data to.

NSA Ratings

There are two ways to submit ratings data to the NSA. The easier way is to connect to the Internet, then enter the “SUBMIT” command. In order to use this command, you must correctly set the following configuration parameters: “director_name”, “event_date”, “event_name”, “rating_system”. “ratings_note”.

The NSA web site accepts tsh’s own “.t” files for ratings data submission, and Joe Edley prefers that one data file be submitted per tournament rather than one data file per division. There is a stopgap script that can be used at the shell prompt (in Unix) to create a combined submission file for a multidivisional tournament: “util/concat-t folder/*.t”, which creates a file called “all.t” from all “.t” files in the folder named “folder”. In the not too distant future, tsh will be better integrated with the NSA rating data submission system.

ABSP Ratings

The “ABSPgrid” command generates a ratings grid for submission to the ABSP. The grid is a text file which is displayed on the screen and saved to a file.

AUPAIR Ratings

The “AUPAIR” command generates a “.TOU” file in the format used by the “AUPAIR.EXE” program. The file is not displayed on the screen. “AUPAIR.EXE” is used by Bob Jackman and his International SOWPODS Rating System, and by many countries in southeast Asia.

Prizes and Statistics

The experimental “PRiZes” command generates a table listing all the prizes that you will be awarding, with the current leading candidate for each. It’s designated experimental for two reasons. First, it only supports so far those prizes that I have awarded at my own tournaments since I created the command, but I’m willing to add any other prizes on request. Second, the configuration command needed to specify the prizes is currently really awkward, and I’m loath to inflict it on users before the graphical user interface is fully developed. If you want to see an example of the output, make sure you have a division called "A" and enter the command “prz”. If you’d like to use it, let me know and I’ll send you the appropriate configuration information.

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. Files are created as with pairings. This command is typically used to compute "best result day n" prizes.

The “HighWin count division”, “HighLoss count division”, “LowWin count division” and “LowLoss count division” commands list players who have excelled in each of those categories. For example, “hw 20 a” lists the top twenty game scores in division A, the rounds in which they took place, the losing score and the names of the players involved.

The “AVErages division” commands lists average scores for all players in the given division. For example, “ave d” lists average scores for all players in division D.

The “TOTalScore division” commands lists total scores for all players in the given division. For example, “ave d” lists average scores for all players in division D.

The “STATisticS” commands lists summary statistics for each division in the tournament. For example, “stats” lists stats like the minimum, mean, median and maximum rating in each division, the percentage of time the higher-rated or starting player won, etc. Suggestions for additional statistics are very welcome.

There is a command for computing the NSA’s “Tuff Luck” prize based on the lowest total of six losing spreads: “tuff 6 a” lists the “Tuff Luck” standings for Division A. The opposite of this command is the “luckySTIFF” command, which lists players based on the sum of their closest winning spreads: “stiff 3 b” lists those players in Division B who have won three games by the smallest combined spread.

If you run a U.S.-style rotisserie pool, you can use the rotofile configuration option to specify the location of a text file giving the structure of that pool, then use the “ROTO” command to display current standings. Each team is represented by a list of names, followed by a blank line. The team owner’s name is preceded by the word “owner” and a space, each team member’s name is preceded by the word “player” and a space.

If you run a U.K.-style rotisserie pool, you can use the spitfile configuration option to specify the location of a text file giving the structure of that pool, then use the “SPITroast” command to display current standings. Each line in the text file consists of all the player numbers in the division in the order in which a team owner expects them to finish, a semicolon, the team owner's name, a semicolon, and the team name. Team names must be unique.

TheUPSETs” command lists the top twenty ratings upsets: games in which a significant ratings underdog managed to win.

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 NSA 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, or to replace a lost scorecard at a player’s request.

You may wish to recheck your data entry in the middle of each round. To facilitate your doing so, the “CheckRoundScores round division” will list what has been entered for each game. Entering “crs 3 h” will list scores for Round 3 in Division H. A file called “H-scores-003.html” will be created, which can be printed and given to a checker to work offline with the result slips.

You can show a scorecard using the “ShowscoreCard division player” command. Entering “sc j 5” will give you the scorecard for player J5. A file called “J-scorecard.html” will be created, which can be printed and given to a player who has lost their original scorecard. Scorecards are also displayed whenever you use the “EditScores” command. When a score has been added to a scorecard within the last two hours, the age of that modification in minutes is shown at the top of the card. This is to help determine whether an absent player may be away taking a break from a game that ran unusually late.

You can generate an HTML file containing all scorecards for a division with the “ShowDivisionScoreCards division” command. Entering “sdsc a” will create a file called “A-scorecard.html” containing the scorecards for all players, which can be printed and given to players at the beginning of the tournament. This is particularly useful when most or all of the pairings are predetermined, as for example in a round robin schedule. Depending on the length of your tournament, you may need to edit the CSS stylesheet to make the scorecards fit nicely on each page.

You can show a wallchart using the “showWallChart division” command. Entering “wc g” will give you the wall chart for division G. Typing a round number before the division name will start the wall chart at that round, in case your wall chart would otherwise be too wide to print nicely. Files are created as with pairings; the HTML version includes much more information than can fit into the text or screen versions.