Step 8 - Working with the Pairings

By now it’s 9:58, so after re-inspecting the pairings, get ready to print them out for everyone to see.

To make them more visible you can change either the pair chart “print magnification” or the font size as you did before. Click on the checkbox-shaped “Format” button at the top of the chart. Go again to the “Print and other options” page and change the value of the pair chart print magnification to 1.8 — almost double normal size — for easy viewing. Since high magnifications usually work best with the printer set to landscape printing mode, we may want to do that as well.

It is simple enough to do that manually by clicking the File | Print setup menu option and changing the page orientation to “landscape”.

But unless we want all our subsequent charts to be setup that way, it’s easier just to let SwissSys prompt us on a case-by-case basis whenever it thinks the switch might be a good idea. Before printing the pairings, inspect them with the Chart | Print preview command.

If your columns are too wide to fit on the page, SwissSys may ignore your magnification setting or reduce all the column sizes proportionately to give a printout that looks reasonable. The printouts may look OK, but follow along with these next adjustments in any case.

Sometimes, with the big printing fonts or wide columns, there isn’t room for everything as you have it set up.

It’s easy to make things fit better. First click the cancel buttons to return to the pair chart.

Next reduce the width of the name columns (there was a lot of wasted space there) by moving the mouse cursor to the top right border of white’s name column until you see the cursor change.

Then click the mouse and drag the column border to the left a little to reduce its size.

This automatically resizes both name columns. Try a print preview again.

If you reduced the column sizes enough you should now see the entire table on one neat page with a suitable magnification level.

If not, experiment a little with the columns until you get a page that looks good to you.

You can click the print icon in the preview screen to get a printout. When they are done, pull them out and post them with your usual fanfare.

It’s 10:00 and you are starting right on time.

Enter the Results

As results come in you can enter them one at a time, but experience proves that by entering them all at once when the round is over you can avoid silly mistakes. Mark on your printed pairings sheet some fictitious results: I won, of course, and my brother lost, as usual.

Paul Morphy went home complaining about the lighting, so he lost by forfeit and is not expected to return. Other than that, enter whatever results you like.

Take down the pairings sheet and return to the computer to enter the results there. If you are not already at the pair chart dialog, go there by clicking on the magnifying glass toolbar button.

Go down the list now, entering results one match-up at a time.

There are a couple of ways to enter results here, but it’s usually easiest to keep the cursor on the left side of the chart, typing the result code for that left-side player, either a “W”, “D”, or “L”.

This gives both players the numeric score that goes with their results.

Additional Entry Options

Use the pointer toolbar button (the arrow on the far left) to disable entry of results. Other buttons (and their corresponding keys) are available here too. Among these are “S” for “switch players”, “A” for “adjourn” and “U” for “update an adjourned game”, but you can practice with those later.

To mark Morphy’s game as a forfeit, first click the forfeit loss toolbar button (marked with the “F”), then click on his game. (Or select his game with the arrow keys and hit the “F” key.) Continue entering the results if you haven’t already finished. Click OK when done or hit Esc.

Before you leave this screen the program asks if you want to withdraw all players with forfeit losses, since a forfeit loss usually means a no-show. Answer yes. Round one is over. You are ready for Step 9 - Withdrawing and Tinkering.