USCF Database File

This topic provides comprehensive information about the USCF (United States Chess Federation) database file and how to use it effectively for tournament registration and player verification.

Database formats

When you first receive the database from the USCF it may come in any of several different forms, depending on whether you ordered the annual list, the ratings supplements, or the big “Golden Database”.

The annual list and the ratings supplements are in the same format, although the file names may be slightly different.

The Golden Database is in a different format.

Both these formats are supported in SwissSys, but you need to know which one you are dealing with.

USCF database conventions

Name formatting:

• Names are stored with the last name first
• Names like Mc-Donald are stored as MC DONALD
• In searches with SwissSys, a comma after the last name is optional
• You may mix capitals and lowercase
• The middle initial needs no period
• Only specify that part of the name you are sure of — if you know the player as “Bob Patzer”, but think he may be listed under Robert, just call up any match on “Patzer” and scroll through the list until you find the right Patzer.

Name format options:

If you don’t like the look of all uppercase that some databases use, you can select “Initial uppercase” as your forced name format in the Environment Options Dialog.

This will convert all the names of your players to a more readable format.

To have the player names automatically formatted this way, check the “Auto-correct name format” option. You will find this on the “Print and Other Options” tab of the Formatting Options dialog.

Making importation easier:

You can make importation more automatic by changing the way the Enter key behaves. Do this from the Registration dialog’s Tools menu.

Keeping your database current

From this point on, approximately every two months, all you need to do to keep your database current is get the latest USCF database, or the ratings supplements, which you can then import into your master database.

The whole thing just takes a minute or two, but it saves a lot of hassle in looking up ratings and ID numbers come registration time.

Even for small tournaments, using the USCF database is well worth it.