Getting started as an organizer

This guide walks you through managing a chess tournament from start to finish with Chesstide: creating your organization, setting up a tournament, handling registrations, running rounds, and exporting the FIDE report.

To organize tournaments you need an account: Sign In (or Sign Up) from the top-right of any page before you start.

Create your organization

Creating an organization is not required to run a tournament, but it is recommended: it groups your events under one public page and is needed for team registrations. Go to My Organizations in the account menu, then click Create Organization. Fill in the name, type (club, school, federation, or other) and choose whether it's public or private. You'll automatically become an administrator of the organization.

Tip: You can add other administrators to your organization later. They will also be able to manage your tournaments.

Create a tournament

From the home page, click Create Tournament and select the Manage mode for full control over your event. Fill in the essential details: tournament name, dates, number of rounds, pairing system (Swiss or Round Robin), and time control. Link it to your organization to allow team registrations. Once created, your tournament appears in the public listing and players can start registering.

Tip: You can always update your tournament settings later from the cockpit Configuration tab. Set a registration deadline if you want registrations to close automatically before the event.

Manage registrations and check in players

As players register, their entries appear in the cockpit Players tab. Review and confirm registrations, then check players in on tournament day. You can check in players individually or use the bulk Check-in All action. You can also add late entries directly from the Players tab.

Important: Players must be checked in to be included in pairings. Make sure all present players are checked in before generating the first round.

Generate pairings

Go to the cockpit Pairings tab and click Generate Pairings for the current round. The system uses the FIDE Dutch pairing algorithm (bbpPairings) to produce fair matchups. You can repeat this process for each round after completing the previous one.

Each round follows a lifecycle:

• Draft — pairings are generated but not yet visible to players.
• Published — pairings are visible to players. You can enter results.
• Complete — all results are entered and the round is finalized. You can now generate the next round.

Enter results

Still in the Pairings tab, enter results for each game using the dropdown selectors. You can also use keyboard shortcuts for faster entry: press 1 for home win, 2 for draw, 3 for away win, and Space to clear. Use arrow keys to navigate between games. Once all results are in, click Complete Round to finalize.

Tip: You can view a summary of all results in the Results tab, which shows a cross-table for the entire tournament.

Export a FIDE report

If your tournament is FIDE-rated, go to the Configuration tab first and set up your FIDE event codes with the corresponding round ranges. Then go to the Standings tab, select the event code and the players to include, preview the report, and download the TRF file to submit to FIDE. All players are selected by default; deselect anyone who should not be reported (for example, a player who never completed their affiliation).

Tip: Players without a FIDE ID are included in the report with a blank ID field: your federation should assign them an ID before forwarding the file to FIDE. For these players, FIDE requires a complete date of birth — Chesstide flags it with a badge in the export screen.

Where to go next

Each topic above has a dedicated article in the Organizer & Arbiter Manual with more depth: waiting lists, team tournaments, forbidden pairings, tie-break configuration, prizes, and more. Browse the full list from the Help Center home page.