Simultaneous exhibitions

A simultaneous exhibition (a simul) is an event where one or more strong players — the givers — each play many opponents at once. Chesstide runs a simul as a single-round tournament with its own Simul tab: you pick the giver(s), assign the field, enter results and publish, all in one place.

Creating a simul

Create a tournament you manage on Chesstide and, under the format options, set the Pairing System to Simultaneous exhibition. A simul is always individual and single-round, so the number-of-rounds field disappears — Chesstide fixes it to one round.

Tip: Everything else (name, dates, venue, registration) works like any other tournament. Add your players and check them in as usual on the Players tab before setting up the boards.

The Simul tab

Simuls replace the usual Pairings, Standings and Cross-table tabs with a single Simul tab. Open it to configure givers, assign participants, enter results and see the scores.

Choosing givers and assigning the field

The Givers & assignment panel lists every confirmed or checked-in player. Tick the Giver box for each simultaneous player (one or several), then pick how the remaining players (the field) are shared out with the Assignment buttons:

• By rating (snake) — orders the field by rating and deals it in a serpentine so every giver gets a field of similar size and similar average strength. Best default for multiple givers.
• Random — shuffles the field evenly across the givers.
• Manual — an Assigned giver dropdown appears next to each player so you can place them by hand.

Click Assign to build the boards. The giver plays White on every board. Each giver must face at least one player, and there must be at least one player besides the givers.

Important: Re-assigning replaces all the boards. Once any result has been entered the panel locks; use Erase results first if you really need to redraw.

Moving a player to another giver

After assigning, the Boards table shows a Giver dropdown on each board. Change it to move that player to a different giver — the board number and colours stay the same. A board can be moved until it has a result; once a result is entered, its dropdown locks.

Entering results

Each board has three result buttons, read from the giver's point of view:

The giver is White on every board, so 1 records a win for the giver. The buttons highlight the current result.

Scores and the participant list

The Giver scores cards summarise each giver as +wins =draws −losses, with their running score out of the number of boards and a percentage. Below, the Boards table lists every board with its giver, player and result — your at-a-glance record of the exhibition.

Publishing and completing

The Status badge and buttons drive the round, just like a normal tournament:

• Publish makes the boards and scores visible to the public (see below). Unpublish hides them again.
• Complete finalises the event — it needs every board to have a result, and because a simul is a single round, completing it also marks the whole tournament Completed.
• Reopen puts the round back into draft (and the tournament back to published) so you can fix a result.

What spectators see

Once you publish, a public Simul tab appears on the tournament page showing the giver scores and a read-only board list with each result. Nothing is visible until you publish.

How simuls differ from a normal tournament

Because a giver plays many games in one round, simuls don't fit the FIDE Swiss ranking model, so they are excluded from standings, the cross-table and TRF (rating-report) export — the Simul tab is the results view instead. PGN export still works: each board is exported as a normal game with the giver as White.

Note: In this version the giver always plays White. Per-board colour control may come in a later release.