what tournament software do you prefer?

[noodle]

my club is going to hold the first usfa tournament we've held in the last ~8 years. needless to say, i dunno what i'm doing, nobody else at the club does, and we're kind of winging it.

anyway, this question is prompted by othe other thread on tournament software. what software do you prefer? is there a particular reason why, possibly compared with the other software? etc. etc..

[CvilleFencer]

Fencing Time just plain works, is a simple windows like interface and is the most reliable and adaptable that I have come across. I would really recommend it.

[dunastor]

Most tournaments I go to use Engarde, but I myself never really get into organizing tournaments and using these programs...

[SJCFU#2]

You may want to consider what size of tournament you are looking at (i.e. how large of turnout you are expecting and how much information you will have in advance) and your level of technology (at the very least someone will have to provide a computer and possibly a printer).

I once did a simple, largely subjective comparison of X-SEED and ENGARD using results from one of our local tournaments. These results are solely based on my own experience - results may differ depending on the number of entries, the degree of complexity and the operator's experience.

X-SEED produced nice print-outs for pool sheets and D.E.'s once everything was set up, but it required a large amount of advanced preparation. Each club had to be entered into a database, then each fencer had to be entered into a seperate database (one of the entries was "club", which had to be picked from the first database), then each event had to be populated (a third database) using the list of fencers contained in the second database. One advantage was that once a fencer was entered into the database a copy of that database could be used for other tournaments. This could be helpful if the division maintains a database of all members that could be used to populate tournaments. It also would probably work well with preregistered events since the fencer database could be populated in advance rather than trying to do everything when people are signing in that morning.

ENGARD seemed easier to use, however several things had to be tweeked since the program didn't recognize the USFA rating system (not surprising since it is intended for FIE competitions). Basically I assigned everyone a certain number of points to simulate their rating.

Neither program seemed to deal properly with teammates inside a pool (more often then not they did not fence one another first) and in the end you would still have to go back and manually enter individual scores for each bout (one more chance for error).

In the end we decided that for our purposes (small, low-level tournaments - generally less than 30 entries with nothing higher than a "C") it was easier to simply have each fencer fill out an index card with their name, club and rating, then sort the card to make up the pools and DE tableau. We also still use pencils to keep score and stopwatches to keep time so index cards are probably the appropriate level of technology.

Whichever program you decide to use be sure to run through a mock tournament in advance - the morning of the tournament is no time to be learning how the program works.

In addition you may also want to do a search of this forum for software. There was thread last year entitled "Hosting a Tournament" that included a considerable amount of discussion regarding the pros and cons of different tournament software packages.

[Craig]

You should add Enguard to that list.

[R. Exnicios]

maybe also add.


we don't use one yet, they are too complex


for small tournaments that is. For our big tournament we hire people.


food for thought


Cheers

[grotto]

I would love to have a truly platform independent portable fencing database / tournament application. It always seems the "donated" windoze laptop is about to self destruct, and the only people who have a machine available in a pinch (and are not scared wittless at the thought of installing a new application) are the Mac users at the club. Hell I have run xseed in virtual PC to get a a tournament started.

[DJ Apostrophe]

I use Engarde all the time... it works... and works well, it has a bit of a learning curve, but adam blake has done wonders to make using the program easier and more efficient. Ask anyone at Pomme de Terre how well it went this year. Pools were posted 15 minutes after the close of registration for most events. Engarde does the wonderful thing of making backups of the competition very frequently, so in case all hell breaks loose and the file explodes, you can step back one step and keep on trucking. I haven't seen this in any other program yet. It is really the clincher for me. I had point control eat tournaments on me before I started using Engarde, and the only thing you could do was start over from scratch. Engarde DOES handle team mates in the same pool fine, as long as it is set up correctly.

-w
p.s. see this link: http://www.prisedefer.com/Engarde/ for more info

[Zilverzmurfen]

I'm only familiar with En Garde which is what we use for our annual WE WC.

[downunder]

engarde here

[peet]

Disclaimer: Dan the Fencing Time developer is a friend of mine, and I support his program in part because it integrates with mine (askfred.net)

That being said, I like FT because:

• It looks just like the paper way people are used to, so they can learn to use it easily
• It prints great looking pool & DE sheets.
• Has teammate bout order option.
• It keeps a permanent database of fencers & clubs (saves data entry)
• It imports preregistration and exports results to/from an online system (gee, what system might that be?? )
• Calculates event classifications & earned ratings using current USFA rules.
• Lots of other cool little features (e.g. it counts 10 minute rests for you as soon as you enter a DE )

I'm not saying that these are the most important features of FT, or even that FT necessarily has a monopoly on all these features, but they're just the cool things i remember off the top of my head.

Now if only it ran on my mac! One of these days i'm gonna convince Dan to let me port it....

cheers, and good luck with your events, whatever your choice!

[shameless plug]
Also, if you'd like to take preregistration and list results online, check out FRED.
[/shameless plug]

-p

[neevel]

I've used all four (X-Seed, FT, PC, and EnGarde), and I've ultimately come to prefer Fencing Time. X-Seed and EnGarde are powerful and flexible, but more complex to use, especially for smaller tournaments. Point Control is simple to use, but not as flexible as I might like. Right now, Fencing Time hits the right balance for me between flexibility and ease-of-use.

-Dave

[dekko]

All seem to have problems at one time or another and I have seen all four go down from time to time, no I don't have specifics.

I use a spreadsheet/workbook I set up sometime ago, noodle I have emailed it to you. Unless Exel shuts down it works and always works. Big feature, there is no programming what so ever in it, other than formulas. Big drawback, it doesn't run an event for you, it helps you run the event. If you don't know how an event runs and have never run one on cards or without a computer, this spreadsheet will not work for you.

Enjoy!