This version was created 2010-02-03 by G. Vincent Castellano, and last revised 2012-10-21. May be distributed freely without alteration. Contact the author with any comments or corrections.
This document is compatible with tsh
installation version 3.320 and later (but not too much
later).
Tsh requires fluency with command-line tools. In the dark ages before everything was done with a GUI and a mouse, command-line interfaces were the norm. You type a command, hit 'enter', and get a response back. If you're overly intimidated by this prospect you should stop now.
If you are running Windows, download and install the most recent version of ActiveState Perl installer from http://www.activestate.com/activeperl/downloads .
Visit http://www.poslarchive.com/math/software/tsh/doc/install.html for instructions on downloading tsh itself. You can skip the section on “Perl”--the previous step takes care of that.
If you are returning to use a tsh installation you had established previously, enter the UPDATE command to download the current version. You will of course need a working Internet connection to do this.
Make a clean tournament sub-directory
with a descriptive name: I recommend the date concatenated with a
location, e.g., 2006-07-15-CCCC
.
If you use Seth Lipkin’s www.cross-tables.com website to host your pretournament player roster, do this: |
If not, do this: |
In that subdirectory, create a configuration file called
division a a.t division b b.t division c c.t config max_rounds = 7 config cross_tables_id = 12345 where the 7 should be replaced with the number of rounds that players will play in your tournament, and the 12345 should be replaced with the number that you see at the end of the website address of your player roster. |
In that subdirectory, create a configuration file called
division a a.t division b b.t division c c.t config max_rounds = 7where the 7 should be replaced with the number of rounds that players will play in your tournament. |
The first three lines tell TSH where to find the data for each
division. Here the division names are 'a', 'b', 'c', and their
data will be found respectively in The contents of each division file (before pairings are set) are lines like: Vince Castellano 1717 The above line would indicate that there is a player named Vince Castellano whose pre-tournament rating is 1717. |
|
The first time you run tsh, enter the command |
Use a text editor (Notebook, Notepad, Vim, TextEdit, but not Word) to edit the division (.t) and config.tsh files.
|
Next, you may wish to enhance these files with the pairing information: who plays whom. There are many ways to tell TSH want kind of pairings you want (manual, automatic, default), and many different kinds of pairing systems that TSH can compute (round robin, king-of-the-hill, Swiss, Chew, etc.). If you have no idea, and don't have an experienced director you can ask, then TSH will do its best to choose a sensible default. For example, if you tell it that you have 6 players who want to play 5 rounds, it will set up a round robin.
When pairings have been added, the division data lines will look like this.
Vince Castellano 1717 11 9 7 5 3 ;
where the rating is followed by a list of space-delimited opponent numbers. You can enter or edit the opponent numbers manually, but the chances are that TSH already supports any pairing system that you want to use; and if not, you can request a new pairing system on a few weeks' notice. Note that when editing a division data file, you must make sure that TSH is not running, or else your changes may be ignored or deleted.
Run tsh.pl in the TSH directory, with the event sub-directory as the argument, using one of the following commands:
DOS or Windows |
Unix or OS/X |
perl tsh.pl 2006-07-15-CCCC |
./tsh.pl 2006-07-15-CCCC |
If you get a tsh>
prompt then no errors were found in the config file or divisions.
Capital letters in the full names of commands are the short forms of
the commands; and commands are case-insensitive. E.g., the command
R
ound
R
obin
is abbreviated rr
.
Text shown exactly as it is to be entered within tsh is shown in fixed-width.
Generic text intended to be replaced with specific values within tsh is shown in fixed-width italic. (E.g., r for a particular round number, or d for a particular division name.)
Within this document, the short form of a command is shown as the bolded letters of the full command name.
This document is intended to be merely a road map for using tsh
.
If you are completely new to tsh
you
should plan on spending several hours with the program over a period
of at least two weeks to become sufficiently acquainted.
(If you are conscientious enough to take this advice to heart, you will also what to review John Chew's Checklist For Organizing Scrabble® Tournaments.)
After setting up the divisions, you can use the following commands to simulate an event and validate your expectations of how the pairings and reporting functions work:
DRYrun:
dry
r d
Simulates an entire tournament for a division using random data.
RANDomscores:
rand
d
Give each player in division d a random score, to help simulate a tournament’s pairing system.
RESETEVERYTHING:
reseteverything
Delete scores and pairings data—rewinds the event to the beginning. Use only to undo the effect of the above two commands, after the tournament actually starts this command should not be used.
Further information on the above and all tsh
commands is available at
http://www.poslarchive.com/math/software/tsh/doc/commands.html,
from whence the above descriptions were derived.
Start adding scores for a division with the Addscore command which takes the round and division as arguments.
For example, at the tsh> prompt, enter:
tsh> a 1 a ^ ^ ^ | | +-- For Division A | +---- For Round 1 +------ Add scores
You will see a prompt like:
[A1]:pn1 ps1 pn2 ps2 (12 scores left)?
Meaning for Div A round 1, enter (separated by spaces)
Player1Num Player1Score Player2Num Player2Score
Depending on your configuration options, you may also be required to enter the game spread, or you might not be required to enter the scores.
followed by Enter. Player 1 is the player who went first, player 2 went second. TSH will read scores until you hit Enter without entering anything.
Example:
tsh> a 1 a [A1]:pn1 ps1 pn2 ps2 (12 scores left)? 12 384 2 467 #12 Ronnie Thomas 384 (0.0 -83) - #2 Florence Spanfelner 467 (1.0 +83). [A1]:pn1 ps1 pn2 ps2 (10 scores left)? 3 453 9 435 #3 Joanne Cohen 453 (1.0 +18) - #9 George Spanfelner 435 (0.0 -18). [A1]:pn1 ps1 pn2 ps2 (8 scores left)? 10 298 4 312 #10 Rose Noel 298 (0.0 -14) - #4 Dave Engelhardt 312 (1.0 +14). [A1]:pn1 ps1 pn2 ps2 (6 scores left)? 5 352 7 407 #5 Diana Grosman 352 (0.0 -55) - #7 Carole Denton 407 (1.0 +55). [A1]:pn1 ps1 pn2 ps2 (4 scores left)? 6 439 8 370 #6 Dan Milton 439 (1.0 +69) - #8 Brian Bailey 370 (0.0 -69). [A1]:pn1 ps1 pn2 ps2 (2 scores left)? Updating Division A. updating a.t
There was a bye this round due to a late player. See below.
The file "a.t" is updated with scores. You can view this file to see how it is updated.
If you do not know a player’s
number, you can enter either m
to see
all missing players remaining in this round, or enter an unambiguous
part of their name (e.g. Joanne
instead
of their number).
You can change divisions by entering just the name of the division on its own line.
Now we will deal with the first-round bye (between player 1 and
player 11), where Player 11 arrived late and forfeited her game. Use
the F
orfeit
LOSS
command:
tsh> floss 11 1 Vince Castellano (A1) used to be paired to Lorraine Burton (A11). [iprwasp] Updating a.t
Now that you have entered round 1 data, you may wish to check
standings against the wall chart. Do this with the W
all
C
hart
command (follow "wc" with the division name):
tsh> wc a Division A Wallchart Player Rd 01 Vince Castellano 1.0 +50 Florence Spanfelner 1.0 +83 Joanne Cohen 1.0 +18 Dave Engelhardt 1.0 +14 Diana Grosman 0.0 -55 Dan Milton 1.0 +69 Carole Denton 1.0 +55 Brian Bailey 0.0 -69 George Spanfelner 0.0 -18 Rose Noel 0.0 -14 Lorraine Burton 0.0 -50 Ronnie Thomas 0.0 -83
Repeat for each round and each division.
Now before doing the final KOTH, check the wall chart. We have a discrepancy, with Carole Denton 4-1 +118, where the wall chart shows 3-2 -70. There is probably another player with a win count error, and the matchup between these two was done wrong. tsh shows George Spanfelner at 1-4 -105 and the wall chart has him 2-3 +84.
Use the ScoreCard command to show a contestant score card for Carole (Player 7). It shows that the scores for these players were swapped and will have to be re-entered.
Then use the EnterScore command to edit scores for Div A Player 7 Round 5:
tsh> es a 7 5 Player Scorecard: Carole Denton (A7) (1497) - Last score was entered 19 minutes ago. Rnd Brd Opp Rtng Opponent Name Won-Lost For Agn Sprd Cumul 1 5 1533 Diana Grosman 1.0- 0.0 407 352 +55 +55 2 11 1307 Lorraine Burton 2.0- 0.0 356 324 +32 +87 3 1 1717 Vince Castellano 2.0- 1.0 287 357 -70 +17 4 3 1618 Joanne Cohen 3.0- 1.0 335 328 +7 +24 5 9 1338 George Spanfelner 4.0- 1.0 423 329 +94 +118 6 2 1670 Florence Spanfelner
The tsh view of the contestant scorecard is printed, and then you are prompted. Enter the scores for that round, separated by a space, with the player's being edited first:
Carole Denton (A7) R5 [423 329 vs. George Spanfelner (A9)] (? for help) 329 423
The scorecard is reprinted. At this point is probably prudent to also print the opponent's scorecard.
smp
First-Last
Div
Example:
smp 1-3 a
ShowMultiplePairings for rounds 1-3 in division A. Produces output in HTML directory. Even if you only want to show pairings for a single round, you may like the formatting provided by this command.
Example:
smp 3 a
a
Round Div
Example:
a 3 a
Addscores for round 3 in division A. Enter data for one or more rounds in the form:
Player1Num Player1Score Player2Num
Player2Score
Hit Enter
with no data to return to the command prompt.
st
Div
Example:
st a
STandings for division A, to the extent data has been entered. Produces output in HTML directory. If possible, don't post standings until all the scores have been entered. The exception to this will be near the end of an event when you are waiting for out-of-contention players to turn in their slips.
wc
Div
Example:
wc a
WallChart for division A, to the extent data has been entered. Produces output in HTML directory. Most useful for finding errors in data entry relative to a player's scorecard. (The ScoreCard command is also useful for this.)
es
Div
Player Round
Example:
es a 17 3
EditScore for Player 17, division A, Round 3. You will then be prompted to enter this player's score and their opponent's score. Both players' records will then be updated.
missing
Round
Div
Example:
missing 3 a
Shows who you have to go chase for tally slips.
If you know that a player is going to be absent in future rounds,
then you should mark them as inactive for pairings until they return,
using the E
dit
S
cores
command. When the command shows you its prompt, enter either off
-50
to assign an inactive player a forfeit loss with -50
spread each round, or on
to reactivate a
returning player.
smp commands for init
util/mirror-ftp