Manual tournaments

Manual tournaments give the tournament director full control: the director decides who plays whom and when. Unlike automatic club tournaments, pairings are not drawn and rounds are not started automatically — everything happens on the tournament page, which the director shapes with Markdown.

Status of a manual tournament

A manual tournament moves through exactly these four statuses, in this order, with no rollback:

Registration → Preparation → Running → Finished

Registration

Players sign up; the director maintains the tournament page. At least 3 participants must be registered before advancing to the next status.

Preparation

Registration is closed. The director can now create games on the tournament page. Games are initially hidden — they don't count and no one has to move yet.

Running

Games become visible to the players the moment the director clicks the start button on a game widget. Only then does the clock start. New games can still be added as needed.

Finished

The director declares either a participant or a club as the winner. The end date is set. Final state.

Only director and admin are allowed to advance the status.

Creating games

Games in a manual tournament are not created through the usual invitation flow. Instead, the director creates them straight from the tournament page via the Markdown editor.

How to do it:

  1. Status must be Preparation or Running.
  2. Open the Markdown editor on the tournament page (edit button as director).
  3. In the editor toolbar, click the </> button ("Insert element"). In the dialog that appears, choose "Create new game".
  4. Fill in the next dialog:
    • White and Black — picked from the tournament participants (must be different)
    • Starting position (FEN) — optional, only available for unrated tournaments; allows any starting position
    • Display — how the game is rendered on the page:
      • "Both player names and result"
      • "From White's perspective"
      • "From Black's perspective"
  5. Clicking "Create game" creates the game hidden and inserts a <game id="..." /> widget into the Markdown text.
  6. Save. The widget now shows the game state on the tournament page.
  7. Start the game: only when the director clicks the start button on the rendered game widget does the game become visible, the creation date get set, and the clock start. Until then it doesn't count.

Things to keep in mind:

  • Both players must be tournament participants (enforced server-side).
  • Time control and rated status are inherited from the tournament — not per game.
  • Custom FEN starting positions are only allowed in unrated tournaments.

Markdown on the tournament page

The tournament page is a full Markdown page. You can put tables, diagrams, game links, links to sub-pages and much more in there — the full syntax and all available widgets are documented in the Markdown guide.

Especially relevant for directors:

  • <game id="..." view="..." note="..." /> — game link with configurable display. See Markdown guide → "Games".
  • <diagram fen="..." /> — position diagrams for explanations. See Markdown guide → "Diagrams".
  • [[Sub-page]] — wiki-style link to other tournament sub-pages (e.g. one page per round).
  • <user id="..."/> or <user id="Name"/> — linked player name with profile tooltip.

Permissions

  • Director and admin can advance the status, create games, start hidden games, finish the tournament, and edit the tournament pages.
  • Participants see only the visible (started) games; hidden games don't appear in their game list.