Sending to FIDE: the rating report

A rated tournament is reported to FIDE in a TRF file (Tournament Report File). OpenPairings builds the file; it does not upload it. You (or the rating officer of your federation) send the file to FIDE's rating server in the way your federation uses. The program's job is to build a correct file, to make sure that no game is reported twice, and to keep a record of what has been sent.

Before the report#

Settings, FIDE:

• tick This tournament is FIDE-homologated (rated/reportable) when the event is to be rated; the FIDE tournament ID is then required;
• FIDE tournament ID: the ID of the tournament; if different parts of the event have different IDs, enter Per-round FIDE-ID ranges (advanced until a row exists; from round, to round, ID);
• FIDE event code.

Settings, Tournament, Options and Dates: the federation, the venue, the rate of play and the dates. Settings, Officials & norms: the chief arbiter and the deputies with their FIDE IDs. The program reminds you of the recommended fields on the Players and Pairings pages; none of them blocks pairing.

The Export page#

Settings, Export, section TRF (FIDE rating report). A table lists every paired round with its boards and its state:

Tick the rounds you want and press:

• Send… - builds the file for the rating office, downloads it to your computer and marks every game in it as sent, in one step. The file is named after the type of the tournament, the FIDE tournament ID, the name and the rounds. It holds only the records of the report, no comments.
• Download a copy (not for rating) and All rounds (TRF copy, not for rating) - copies for your own use or another program. A copy is the file that Send hands out, not a different file: the same records, byte for byte, with ### comment lines at the top that say it is a copy (and, for a round already sent, which receipt it belongs to) and the notes the program keeps about the event: leaving FIDE mode, imports, manual pairings, byes, corrections, prohibitions, and for each postponed game written as not played a line Postponed @ Round 3: 5-12 (starting ranks, White first). The records are Send's records. The file name ends COPY-NOT-FOR-RATING.
• Transfer to another program (ITDX) - a third file with another job: handing a running tournament to another pairing program (In-Tournament Data Exchange, FIDE's TEC manual). It is a partial file, so it does write ? for a game without a result: a postponed game, and a board paired and not yet played (named in an Unplayed @ Round r line). Record 162 gives X, what a ? is worth: a draw for postponed games, 0 for boards paired and not played, and a draw, with those boards' players carrying it in their points, when both are in the file. It has the national rating records, all the notes of the copy and a block of ### OP lines with the settings, rules and round events that TRF cannot say; that block is only for the reader and is not read back. The file name ends ITDX-NOT-FOR-RATING and a line inside says it is not a rating report. In FIDE mode it is made even while a postponed game is open: it is partial by definition. Importing it here gives the same pairings, colours and scores.

Rules that follow from this:

• Two arbiters pressing Send… at the same moment cannot both get a file: the database keeps one record per game sent and refuses the second.
• A copy that has been handed off to another machine, and an archived tournament, send nothing.
• A tournament imported from a backup, a TRF or a SWAR file may already have been reported. Such a copy sends nothing until you tick This copy reports: allow sending on the Export page, to confirm that this copy is the one that reports.
• The program keeps a receipt of every send (a code, the games, who sent it and when). If a result, a name or a FIDE ID is changed after a round was sent, the round and the Export page show Changed since sent, with each change, so that you can correct it with the rating office. Nothing is ever sent again on its own.

The contents of the file#

The file is TRF26. Besides the players' rows (the starting rank, name, FIDE ID, rating, title, federation, birth date, points, rank and the result of every round with the opponent and colour) it carries the header records and the tournament-type records listed in Import and export. For each round the result codes are 1, =, 0 for played games, + and - for forfeits, U for the pairing-allocated bye, H for a half-point bye, F for a full-point bye, Z for a zero-point bye or an absence. A postponed game whose result is unknown is not in the file as a game.

Neither the file for the rating office nor its copy contains ?: a postponed game that is still open when its round is sent is written as not played for both players. This way the game is neither rated twice nor lost; see below. Only the ITDX file, which is no report, writes ?.

Postponed games#

In FIDE mode no file that holds the round of a postponed game without a result is sent or copied. A file of only the rounds before it is made as usual, such as the rating inbox's copy of a round sent earlier. The Export page lists the open games: enter each result, or press Not played in this event. That asks twice and takes the tournament out of FIDE mode; the files, copies included, then write it as not played (0000 - Z).

Long events. A tournament with the tick Tournament lasts more than 30 days is reported one of two ways, chosen under that tick (Settings, Tournament). Whichever it is, a report carries as many rounds as the FIDE registration it is sent against: a registration of 9 rounds takes a file of 9 rounds.

• Monthly reports: each month's rounds are reported on their own (B.02 Art. 4.1). In FIDE mode a postponed game without a result blocks only the file of its own month; played later, it goes in the postponed-games file. The Export page reminds you beside Send… that each monthly file must match a registration of that many rounds.
• One report at the end (as registered with FIDE): the tournament is registered once, in its last month, and every round goes in one file after its last day. FIDE's rating server does not mind games dated long before the registration. A postponed game played before that report is simply a result in it; the postponed-games file is only for a game played after the final report was sent. Send… with fewer rounds ticked than the tournament has says so before the download, and lets you go ahead: the registration may have shrunk with the event.

Prohibitions changed during the event#

A forbidden pairing or a pairing rule added, changed or removed after round 1 was paired is listed in the TRF copies, one line per round it first affects. In FIDE mode the first such change is also the round the tournament left it (FIDE mode). The TRF file for the rating office holds records only and carries no such line; the copy and the ITDX file do.

A game played after its round was sent is reported as a separate tournament with its own name and its own FIDE tournament ID, and FIDE rates month by month. Settings, Export, section Postponed games lists every postponed game with its state, the date it was played and the file it is in:

• Enter the date played of each game (set when it is first played; changing it later is a separate step that is written to the audit trail).
• Enter the tournament name of the postponed-games file (by default the event's name plus postponed games) and its FIDE tournament ID.
• Make this file builds the file for one rating period (month); Send… downloads it and marks its games as sent - and, as with a round, you send the downloaded file to your rating officer yourself. A page note says which month and that the file must be sent before the end of that month. A game that has been sent in its round with its real result is never offered again.

Checks#

• Before the file leaves the program, every result code and every pair of opponents is validated; an error stops the download with a message.
• Importing the file back into OpenPairings (or any other program) is the best check that it says what you think it says (Import and export).
• Receipt (JSON) on the Export page downloads the receipt of one sent file: its code and fingerprint, round or period, who sent it and when, the games as sent, and the file's SHA-256 and name. The receipt keeps the exact file too; the rating inbox downloads and checks that one.

The rating period inbox#

For the rating officer, who is an administrator of the installation: Rating inbox, in the Account menu on every page and at the top of the Admin page. Only an administrator sees those links; on a tournament's Export page an administrator also has a small Open the rating inbox link under the Send button. It shows, by FIDE rating period, what was sent for rating, what is still missing, which postponed games are still open, and which rating list each file is for. A round counts for the month of its date.

Which tournaments are listed. A tournament from which at least one file was sent, and a tournament marked FIDE-rated (Settings, FIDE). Nothing else: a club evening that is not marked FIDE-homologated and never sent anything does not appear. Not sent yet: round N has finished and has no receipt is said only of a tournament marked FIDE-homologated; one that is not, but sent a round once, is listed with that receipt and the label not marked FIDE-rated, and nothing is expected of its other rounds. The FIDE-rated tick is the only "this tournament is rated" setting there is; there is none for a national rating.

Sent means the arbiter pressed Send… and the file was downloaded to their computer. Whether they then sent it on to you, the page cannot know: its Download file is that same file, in case it never arrived.

The rating list. FIDE publishes a list on the first day of every month, and the inbox names a list by that date. The file should be uploaded in time for the list after the month the tournament ended in, or for the list one month later when it ended with five days or fewer left in its month (B.02 Art. 9.1); a postponed-games file counts from the date of its last game. A tournament that lasts more than 30 days reports every month (Art. 4.1), so its rounds of a month count from the last of them, not from the end of the tournament: the October rounds of a championship that runs until April are for the list of 1 November. One set to report once at the end is counted from its last day like a short tournament, and no month of it is overdue (see Postponed games for the two ways). Each tournament says where it stands:

• For the rating list of 1 …: to be uploaded by … - in time.
• In amber, Missed the rating list of … (for a monthly report: Overdue) - that list is gone; the line names the next list it can still make and the day after which it is not rated at all.
• In red, Will not be rated - it missed the third list after the tournament's last day.

Nothing is refused: a late file can still be sent, and the inbox shows the list it will make. Each sent file can be downloaded (Download file) and replayed against the checker (Check), which pairs every round up to it again and says whether the boards and standings match. The receipt keeps the exact file that was sent (up to 2 MB). A file sent before the receipts kept their files has none: the inbox offers a copy rebuilt from the tournament as it is now, labelled rebuilt copy, which is not necessarily what was sent.

Norm reports#

The IT3 tournament report and the arbiter and player norm forms are separate Excel files; see Categories and norms.