When you assign a player to a tournament, that player is marked as being active in the tournament, or "checked in."
You can use the Players-Check In and Players-Check Out operations, the "Check In" and "Check Out" toolbar icons, the "Active?" box in the Add/Edit a Player dialog, or the withdrawal boxes on the Game Results Dialog Box to change the player's status (see below for details).
When you pair a tournament round, players who are currently checked out will not be paired.
During the Registration Phase
There are a couple of ways to use this feature during the registration phase:
- If pre-registered players do not need to check in, start with them all checked in. (WinTD does this automatically anyway). Check out any withdrawals before the first round starts. Check out no-shows as soon as you know about them.
- If your players are pre-registered, but need to check in at the site, you can check out all of the players before the tournament starts, and then check them in as they arrive. Anyone who fails to check in will be excluded from first round pairings.
Later on, you check out players who need to leave the tournament for some reason. You can check them back in later if they return. They will get scores of zero for games missed unless you explicitly assign them byes.
However, if you know precisely which rounds will be missed, the simpler way to handle this is to Assign Byes in advance. This is particularly true if the player tells you well in advance that he will be missing the last round. Rather than leave a note to yourself that you need to withdraw him after round 4, simply give him a zero point bye for round 5 as soon as you know about it.
Keeping Track of Player Status
We find it very convenient to keep a Players Window available, formatted specifically to help with checking players in and out. This is especially true in tournaments with many sections. To do that, you can go to the Sections Window and select all the sections, and then either:
- click on the
button, or
- do Section-List Players-Combined Sections, switch to this new window, do Players-Change Layout..., and choose the "Check-In" style.
Either method will display a Players Window that shows the entire tournament roster in alphabetical order, and includes an "In/Out" field which shows the players' current status. You don't need to wander from one section roster to another.
When checking players in before the start of the tournament, you may find it handy to change the format of the Players Window to show "Inactive" players only. That way, as you check players in, they will disappear from the list, making it increasingly easy to locate later check-ins.
Checking Players In and Out
There are several ways to do this, as described below:
From a Players Window:
- Select the player or players you want to check in or out from a Players Window. See How To: Display a List of Players for help in creating such a window.
- To check the player(s) in, select the Players-Check In operation, or click on the
. Use Players-Check Out (or the 
icon) to check out the selected players.
From a Game Results Dialog:
- You can withdraw (check out) players from the Game Results Dialog Box while you are entering scores. When you give a player a forfeit loss, that dialog box will automatically set them as withdrawn.
From an Add/Edit a Player Dialog:
- You can check a player in or out, or simply view their current status, using the Add/Edit a Player dialog box. The Active? check box in the Tournament Info section of that dialog box will be on if the player is active (checked in), and off if the player is inactive (checked out). You can check the player in or out by changing the setting of this check box and clicking on "OK".