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Getting Started / Getting Started: The WinTD Menus / US Chess Menu |
The US Chess menu includes operations for uploading and downloading information for use in US Chess rated tournaments.
US Chess Directory
Specifies the directory where your US Chess database files are located. WinTD will look for the US Chess files in this directory whenever you do an operation which requires them.
Download US Chess Database...
This downloads a complete new copy of the US Chess "Golden Database". See US Chess database for a description of this operation.
This installs a manually downloaded (and unzipped) Tab-Separated Values text file with the US Chess database. This is made available in case the automatic download in the Download US Chess Database... operation is no longer functioning.
Update from Database
For the players in a Player or Master Player window, this checks the US Chess database and uses that information to update the players' ratings and expiration dates for any player with a US Chess ID.
For the players in a Player or Master Player window with US Chess ID's, this will access the US Chess web site and update the expiration date for any players whose expiration date has changed. (The database on your computer will only have the players' membership information as of the time when the database was created, while the web site is generally almost fully up-to-date). This does not update ratings—the official ratings for the month are on the database.
Note that WinTD will need access to the internet for this, so (a) your computer must have a connection to the internet and (b) any firewall or similar software will need to be configured to allow WinTD to use the internet connection. While the new API is much quicker than the one used prior to 2026, there is a limit on how many accesses can be made so in a large tournament or master file, you should restrict yourself to updating players that have expired ID's.
If there is a player who has a "not a member" status, you will get an alert indicating a problem. This can be a duplicate ID, or if the player is shown as "active", they have only played in JTP events and thus have never needed to join.
For the players in a Player or Master Player window, this will scan your copy of the US Chess database, looking for US Chess ID numbers for any players who do not have a valid US Chess ID. ID's will only be copied to the player record if just a single close match is found (that is, if the player can fairly safely be uniquely identified). For cases where multiple possible matches are found, WinTD will not make any attempt to assign an ID number. This operation can take two to three seconds per player—only do this on a large file if you do not need to do anything else with WinTD for a significant period of time. If you include State codes for the players (you can use Edit>Change Common Info... to do large-scale changes), WinTD can limit the search to matching state codes, which greatly reduces the time required.
Make Membership Current
For the players selected in a Player window, this sets the expiration date as being one year from the current month. For example, if you do this operation in December 2021, the expiration date will be set to December 2022. This can be useful for quickly updating players who join US Chess or renew their memberships at the tournament. Players without a US Chess ID number will be assigned a "dummy" ID number, which should be replaced with the actual ID number when available.
Produces a report of the tournament results for submission to the US Chess.
Copyright © 2026 Thomas Doan