MacMahon tournament/pairing software - News, Questions ...

[ChristophGerlach]

My MacMahon tournament/pairing software is around since 1994 being the first ever computer program producing quality pairings for the MacMahon/McMahon tournament system which is very popular in Go tournaments.

In 2011 I released a new 3.0 version which was a complete rewrite in Java, while the older versions (up to 2.50) have been written in C++ and were only available on Windows (up to Windows 2000; other operating systems and newer Windows required a virtual PC with an older Windows on it).

I am pleased to announce the availability of MacMahon 3.5 (release on 2016-03-03):

• Requires Java 8.
• New "Query participants by name" dialog to find players easily.
• New popup menus on the walllist and the pairings tabs for more intuitive user interface.
• Export walllist and pairings with a fixed/monospace format for easy pasting to monospace destinations like this forum.
• New "Free Participants" sidebar on the pairings tab to easily create forced pairings.
• ... and many more, see the changelog.

License didn't change which means it's free to use my program at tournaments of any kind and anywhere in the world.

Details and Download from my website:
http://www.cgerlach.de/go/macmahon.html

[ChristophGerlach]

New version MacMahon 3.6:

Changelog:

- Minor design tweaks in make pairing dialog.
- Some entry fields (rating, print settings, ...) have been too small to enter values unless the dialog window was resized.
- Tournament.xmlVersion: 7 -> 8
- New "Edit unwanted pairings" dialog allows to define unwanted or forbidden pairings. Unwanted pairings are avoided but still possible if there are no reasonable alternatives.
- New export statistics to txt-file.
- Load of old tur-files now also import unwanted pairings.

Download:
http://www.cgerlach.de/go/macmahon.html

[jdl]

I don't run tournaments, but if this helps make them smoother then thank you for creating it.

[tiger314]

Hi,

firstly, many thanks for the software. Just about every (not hand-paired) tournament I have ever attended was paired using your program. In the new version, I really like the statistics (no more counting n-point players by hand), the search box for players and the two types of unwanted pairings.

I would like to ask about the program's behaviour in a particular situation. If I create a "swiss tournament" with ratings, upper MM bar at 0 and the pairing settings set to use a top group for all players, it often makes a fold pairing (by rating) for the first round. But sometimes, it switches the pairing around a little if neighbouring player's strength is similar. I was wondering about the reason for not doing a fold pairing every time and the threshold for the behaviour.

Thanks again for the program and for any answer
tiger314

[ChristophGerlach]

A new version 3.8 of my tournament/pairing Software MacMahon was released on 2018-02-22.

Download from: http://www.cgerlach.de/go/macmahon.html

This version now fully supports both Java 8 and Java 9.

Changelog:

[Bugfix] MacMahon did not start with Java 9, issue #1: caused by incompatible Java API; MacMahon now uses an API available in Java 8 and Java 9.

[Bugfix] MacMahon did not start with Java 9, issue #2: loading MacMahon logo was causing a runtime exception; MacMahon now uses an API available in Java 8 and Java 9.

[Change] Online connection to EGD is now enabled by default (but will only call EGD if "Search EGD by name" is used in edit participant dialog).

[Misc] Java 9 deprecated some older Java 8 API; some of these calls have been replaced by a new API.

[Change] Updated "About MacMahon" to reflect it's 2018 already.

[Feature] Added default club {"de", "Heppenheim (Bergstraße)", "HP"}.

[Feature] In printed pairings a timestamp showing last update to the pairing of the current round will now be printed as last row. (This will allow tournament directors to see if the printout is up to date or not.)

[Feature] The last updated timestamp of a pairing is also shown (read only) in round menu.

[Feature] In printed walllists a timestamp (of printing) will now be printed as last row. (This will allow tournament directors to see if the printout is up to date or not.)

[Change] File format version for TournamentRound changed from 1 to 2.

[Decorative] Edit participant and edit pairing dialogs now have a little space between controls and the border of the dialogs.

[Javaness2]

Not a very interesting question, but regarding "Playing levels 35 Kyu - 8 Dan and 1 Pro - 10 Pro supported"
It is a good restriction, but can we say that it is absolutely the best choice of restriction?

In Europe:
About 4 years after Fan Hui depassed the 8 dan limit in the FFG rating system, the rank of 8 dan appeared beside his name in the EGF rating list (Paris Meijin 2007). Before that I believe that the EGF didn't like to allow anything above 7 dan. 8 dan was considered only a honourary rank, rather like 10 pro, and professional players were expected to translate their rank to 7 dan. I've never been certain if 8 dan should really be allowed.

In USA:
Well there you can have amateur 9 dans playing: for example http://agagd.usgo.org/tournaments/cots20171121/

Should the amateur level be extended to 9 dan to expand the market across the Atlantic? Or perhaps is it feasible to consider having no restrictions?

[ChristophGerlach]

If there is a request to support 9 Dan Amateur in my program, I have no objections to this and will add this in the next version. Thanks for your input.

My approach is to allow tournament directors to decide what they like and what not. Being less restrictive fits well into this.