Run a chess tournament without the headache.
Chess Caddy handles registration, pairings, results, and live standings for Swiss, round-robin, knockout, and Bughouse events — all from one laptop, even with no internet. You run the room; it does the math.
No sign-up. Works offline. Your data stays in your browser.
Everything you need
Built for the person running the room
No spreadsheets, no pairing cards, no second-guessing the math. Just the four things that actually make a club tournament work.
Four tournament formats
Swiss, round robin, single-elimination knockout, and Bughouse (teams of two) — each with automatic pairings, no rematches, and fair byes.
Works fully offline
Run the whole event with no internet. Everything saves to your browser, so a dropped connection never stops play.
Live standings & tiebreaks
Enter a result and the leaderboard updates instantly — with Buchholz tiebreaks and medals for the top three.
Print & share
Post pairings on the wall or hand out standings. Export the whole tournament as a file to back up or reopen later.
Easy player management
Add players in seconds, edit on the fly, and withdraw or re-enter anyone without breaking the standings.
Nothing to install
Open it in any browser and start. No account, no setup, no cost — and your player data never leaves your device.
How it works
From sign-in sheet to final standings in three steps
If you can run a club night, you can run Chess Caddy.
Set up & add players
Name the tournament, pick the number of rounds, and type in your players with optional ratings.
Pair the round, enter results
Tap to generate pairings and board assignments, then click each result as games finish.
Watch the standings settle
The leaderboard updates live with tiebreaks. Repeat each round, then crown your champion.
Club pages
A home for your club, and a rating that carries over
Sharing a results link is free and always will be. A club page adds an address of your own — chesscaddy.com/club/your-club — with a rating ladder that updates after every event, your whole archive of tournaments, and a page for each member.
A club ladder
Every member has one rating that moves after each event, so a season of club nights adds up instead of restarting. New players are marked provisional until the number means something.
Every event you have run
Standings, pairings and cross-tables for each tournament, kept at one address you can put on a poster or a school newsletter.
A page for every player
Lifetime record, rating history and results against every opponent. This is the part members come back to look at.
You choose who can see it
Private, unlisted, or public and indexed by search engines. Initials instead of full names for junior events, which is the sensible default when the players are children.
One price for clubs and schools alike. No per-player fees, no commission on entry fees.
The tournament app stays free, forever. Running events, pairings, standings, printing and sharing a public results link cost nothing and never will. The subscription pays for the part that lives on a server — and if you cancel, your app and your saved tournaments carry on exactly as before. How a club ladder works.
Guides & how-tos
How to run the tournament, not just the software
Ten guides for the person organising the event — pairings, byes, tiebreaks, rounds, formats, Chess 960 and club ladders. Every rules claim is checked against the current FIDE and US Chess texts.
How to run a Swiss tournament
The full director’s guide: pairings, colours, byes, forfeits and the running order for the night.
How many rounds should you run?
The maths, a table up to 200 players, and a calculator that tells you whether it fits in the hours you have.
Buchholz tiebreak explained
Buchholz, Cut-1, Median-1 and Sonneborn-Berger with worked examples — plus how byes are counted.
Round robin tournaments
The circle method, Berger tables, quads, and what to do when somebody withdraws halfway through.
Knockout brackets
Bracket size, byes and seeding — and what to do when a knockout game ends in a draw.
Free tournament software compared
An honest comparison, published by the people who make one of the tools. Verified prices.
Chess 960 generator & guide
Roll a legal Fischer Random position — and the castling rule that catches everyone out.
Bughouse tournaments
Four players, two boards, two clocks and no world governing body. How to run one anyway.
School chess club tournaments
You do not need to be an arbiter. Formats, timetables, clocks and the child who loses in round one.
How a club ladder works
Ratings that carry from one club night to the next: the Elo maths, provisional players and privacy.
Browse all guides · Quick answers instead? The FAQ covers 38 of the questions organisers ask most.
Ready to run your next tournament?
It's free and instant in your browser — or grab the iPhone & iPad app.