The Tournament Director is compatible with Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11.

Not at this time. The Tournament Director currently runs only on Windows.

Your order has been received and will be processed as soon as possible. Most licenses are delivered the same day, usually within a few hours. This is not an automated system, however, and sometimes it may take longer to process your order. If necessary, delivery can sometimes be expedited. If you are in need of a faster delivery, email sales@thetournamentdirector.net. It is not always possible to expedite an order. Please only request if absolutely necessary.

Make sure to check any Spam or Bulk email folders you might have. Your email system may have incorrectly identified the email containing the license as spam.

Although delivery usually occurs within a few hours, please allow up to 24 hours for delivery. If you have not received your license within 24 hours, you should email support@thetournamentdirector.net.

24 hours?! Really? Yes, but this is only in the most extreme cases. The vast majority of orders are processed pretty quickly. And you're always free to email support@thetournamentdirector.net any time you like to check on the status of an order.

If you email support@thetournamentdirector.net and do not receive a response to your email within 24 hours, then it is likely there is a problem with email delivery to the email address you have provided. In other words, I have most likely attempted to respond to your email, but the email I send is being returned as undeliverable. In this case, since I have no way to contact you, you should visit the forums, create an account, and send a private message to the user Corey Cooper (from the forums, click the Members List link at the bottom of the page, find the user Corey Cooper and click on it, then click the Send personal message link under Actions on the left). This will allow us to communicate and work out the email problem.

PERSONAL licenses may be installed on up to 3 PCs, as long as each PC is owned by The Tournament Director license owner, and the license is not used to run more than a single tournament at any time. For example, if you own two PCs, you may install your personal license on each PC, and you may run the software on both PCs at the same time, but you may not run a tournament on each PC at the same time. For that you would need a unique license for each PC.

COMMERCIAL licenses may be installed on a single PC only. Individual, unique commercial licenses are necessary for each PC on which The Tournament Director will be installed.

If you are in doubt as to your particular situation, please email sales@thetournamentdirector.net.

PERSONAL license holders are entitled to use the latest version of the software that is available at the time the personal license is purchased, as well as any future versions of the software that are within the same major version. See below for details.

COMMERCIAL license holders are entitled to the latest available version of the software at any time.

The Tournament Director software version has 3 components: the major version, the minor version, and the patch level. Version 2.0 of the software has a major version of 2, a minor version of 0, and a patch level of 0 (the patch level is omitted when 0). Therefore, the purchaser of a license for version 2.0 would be entitled to use versions 2.1, 2.1.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc. An increase in major version may (or may not) incur an upgrade fee, should such a version ever become available.

The patch level is typically increased for a release that contains only fixes for outstanding bugs.
The minor version is typically increased for a release that contains feature enhancements.
The major version is typically increased for a release that contains significant new functionality.

The author reserves the right to increment the software version at any time for any reason.

First, your data is safe. Updates to the software will never delete any of your saved tournament files, custom templates that you have created, audio files, images files, your player database, etc. Never.

Data Stores are a new feature added to The Tournament Director in version 2.5.6. Prior to this version, The Tournament Director stored all of its data in the folder in which the software is installed (typically "C:\Program Files\The Tournament Director 2"). This is considered a bad practice, and therefore, starting with version 2.5.6, The Tournament Director stores its data outside of the install folder.

See the Data Stores section of the included user manual for full information on the Data Stores feature.

When you upgrade the software from version 2.5.4 or earlier, it may appear that your player database and saved tournament files, etc, have disappeared. This is because the software is now utilizing the Data Store feature, and is simply looking in a different location on your computer's hard drive for the data.

To "recover" your data, select the link below appropriate for the version of Windows you are using and follow the directions on the page.

Windows XP

Windows Vista or Windows 7

Press X to bust players out from the Game Window. You can also bust players out from the Controls tab of the Settings window. See the Hotkeys tab section of the user manual for choosing your own hotkeys.

Press V to rebuy, press B to add-on from the Game Window. You can also perform rebuys and add-ons from the Controls tab of the Settings window. See the Hotkeys Tab section of the user manual for choosing your own hotkeys.

The number of players that may enter into your tournaments may be limited by your license. See the license information email that was sent to you for details.

Theoretically, there is no limit to the number of players that can enter your tournament. Realistically, the number of players that can be handled depends on your computer. It is recommended that you run a mock tournament beforehand to assess your computer's capabilities.

Theoretically, there is no limit to the number of players that the database can hold. Realistically, the number of players that can be handled depends on your computer.

Simply place an HTML image reference to the logo in one of the cells. The Insert Image button on the Cell Properties dialog makes this easy. See the Placing Images on the Screen section of the user manual for more information.

To undo a player's bust out, press S from the Game Window. You can also undo bust-outs from the Controls tab of the Settings window. See the Hotkeys Tab section of the user manual for choosing your own hotkeys.

If you have since busted other players out, your rankings will no longer be accurate. You can fix this by using the Adjust Rankings dialog, which you can open by pressing the Adjust Rankings button on the Players tab.

On the Players tab, double-click the player who was busted out. In the Tournament History pane, find the bust out in which the hitman was incorrectly selected. Double-click the bust out. On the Edit Player Bust-Out dialog, select the proper hitman. The list of players that you can select as hitman is limited to the players who were still in the tournament at the time of the bust-out.

On the Tables tab, press the Show Last Balance button to display the last table balancing suggestion that you confirmed.

Moving players manually is simple. On the Tables tab, simply drag-and-drop players from seat to seat or the Unseated Players pane.

You can lock players in their seats to prevent them from being moved when tables are balanced. On the Tables tab, right-click on a seated player and select Lock <player name> in seat. When tables are balanced, locked players will not be chosen for movement unless there is no other choice (for example, if all players in your tournament are locked, or if the table with the locked player is being collapsed).

You can inform The Tournament Director where the dealer button is located on each table so that it can make better decisions about moving players. On the Tables tab, right-click on a seat and select Place Dealer button. Keeping The Tournament Director informed about dealers buttons can be tedious. The best method is to wait until a table balancing suggestion is made by The Tournament Director, select Don't move anyone, go to Tables tab, place the dealer buttons, and then press the Suggest Movement button.

If you are using version 3.2 or later, you can press the Set Dealer Buttons on the Player Movement dialog, quickly set the dealer button locations and then press the OK button. The player movement will be recomputed using the dealer button placement and a new player movement suggestion will be displayed immediately (if necessary).

Simply enter the amount of money in the House contribution input on the Game tab.

Tokens must be all lowercase. Make sure you haven't entered any uppercase characters in the token name.

This restriction has been removed in version 3.0. Tokens may be any mix of upper- and lowercase letters. Attributes of tokens must still be entirely lowercase.

Yes. You can place buttons on your screen for just about any action that you might need to perform during a running tournament, such as buying players in, busting players out, skipping ahead to the next round, rebuying, pausing and un-pausing the clock, saving the tournament, etc. You can place as many buttons as you like, where ever on your layout you wish, and can even change their look and feel.

The <tdbutton> token is used to accomplish this. See the Layout Tab section of the user manual for information on using tokens in your layout.

Unfortunately, the player's information is lost, as the database is saved immediately. So, you'll have to add the player back manually and re-enter any information for the player.

If this player hasn't participated in any tournaments, then this is all you will need to do. However, if this player has participated in any tournaments, you should follow these steps in re-adding the player to your database:

1. Load a previously saved tournament in which this player participated (the player just needs to be listed on the Players tab; it does not matter whether or not the player ever actually bought-in to the tournament)
2. Go to the Players tab
3. Double-click the player. On the Edit Game Player dialog just under the player's name should be a note that the player is not in the player database
4. Press the Add To DB button to add the player to the database

Each player in your player database has an internal unique identifier. By adding the player from an existing tournament, you are re-adding the player to your database using the same unique identifier that the player had before he/she was deleted from the database. This will ensure the player added to the database will "match" the same player in any other saved tournament files.

Let's assume you've added player Bobby to your player database with the nickname "Bob". Later, you mistakenly believe player Bobby has not been added to your database, so you add him with the nickname "Bobby". Now you have two players in your player database, "Bob" and "Bobby", which refer to the same person. This will be a problem if you intend to collect accurate statistics on this player.

If either database player "Bob" or "Bobby" has not played in any tournament, then you can simply delete that database player. However, if both have played in tournaments, then you still have references to two different players in your saved tournaments, and statistics for this player will not be accurate (they will be split among the two database players).

Currently, there is no automatic method of merging two database players.

To manually merge a database player, follow these steps:

1. Assuming our above example, we'll merge players "Bob" and "Bobby" (more specifically, we'll merge the player "Bob" into the player "Bobby"). First, delete the database player "Bob"
2. For each of your saved tournaments in which this player participated, do the following:
   1. Load the saved tournament
   2. Go to the Players tab
   3. Double-click the player "Bob". On the Edit Game Player dialog just under the player's name should be a note that the player is not in the player database
   4. Press the Merge button
   5. On the Merge Player dialog, select the player "Bobby" and press the OK button
   6. Press the OK button on the Edit Game Player dialog
   7. Go back to the Game tab and save the tournament

This will change all references in your tournaments from the player "Bob" to the player "Bobby".

One way to correct this is to adjust the screen sizes in order to make them fit within your physical screen size. See the Adjusting the Screen Size section of the user manual for more information.

Another way to correct this is to use the Layout Scaling feature. This feature can scale a layout designed for a larger screen size down to the actual screen size. See the Optimal Size and Scaling section of the user manual for more information.

If you are using an included layout, such as the built-in layout (BlueAndGreen.tlo), you will notice the screens change automatically. This is a feature, and is intended to allow your players to see the various informational screens provided by the layout. You can be prevent this behavior in two ways:

1. Lock the screen when the screen you wish to see is displayed. You can lock the screen by pressing Ctrl+L. Use Ctrl+L to unlock the screen after it has been locked.
2. Remove the additional screens from the layout's screen sets. On the Layout tab, press the Screen Sets button. On the Screen Sets dialog, delete all of the screen sets except for the Default screen set. Then, delete each screen from the Default screen set that you do not wish to be displayed.

Uncheck the preference Use whole numbers for chip values on the Preferences tab.

Images can be placed in a layout using the HTML <img> element. For example:

<img src="C:\pictures\money.gif" border="0">

A broken image usually occurs because the path to the image, specified with the src attribute, is invalid. Check that this path is correct first.

When using the Insert Image button on the Cell dialog, the path to the image will be inserted automatically, and will be relative if the image file is located within The Tournament Director's installation folder, and it will be absolute if it is located elsewhere. Both relative and absolute paths are acceptable.

However, you should save your image files in the Data Store folder and use the <datastore> token to reference images. Doing this ensures your layout is portable. For example:

<img src="<datastore>\images\money.gif" border="0">

In a shootout style tournament, players are not moved and tables are not combined until only one player remains at each table.

Generally, The Tournament Director will attempt to move players to achieve balanced tables as players bust out of the tournament. However, table movements are not required, so there are a two ways to handle this.

First, just ignore the player movement suggestions (press Don't move anyone each time the dialog presents itself).

Second, turn off the player movement suggestions. On the Tables tab, press the Settings button. On the Tables Settings dialog, uncheck Automatically suggest player movements.

You can always initiate player movement suggestion at any time by pressing Ctrl+T from the Game Window. You can also press the Suggest Movement button on the Tables tab or the Controls tab. When only one player remains at every table, initiate a player movement suggestion and The Tournament Director will move your players for you.

Use the max function. For example, if your formula is:

n - r + 1 - nr

Change it to:

max(0, n - r + 1 - nr)

See the General Options section of the user manual for more information on formula functions.

To "move" the software to a new computer, follow these steps:

On the old computer:

• Start The Tournament Director application
• In the Settings window, select the Database tab
• Press the Backup button
• Check each item on the Backup Files dialog (Database, Saves folder, Templates folder, Preferences, etc)
• Press OK
• Enter a name for the backup file, or accept the supplied name. Please make a note of where the backup file is being saved! You will need to locate it in order to move it to your new computer.
• Close The Tournament Director application

Copy the backup file from the old computer to the new computer. There are a number of ways to do this. Using a flash drive (also known as a USB drive or USB stick or thumb drive) is probably the easiest method. A service like Dropbox can be used. You can email the file to yourself. The file can even be "burned" to a CD, if you still have a CD drive.

Make a note of where you have saved the backup file on the new computer.

On the new computer:

• Download The Tournament Director software and install it. Download page.
• Start The Tournament Director application
• In the Settings window, select the Database tab
• Press the Restore button
• Press the Browse... button
• Browse to the folder in which you saved the backup file and select the backup file
• Press OK

To create a backup of your Tournament Director data, follow these steps:

• In the Settings window, select the Database tab
• Press the Backup button
• Check each item on the Backup Files dialog (Database, Saves folder, Templates folder, Preferences; optionally select Images folder, Sounds folder, and Receipts folder)
• Press OK
• Enter a name for the backup file, or accept the supplied name. A ZIP file will be created containing your data files.

The software itself does not have the ability to delete your player database. You can delete each player individually, and delete each League and Season to clear out your database. If you would like to delete your database all at once, follow these steps:

• Start The Tournament Director software
• Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V (hold down the Ctrl, Alt, and Shift keys and then press the V key). This will open the System Information dialog
• Look for the Repo Folder line
• Right-click this line and select Explorer folder
• In the Repo Folder, you should see a folder named db. Rename this folder. It doesn't matter what you name it, as long as you change its name from db
• Exit The Tournament Director software
• Start The Tournament Director software again; when it restarts, it will look for the db folder, and upon not finding it will create a new, empty database

Note: the reason you want to rename the db folder instead of deleting it is in case you later change your mind and want your original database back.

At the bottom of the download page you will find a link for downloading version 2. Or click here to go straight to the version 2 download page.

Please note that version 2 is no longer supported.

Sometimes. When registering the software with your license the first time, an internet connection will be required. After that the software may be used offline, and the software will only require an internet connection if it has been unable to validate the license for some extended period of time (typically 30 to 120 days, depending on the license).

If you will be using the software to run a tournament somewhere that you will not have internet access and want to ensure the software will not prompt you to validate your license, simply start up The Tournament Director software while connected to the internet and the software should silently validate the license. Then, you should be good to go offline for at least several weeks. If you want to be absolutely certain, right-click anywhere within the software and select About The Tournament Director. This opens the About dialog. While the About dialog is open, press Ctrl+V. This should open a dialog with explicit information on validation of your license.

No, a Paypal account is not required. PayPal accepts all major credit cards and does not require you to create a PayPal account to place an order using your credit card.

It's really simple: if you are generating revenue, directly or indirectly, through the use of The Tournament Director software, you need a commercial license. If you are using The Tournament Director software for your personal enjoyment, you don't need a commercial license.

An example of using the software to directly generate revenue: you are hosting a tournament that costs $50 to enter, $45 of which goes into the pot and $5 you pocket (or use to rent the venue, or use to rent or buy supplies for the tournament).

An example of using the software to indirectly generate revenue: you are hosting a free tournament at a bar or pub. (In this example, the bar or pub would indirectly profit through the tournament bringing potential customers into the bar.)

(Revenue does not refer to money paid out from the pot of a tournament; revenue refers to money "raked" from a tournament, or a "vig", or other fees collected from participants, establishment, or other related entities.)

Using a non-commercial license when a commercial license is required is a violation of the licensing terms of the software, and a violation of US and international copyright law, and is subject to license termination without refund, and possible fines and penalties.

If you have questions concerning licensing, please write to sales@thetournamentdirector.net.

Version 2 licenses are perpetual and do not expire. They may be used for as long you like.

Version 3 personal licenses are perpetual and do not expire. They may be used for as long as you like.

Version 3 commercial licenses are are typically valid for a one year period. They must be renewed when they expire in order to continue using The Tournament Director software.

Microsoft released several Windows Updates that had a negative effects on the performance of the Tournament Director application. Version 3.7 of the Tournament Director fixes these issues. Please upgrade.

The Display Management tool (on the Preferences tab) was removed in version 3.7 since it was no longer necessary.

In previous versions the application was unable to switch between window mode and full-screen mode without restarting. If you wanted the Game Window to be full-screen, the application had to launch this way and the Game Window could not be changed back to window mode until you restarted the application. When in full-screen mode there's no way for you to move the Game window, since there is no title bar to click on and drag with the mouse. Thus the Display Management tool was created to help move the Game window when in full-screen mode.

Starting in version 3.7, you can switch the Game window between window mode and full-screen mode at any time, by pressing F11 or by right-clicking in the Game window and selecting "Full screen". To move the Game window to the appropriate location or display, just press F11 to exit full-screen mode, drag the window to the appropriate location, and then press F11 again to return to full-screen mode.

You can also add hotkeys to move the Game window to the appropriate display. On the Hotkeys tab, you can bind any key (a function key like F12 is recommended) to move the game window to a specific display.