No. The Tournament Director runs only on Windows.

Purchasing a license entitles the buyer to the current version of the software, and any future versions of the software that are within the same major version.

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.

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:
3. Load the saved tournament
4. Go to the Players Tab
5. 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
6. Press the Merge button
7. On the Merge Player dialog, select the player "Bobby" and press the OK button
8. Press the OK button on the Edit Game Player dialog
9. 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".

If you are running tournaments with many players (hundreds of players), or your database becomes very large (hundreds or thousands of players), you might see a warning dialog similar to the following:

A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive. Do you want to abort the script?

This warning appears because the Tournament Director is performing a lot of computation, but Internet Explorer (the host program of the Tournament Director) mistakenly thinks the Tournament Director has entered an infinite loop from which it will not return. Always press NO if you receive this dialog, so that the Tournament Director will continue with the current operation.

Because the Tournament Director runs in a virtual machine inside of Internet Explorer, it is subject to Internet Explorer's control. This warning dialog is actually a proactive move by Internet Explorer to prevent a poorly-written script from entering an infinite loop. To detect this type of behavior, Internet Explorer simply counts the number of instructions that are executed for a code section, and if a pre-defined threshold is reached, it allows the user to terminate the script. Unfortunately, this threshold can easily be reached when a computationally intensive task is performed. This warning dialog is therefore a "false-positive", and can safely be ignored.

You may also see this warning if you leave a modal dialog open for an extended amount of time. Again, this is an innocuous warning and can be ignored. (A modal dialog is a dialog which assumes focus of the application, and focus cannot return to the main application window until the dialog is closed. A "confirm dialog", a dialog which asks you a yes or no question, is an example of a modal dialog. You cannot perform any other functions with the Tournament Director while a confirm dialog is open until you answer "Yes" or "No" to the dialog.)

You will need 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.

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.

There are several tokens that will display the tables and/or seating. Make sure you are using the correct token.

<currenttables>
Displays the number of tables and the current number of players at each table.

<tables>
Displays what the optimally balanced table layout would be, based on the number of players currently in the tournament, and tables of the same size. It is not based on the tables you have configured in the Tables Tab of the Settings window.

<seatingchart>
Displays a diagram of the tables, in a format similar to the Seating Chart Screen.

In versions of the Tournament Director prior to 2.0, the <tables> token was the only available token for displaying your table layout and current seating. This token did not necessarily reflect the actual layout of your tables. Because the Tournament Director only allowed tables of the same size, and mandated table moves, it generally did reflect this. However, if you did not use the Tournament Director's track seating feature, this token only reflected what it thought the table layout should be.

In most cases, if you would like the display the table layout in the same manner as earlier versions of the Tournament Director, you'll want to change the <tables> token to <currenttables> in the layouts you use.

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 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)
• 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
• If you are using The Tournament Director version 3, you can right-click this line and select Explorer folder. If you are using version 2, you'll need to open Windows Explorer (you can do this by pressing Windows+E) and navigate manually
• 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.

Sometimes. The software requires that licenses be initially, and periodically, validated online. However, once this has occurred 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.

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

Yes. If you choose to use Google Wallet to place your order, a Google account is required at the time of this writing.

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.