Tournament Broadcast Guide - Part 1: DGT LiveChess Cloud

Welcome to Part 1 of our Tournament Broadcast Guide for organizers, administrators, and live game operators. Here, we’ll discuss how you can use DGT LiveChess Cloud to share game data with us so we can broadcast your tournament on our Events page. 

Using DGT LiveChess Cloud is the easiest and most reliable way to send us data. If you can’t use it for some reason, we’ll discuss an alternative in Part 2 of this guide.

Overview

To broadcast live games on Chess.com, you must provide us with a continuous data stream. You can do so using DGT e-boards or tablets/smartphones and their associated software.

Here’s a summary of this process:

• The equipment records all events on the boards and clocks
• The software translates these events into chess moves and records them in a specific data format
• The data is uploaded online for Chess.com to read and display it

DGT LiveChess Cloud

We strongly recommend you use DGT LiveChess Cloud to share chess game data, as Chess.com operates seamlessly with DGT LiveChess Cloud. This gives your audience the best viewing experience possible. 

Here are the main advantages of using this method:

• It’s extremely easy to set up, and you never have to bother with it again!
• It’s the fastest and most reliable data relay method currently available
• It ensures very smooth and responsive data flow to Chess.com
• If you also have a video live stream covering the event, it ensures consistency between the video and the chessboard
• It displays events (for example, a threefold repetition) taking place on the boards in real time (other methods cause delays)

To use DGT LiveChess, you’ll need DGT e-boards and version 2 of DGT LiveChess. Once you have everything you need, follow the instructions below:

After setting up your tournament in DGT LiveChess, go to the Output tab and click on the arrow at the bottom-right corner. Select “Export to LiveChess Cloud.”

You’ll see a new entry in the Output list above “LiveChess Cloud export,” and a “visit” link on the right. Click on “visit.”

A web page will open in your browser, containing some text and a public link to your tournament. All you need to do is provide us with this public link. Please send it to us via email. 

As you can see, setting up and sharing a LiveChess Cloud export is extremely simple. It stays active without needing restarts, reconfiguration, adjustments for future rounds, or additional software.

This method also ensures a smooth and consistent data flow from the DGT operator to the cloud and then to Chess.com. This is particularly relevant in fast time controls like rapid and blitz, where it’s common to observe freezes and delays in move relays, clock times being out of sync, etc. These issues will generally not occur when you’re using LiveChess Cloud.
 
Pro Tip: Keep in mind that the LiveChess Cloud relay is always active as long as you’re connected to the internet! Anything you record inside LiveChess and this specific tournament will be relayed to Chess.com and others and displayed online accordingly. If you wish to perform any testing, you should set up a separate “test” tournament in LiveChess, using the same boards, and do all the testing you need there. Alternatively, make sure that any boards being tested are not recording!

Pro Tip: LiveChess Cloud export links are generated automatically by the software and tied to the specific device where it was installed. Therefore, installing DGT LiveChess on another computer with the same output is tricky.

If you need to change the computer operating the DGT boards, you can create a new LiveChess Cloud export on the new computer, send us the link, and notify us of the change. We’ll do our best to update your tournament’s setup accordingly.

If you still have access to the previous computer used when making the switch, you can copy the entire tournament setup inside DGT LiveChess and move it to the new computer. This is ideal since it preserves every configuration and will save you effort.

To perform this transfer method, follow the instructions below:

On Windows:

1. In File Explorer, go to C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\DGT LiveChess. Note that “AppData” is a hidden folder, and you’ll need to enable visibility for hidden files and folders in the File Explorer settings
   
   1. Alternatively, in the address bar of File Explorer, type the following: “%appdata%/dgt livechess” and press enter; this shortcut will take you to the exact same place
2. Copy the entire “data” subfolder to an external location 
3. On the new computer, paste the folder into the exact same location
4. Agree to any system messages about merging and overwriting files and folders

On macOS:

1. In Finder, go to ~/Library/Application Support/DGT LiveChess/
2. Copy the “tournament” subfolder to an external location
3. Paste it into the exact same location on the new computer
4. Agree to any system messages about merging and overwriting files and folders

Restart the DGT LiveChess on the new computer, and the tournament will be set up and fully configured!

In the next part of this guide (coming soon), we’ll cover how to broadcast chess games without DGT LiveChess Cloud. Stay tuned!

• Introduction 
• Part 1: DGT LiveChess Cloud (you are here)
• Part 2: PGN Files
• Part 3: Uploading and Syncing PGN Files Using FTP
• Part 4: Round Data & Numbering
• Part 5: Event & Player Data
• Part 6: Chess Results & Swiss Manager