The pile at the end of the weekend
Every organiser knows the state of things on Sunday evening: two hundred sheets of paper, the results already published, and the games — the thing players actually want — locked in handwriting that nobody has time to transcribe.
So the games are usually not published at all, or only the top boards are, typed up by a volunteer over the following fortnight. The rest go in a box.
What the rules actually require
Under the FIDE Laws of Chess, each player records their own moves, both players sign the scoresheet at the end, and the signed sheet belongs to the organiser. That paper is the record: if a result is disputed, the signed scoresheet is what the arbiter rules on.
Digitising does not change any of that. Keep the paper for as long as your federation or your own regulations say. What a digital archive adds is everything that comes after: publishing, finding, and reading a game two years later without going through the box.
A workflow that fits a real event
Scan between rounds, not after the event. The pile only feels impossible because it arrives all at once. Twenty sheets after each round is fifteen minutes; two hundred on Sunday night is a chore nobody volunteers for.
Photograph both sides in one go. A double-sided sheet can be uploaded as two images in a single scan — the moves are merged in order and it counts as one scan, not two.
Fill in the tags while the event is in front of you. Event name, site, date, round, both players, result. It takes seconds during the tournament and is genuinely hard to reconstruct later. These become the PGN's seven-tag roster, which is what makes the archive searchable.
Check the flagged moves, not every move. Recognition validates each move against the position, so misreadings that produce illegal moves are highlighted. Those are what you review.
Export one PGN per round. A single file with many games is valid PGN — games are separated by a blank line — and it is the easiest thing to hand to a website or a database.
What to do with the archive
Publish it. A PGN file per round, linked from the results page, is the single most appreciated thing an organiser can produce. Players will replay their own games; some will find their opponent's other games.
Load it into a Lichess Study. Import a multi-game PGN and each game becomes a chapter — a shareable, replayable event archive with no hosting on your part. See our guide to importing PGN into Lichess.
Keep it for the club's history. Twenty years of a club championship, as text files that will still open in 2050. Paper in a cupboard does not have that property.
Practical notes
- Photograph on a dark table: white sheets on a dark surface give the cleanest edges.
- Do the sheets in board order and keep them in order afterwards — matching a mis-scanned game back to its paper is much easier when the pile is sorted.
- Junior events produce the hardest handwriting and the most grateful parents. Budget more checking time and scan them anyway.
- Credits do not expire, so buying capacity before a big event and using it over the following weeks works fine.
Start with one round
Take round one, scan it, and see how long it really takes before committing your weekend to a plan. New accounts get 10 free credits, which covers five games — enough to time yourself honestly.