I think this suggestion is born out of the observation that there might not be enough interest in small towns to hold a tournament. That makes sense, but I still want it to be the case that there is a Chess team representing the municipality, not the county. Counties aren’t communities.
However, in rural areas it would make sense to allow consolidated tournaments for multiple municipalities, and there has to be some provision that if no one holds a tournament you can still pick a team for county play.
There’s a lot of fine print to be worked out on exactly how to determine who holds the “official” tournament, and who gets seated at a county tournament in the event that no one holds an official tournament at the municipality. If there’s no municipality tournament, but five people from that town want to play at county level, what happens?. That’s a pain in the neck, but it’s part and parcel of organizing something like this. Creating rules to handle that is work, but it’s not a show stopper.
I’ve also decided that every tournament should have an individual component. In addition to picking a municipal team winner at the county level, the top four placers move on as individuals to compete at regionals, and then to state. We have to buy two trophies now, but we can afford it.
You’ve sparked some interesting discussion. Many of us have had big dreams over the years, some of us have made them happen (at least in part). Oddly, USCF members seem to be more cynical about the role of chess in society than casual chess enthusiasts. In the course of handling the recent activity with NASA, I found that astronaut Greg Chamitoff didn’t include chess in his interests in his NASA bio, and asked him why not. It turns out that he had taken it out because he was not a tournament player; I made the case for him to put it in because tournament players are just a handful per thousand who play chess, and he did so.
I’m a big believer in the Margaret Meade quote about changing the world.
Silly question, but why do you feel the need to involve the city or county governments at all? Why does this have to be an “official” government sponsored event? I doubt if most state governments know or care that the state chess associations exist, so why would the city need to care about their city having a chess team? If the idea catches on, they might want to get involved, but waiting for them to take action to get started just seems like a bottleneck, not an aid.
Sometime yesterday, I decided that I agree with you, at least in part. My motivation for involving the city government was to make it more “official” in some sense and, more importantly, if someone “official” is behind it, they can open up libraries, community centers or other public buildings for your use. They can give you free advertising by including a notice in the town newsletter or web page.
One thing I’m struggling with is the difference between a small town and a large one. City government is completely different in a town of 5,000 and a town of 50,000.
In the larger towns, you don’t actually need their help, and in towns small or large, you shouldn’t have to depend on it.
In some sense, I want to do exactly the opposite. I want to present an opportunity to play Chess to people that aren’t “hooked” on the game. I would love to convince a large number of players that Chess tournaments are not just for “serious” players. Having a Chess tournament to pick the team to represent Coldwater, Michigan in the county championships might just do that.
I agree with you, though, in your general assessment.
As an aside, on a closely related topic, when I ran the tournament for my son’s Chess club a few years back, I made one change from the previous Organizer’s way of doing things. I added a section for parents. It was quite successful, with eight players from a town population of 5,000. There are people out there who will play, if you can just lower the barriers that keep them out.
Oh, I forgot to mention the radical part. I actually thought this up while contemplating how I could do a local version of this event:
You see, I’m not particularly devoted to Chess. I just like games, and Chess is the only “mind game” where I can find opponents. However, after some consideration, I decided that while I might be able to make this work for Chess, I certainly couldn’t also do it for Bridge, Checkers, Go, and Xiangqi. At least, not this year.
But if anyone else would like to try, I’ll play in the tournament.
I’ve set as my success criteria for the first year that 5% of the towns field a four player team. The median size of municipalities in Michigan is approximately 2,000. I read on a web page that 1/6 of the American population knows the rules of Chess, which means that median sized town has 333 potential players. If we can’t find a way to get 4 of those people to play, we’re doing something wrong.
My success criteria is that we manage to succeed at the above challenge one time in 20.
This is doable. It’s a lot of work, but it’s doable. Finding the right approach might be problematic, but there is one out there, somehow.
One other question. Keeping in mind that there would be no ratings or prizes. Pretend, for the sake of argument, that this could work. Five years out, most large towns have a tournament. Almost all counties have a tournament. In some small towns, there’s a tournament that consists of six to eight players playing G/15 games at a local library. Somewhere in a City Hall, there’s a trophy that says Michigan Municipal Team Chess Champion.
Is there anyone who does not think this would be a good thing?
I’m sure the answer to that is “yes”. There are always people who love to rain on others’ parades. If you insert the word “relevent” between "anyone and “who” then there’s a good chance the answer becomes “no”.
Certainly I expect a lot of people to say that the plan won’t work. They’re probably right after all, so I expect some of what I’ve gotten here along those lines. However, there’s another aspect of “raining on the parade” that I was really trying to get at with my question.
Suppose this did work. It would be the largest, in terms of numbers, tournament in the state. There would be no ratings and no prizes. The local events would not be run by certified TDs. In the small towns they would be run by teenagers trying to get merit badges. This would be the public face of tournament chess.
To my way of thinking, that would be awesome. I’m just not sure everyone agrees. I would need the active cooperation of a lot of “serious” players, i.e. us. I wonder if the typical serious player would wnt it to succeed.
I had the impression that bridge was more popular than chess, at least among adults. My parents played in a church bridge group. There was no church chess group; it would not have been social enough. Of course tournament bridge can be just as formal and aggressive as tournament chess, but there used to be an informal level where one would chat as well as play, where the players generally didn’t even know about tournament bridge. My parents were interested when I told them about tournament bridge (“duplicate”), but not tempted to participate because for them bridge was a social, rather than killer, event. They didn’t want to know who was best, but just to play with people from their church whom they liked already.
Maybe from that, I’ve taken a similar attitude to chess. I love the game and the somewhat cruel process it embodies, but even in my most active tournament playing years I didn’t especially like the structure of tournaments and ratings. They were just what I put up with to play with good players.
So I think this idea could work, maybe in conjunction with National Chess Day to give it a “government” excuse. And by all means publicize it in schools, especially in small towns. In my small town, for parents with kids in school, the school is the main focus in town, and the school sends home all sorts of flyers and emails for town events, mainly through the PTA.
Don’t stress the competitive aspects too much. Playing games on cardboard checkerboards (I shouldn’t call them that – they’re not regulation for checkers either) with no clock is fine for the lower boards, or all the boards, and adjudicate the games if they are going on too long. You don’t need a master, just someone who is better than the others, and if there are several, make them an adjudication committee. If there’s a scandal about adjudications – it could be a good thing to stir up interest in chess in the town as people try to learn what it’s all about and form an opinion about some disputed chess position.
Needless to say this whole event would be unrated. The important thing is the chess and not the rating or even the USCF membership. I might be willing to organize it in my town (my relations with the Harper Valley PTA are mixed), and I’d certainly be willing to direct it and adjudicate.
Exactly the sort of thing I was thinking.
One thing I don't know about, that could be the downfall of the plan, is just how deep the aversion to the concept of "tournament" or "competion" runs. For me, I'm not crazy about the ratings aspect, but a "tournament" just means a place where people show up to play, and don't have to decide whom to play or what time limit to associate. It gets rid of some of the awkwardness of a Chess club by setting forth specific agreements. However, I think some people absolutely refuse to participate in any competition where they actually have to get stuck with a score.
When will I do it? I’m not fully committed to it. It would be a lot of work. I have a vacation coming up soon, and if I decide to go ahead with it, as I am inclined to do, I’ll propose it to the state chapter when I get done with the vacation.
I bet the number of people who refuse to participate in a tournament because they don’t want to be “stuck” with a score is not nearly so large as the number of players who do appreciate the structure and process of a tournament.
For me personally, I would much prefer to invest such a large amount of time and energy in trying to expand a market which I know already exists-- the market of players who are serious enough about wanting to improve their game that they want to play in tournaments as a means to improve their game, who view their ratings as a measure of their progress and also to set goals for the future, and who want to enjoy themselves while doing so.
If you want more organized chess then be prepared to play, organize, and volunteer. That’s the bottom line. Don’t count on municipal governments to do the work for you.
If there are no clubs in your area then rent a list of local players from USCF, write out a bunch of post cards, look up players in the phone book and call them. Don’t ask if they’re interested in forming a club, TELL them YOU are starting one.
Initially hold meetings in your home. Then look for a free venue like a rescue squad, community center, or church hall.
Don’t bother with people who have never been USCF members. You’ll wind up with either a kindergarten or a bunch of players who don’t remember how the horsey moves. From my own experience I can tell you it isn’t worth it.
Maybe one in 100 schmos who tell you “I’m a pretty good player” can play at the USCF 600 level.
Bottom line: Play, Organize, Volunteer. If you sit on your rump and expect chess clubs to fall from the sky nothing will happen.
(Sorry for the double-post. I meant to post here, but I was logged out and lost my place)