I just noted that the CCA is bringing a tournament to Cleveland, Ohio, after a 30 year absence. What wonderful news…UNLESS you are a local TD (by local, I mean in the state of Ohio) running an annual tournament that same weekend just 3-4 hours away. Or perhaps a different TD running a strong and growing tournament just about a month later 2 hours away. Players are going to be forced to choose which tournament they will/can play in either for logistical or financial reasons. Why create that problem?
Could it POSSIBLY be that the CCA is trying to take advantage of the hard work our local TDs and affiliates have done to create popular tournaments? Could it be that CCA isn’t concerned with the health of the chess community, but rather the $$ they can suck away from local organizers and clubs?
Has anyone else seen this kind of thing happening in their states? (i.e. CCA moving in on local td/organizer territory)
Yes. The same thing happened in MA some years back when the Eastern Class Championships were created. Local organizers were severely impacted. CCA = Wal-Mart chess.
While I won’t comment on CCA’s intentions (I don’t know enough about that), I will say that we had a similar thing happen in Michigan last year. An organizer (not the CCA) planned and booked an event for a particular weekend, but did not list it right away. Then, a state championship event was planned, booked, and listed for the same weekend.
They were on opposite sides of the state, and so this only (hopefully) affected a few players, but it would have been easier to avoid the conflict if the first tournament had been listed as soon as it was booked.
As far as the local tournament just 3-4 hours away in Ohio goes, I can’t find any mention of it in the USCF TLA section, nor in the OhioChess.org website. It is perhaps a bit unfair to expect an organizer to avoid your tournament if you haven’t listed it anywhere. If you do list it, and then they choose the same weekend, then you would perhaps have something.
Even a simple “details forthcoming” announcement that blocks the date would suffice.
In a nutshell, yes. I routinely see that sort of thing happening, and I’m not meaning to single out the CCA, because it happens all the time with all sorts of organizers.
We have a scholastic organizer here in the state that thinks every single weekend from Oct to March is his exclusive province. I have to put up with organizers in a neighboring state about an hour’s drive away stepping on local events all the time.
Face it. No one cares about your events except yourself, and if you’re doing well, you’re going to have folks poaching in your grounds. It’s a fact of life. Your best defense is to organize the best events you can, and make them run smoothly, because the chances are the interlopers aren’t doing that.