It’s still prominently featured on the homepage…
Who can afford to throw $2500 to $3000 away on a weekend tournament? The HB Global failed, but it did have one consequence, it led to jacking up entry fees at more events. If this tournament has the same result, you can say good-bye to more adult players competing. Only a subsidized elite, and the wealthy will be able to play in tournaments. Maybe that is the goal.
In the article, Ashley says that in 1999, he saw no place to go as a GM. Of course, in an era where the elite tournaments got smaller and only invited the very highest rated, a player in the 2500’s had no place to go but the rough and tumble of open tournaments, or teaching, writing, or some other type of employment. No one was going to invite him to Linares or the supertournaments in the Netherlands. If you are not inclined to take the risks of open play, then what? He has tried to create his own Utopian tournament. Will he play in it? If this is such a great event, then he should play.
First of all Maurice is 100% right when he says that he became a 2500 GM and saw no place to go with it.Look around the US chess world-all our talented young players leave chess because there is no viable financial future in it. I first started playing rated chess in the early 70’s and I have seen essentially every single talented American player since that time leave the game and take up something else.Mr Ashley is trying to change that-Kudos to him-He is an immensely talented guy and I hope he is successful in this endeavor.
I think people like Maurice Ashley represent what chess needs. Smart young people thinking outside the proverbial box. The more active Mr Ashley becomes in the American chess scene the better off American chess will be.
I don’t understand where this is going? It is very unlikely that a 2500 (or even a 2600) rated player will win any substantial amount of money in this event. The usual cast of characters will haul away the cash. What is new will be the intense experience of big money sudden death play reaching the chess “tourists.” I plan on enjoying the music the rich man’s band is going to play.
Every form of competition is, for the participants, natural aptitude honed by practice and training, and is, for the spectators, a form of entertainment. The only way participants can make significant amounts of money competing is for their competitions to become good enough entertainment that spectators will be willing to pay significant amounts of money to enjoy observing them. This can either happen by lots of spectators being willing to pay a little money, or by a few spectators being willing to pay lots of money, or both.
The late Bobby Fischer once said that in order to appreciate chess “you have to know something about the game.” That doesn’t completely explain it, of course, because to have to know something about any form of competition in order to appreciate it. The trouble with chess is that there’s a lot you need to know in order to understand grandmaster-level play. The good news is that (1) there are many people who can understand a lot of grandmaster-level player if a commentator is explaining it to them, and (2) because chess is a game of the mind, you don’t need to actually see the game being played (either live or on television) in order to observe it, provided that you either know how to read recorded chess games or can view a computer file that essentially plays the game for you. If this were combined with a detailed analysis of what the players are doing, you might be able to attract enough paying spectators for major chess competitions to provide the money needed to offer the participants large prizes.
Bob
The next trick is to get potential chess fans to make the effort. Anyone can watch any usual sporting event and quickly find out what the object of the game is, some easier than others.
In a town where people are vying to win $10 million in poker, no one is going to be paying attention to someone trying to win $250k in a multi-day chess event except for a few chess freaks.
This event has zero chance of being successful.
Chess has a lot more cultural capital than poker. Entry fees are not the way for such events to generate positive cash flow (they’re not the answer in golf or tennis, either.)
Many wonderful chess parents know nothing about the game…other than knowing how much their children love it.
The event doesn’t have to be golf-, tennis-, or even poker-big: it just has to succeed on its own terms in due course.
The registration list has not been updated since September 1 on the tournament website. It shows only 550 entrants. Surprised that they note the age of some of the participants.
Are there scholastic or senior prizes? That would be one reason to show the ages.
Wonder if Caurana or Carlsen will join this tournament…
The tournament probably does not fit into their schedule, which is planned many months or a year in advance. This type of player usually receives appearance fees and contracts to play. If they were going to play, it would already be known. Carlsen also has a world championship match to prepare for that is coming up soon.
They are used to playing in round robin events with known opponents for whom they can prepare openings and game strategies well in advance. They have, in a way, graduated from open Swiss System tournaments where you may not who you will play until minutes before a round starts. From a ranking and rating standpoint, they have little to gain and a lot to lose by playing in opens. This is why you see them play in more rapid chess events than regularly rated tournaments.
Maybe GM Nakamura could use the cash? And he is particularly vicious at fast time controls…
ESPN should televise this event and sponsor the event so that the organizers break even!!!
I don’t think ESPN would find that a compelling reason.
It should also be pointed out that the organizers did not expect to break even on this event. Those who are using only the balance sheet to judge the success or failure of the MCO might want to consider that.
Of course the event can succeed without breaking even but with less than a month to go, they still have fewer than 600 entries. If an event this big and ambitious can’t even equal a typical World Open turnout, it has to be considered a horrible failure. Entries had better start picking up big time.
– Hal Terrie
The HB Global had 1507 players with half the prize fund and a third of the advance entry fee. I don’t remember how many they had with a month to go.
IIRC correctly, the HB Global tournament in 2005 had nearing 1100 advance entries with about a month to go. I think they were shooting for 2000 entries. I played in this tournament. The conditions were very good. Lots going on. A lot of extra people there to watch, see GM analysis in side rooms, see displays by companies, or just be there. At the time, gasoline was around $2.20 a gallon. There was no Great Recession. There was this sense among the players that chess might be taking off as a game and sport.
I believe there are some deficiencies in the above view. If this tournament drew 1,000 full entries (a typical World Open turnout in recent years), that would have been rather surprising.
The first edition of this event was never going to draw all that well. However, the plan, as I understand it, is not to have just one such event. The hard part is finding a sponsor willing to ride out the initial skepticism and make a multi-event bet.
The primary financial sponsors came in knowing there would likely be a substantial loss this first time around. However, the secret to making events like this work for chess is that there needs to be more than one. If the event goes off as planned, more people will likely attend future events.
Despite the increased late EFs, people are still registering even now. That already exceeded my expectations. I thought virtually no one would sign up after the EF went from $1,000 to $1,500. (The registration list isn’t updated every day, BTW.)