How are entries for the Nationals? I am particularly curious about the Texas entries. Having been glutted with Nationals the past five years, they had better show for this year’s events.
On the home page under the welcome line there are links for each of the nationals. Each link has a page where you can click and see advance entries.
Here are the numbers:
JHS (Minneapolis): NY 155 TX 54 Total 820
HS (Columbus, OH): NY 176 TX 54 Total 1064
Elem (Atlanta): NY 112 TX 26 Total 520
Given how we have been forced to listen to Texas chess propaganda and had National after National in Texas, these Texas numbers are pathetic.
If they don’t improve, it’s time for Bill Hall to pull the plug on future Texas nationals until they get better. Bill Hall won’t even return our e-mails when we beg for a chance to be considered for a National, and we still produce three times the entries USCF’s favorite son does.
I’m not aware of a site in New York that is reasonably priced and large enough to hold a National Scholastic. If such a site is found, especially in or close to New York City, I think the office would be delighted to place a National there.
The New York State Scholastics used to alternate between the NYC area and upstate, but there have been no bids to hold it in the NYC area for the last four years due to lack of an affordable site, and I know of only one appropriate location upstate, which is too small for the Nationals.
Bill Goichberg
I reached out to a few convention managers, and three times forwarded the Rochester Convention info to Bill Hall. No response.
The one time I used a Texas address to e-mail Bill Hall, I got a quick response. Big difference.
I realize the office can make three calls to Disney, Texas and Nashville and complete five years of bidding in five minutes. That is what the rest of the country is up against.
2010 Natiional Junior High Minneapolis, MN April 9-11
2010 National High School Columbus, OH April 16-18
2010 National Elementary Atlanta, GA May 7-9
2010 National Scholastic K-12 Lake Buena Vista, FL Dec. 10-12
2011 National Junior High Columbus, OH April 15-17
2011 National High School Nashville, TN April 29-May 1
2011 National Elementary Dallas, TX May 6-8
2011 National Scholastic K-12 Dallas, TX Dec. 9-11
2012 National High School Minneapolis, MN April 13-15
2012 National Elementary Nashville, TN May 11-13
2012 National Scholastic K-12 Orlando (as opposed to Lake Buena Vista), FL November 30-Dec 2
2013 Supernationals V Nashville, TN TBA(!)
2013 National Scholastic K-12 Lake Buena Vista (as opposed to Orlando), FL Dec. 13-15
2014 National Elementary Dallas, TX May 9-11
2014 National Scholastic K-12 Orlando (as opposed to Lake Buena Vista), FL Dec 12-14
2015 National Elementary Nashville, TN May 8-10
2015 National Scholastic K-12 Orlando (as opposed to Lake Buena Vista), FL Dec 5-7
Don’t worry Karl, I’ve sent emails, either directly to Bill Hall or cc’ing him, several times over the last two years about re-enabling the “check birthdate” function for TDs, in order to avoid issuing additiional ID#'s for the same person. I’ve never received any response from him on any of these either, but I admit I didn’t think of trying the Texas Email Trick! Or maybe just putting “REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE SETTLEMENT OF LITIGATION” in the subject line.
You might try copying Pat Knight, and also any EB members from New York. I have never heard of a Rochester bid. What would the site and room rates be?
Bill Goichberg
On a related topic, I e-mailed Pat Knight about a couple of potential Chicago sites for a future U.S. Open. No message back. I didn’t expect much, but a “Thanks for the tip” would have been appropriate.
I also e-mailed Bill Hall once to volunteer for the forum oversight board. Two months later I got my first reply, an e-mail asking whether I still wanted to be a moderator. Huh?
Maybe some folks just need to be telephoned.
There hasn’t been a bid yet. The rules are that you have to work with the office. You can’t just submit a bid anymore.
It’s hard to work with the office when the office doesn’t want you around.
Lake Buena Vista and Orlando are two different cities in Florida. Only Orlando has many residents, though.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Buena_Vista,_Florida
If USCF ever tells you that your city is too small for a tournament, they awarded a National to a city with 16 residents.
I can understand having a National Scholastic at Disney. If USCF was run as well as Disney, we’d be a lot better off.
In a metropolitan area with a population of over 2 million, though.
We have email logs dating back to last October. Unless you are using more than one email address, I don’t show any emails from you to Bill Hall prior to March 4th, and only three since then.
We could even afford to raise the entry fee-- no one in the entire city has an income below the poverty level.
I didn’t realize the Orlando MSA is up to 2 million.
Having said that, they should all be listed as Orlando. When the American Planning Association had their conference at Disney, it was listed as Orlando. If that is good enough for professional demographers and land-use planners, it ought to be good enough for chess players. Even locals there don’t really notice the “city” boundaries much.
This year’s Nationals are all in Hyatts. Is that our new “official” hotel?
In general they’re listed on MSA by the ZIP code of the site hosting the event, not by the name of the metropolitan area or the largest nearby city.
For example, when the US Open was held in the Chicago metropolitan area in 2006, it wasn’t really in the city of Chicago, it was in Oak Brook.
Similarly, the 2000 US Open was in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, but the tournament site was in St. Paul. (Most Minnesotans I know would feel insulted if you said it was held in Minneapolis.)
And the 2004 US Open was in the Miami metro area, but the tournament site itself was in Weston, a city of around 25,000 in a metropolitan area of well over 5.4 million. (It was not even in the same county as Miami, which is in Dade County, while Weston is in Broward County. I know some people who referred to that event as having been in Fort Lauderdale, although that’s not really accurate either.) Only about 2/3 of the 130 ‘local’ players who played in that event lived within 25 miles of the tournament site.
Orlando is an interesting metropolitan area, because the city of Orlando itself has a population of only around 230,000 while the metro area is well over 2 million.
Pat Knight-Smith has three national scholastics to run in the next five weeks, so that’s likely to be where all of her energy is focused until some time in mid-May, not on future years.
Hotels can submit offers, and I’m wondering what is available in Rochester. I am not aware that any hotel in upstate NY (or western NY) has the facilities for a national scholastic. The Rochester Convention Center probably does, but hotels usually offer much better deals than convention centers and are more convenient for the players.
Other than the issue of finding an affordable site, the office has no reason to want to avoid placing national scholastics in New York, so you shouldn’t conclude that anyone “doesn’t want you around.” I live in New York, yet hold all my largest tournaments in other states, not because I am against New York but because I can’t find appropriate, reasonably priced sites here. When our Easter tournament left Foxwoods due to a huge increase in room rates, I wanted to move it to the NYC area instead of having one more big one in Philly, but the guest room and meeting room prices offered were ridiculous.
Bill Goichberg
Bill Hall and I checked and it looks like the Rochester Convention Center has around 100,000 square feet of meeting space. There are three hotels within a block or so, they have somewhere around 1100 sleeping rooms.
That should be big enough for the Junior High or the HS, but possibly not the Elementary.
I don’t know what kind of package the USCF could get on room rates and the convention center space, that’s something Pat Knight-Smith would have to work on after she gets through the spring nationals.
There are around 75 flights a day in and out of the Rochester airport.
The Rochester metro area population is around a million. (By comparison, Nashville is 1.5 million.)
Rochester is about 330 miles from New York City.
Thank you for the consideration.
Ten years ago in USCF parlance, New York was considered like Duke, the resented blue blood that “got everything.”
Now Texas is the new Duke, and we’re Butler, the scrappy underdog fighting for all the loose balls.
It was great to see the GM Hess and IS 318 stories on top of the web site, by the way.
The USCF offices may have been in NY 10 years ago, but very few national events were held in New York State during the years that the USCF was HQ’d in Newburgh/New Windsor, so it isn’t true that NY ‘got everything’.
Why? Mostly for the same reasons that Bill Goichberg has cited as the factors today, the lack of affordable sites. (I don’t count the Chessathons, those were really local events involving very few members who lived more than 30 miles from the city.)
A US Open in Manhattan would be incredibly expensive today, $300 and up per night. I will be interested to see if Rochester can come up with a total package (room night rates plus facilities costs) that is competitive.
I see Providence, Rhode Island, has a 100,000 sq ft convention center and it is probably just as close to NYC. Their airport is quite convenient too and I’m sure hotels aren’t that expensive.