I recently relocated from PA to Central CA, and have been disappointed with the dearth of NON-scholastic chess events within even a few hours’ drive of my new location.
This is sincerely intended as a mild complaint, but borne of seeing a stark difference between having multiple tournament options to choose from (virtually every week) in PA/DE/MD/NJ, to having about 2-3 per year to target in Central CA (for non-students), and usually requiring a drive of a significant distance just for that. Meanwhile, there are dozens of “Chess for Kids” and similar scholastic events in the area - a couple each month, it seems. Why is there such an imbalance between what is provided for school-age players and what is available to “the rest of us”?
I say this carefully, because (a) there is clearly merit in scholastic chess, and (b) if someone - like me - isn’t a TD, a logical response might be “become a TD, and make it happen yourself”. Unfortunately I do not currently have time to do this, but am also happy to pay for a well-run event and very, very slow to criticize the good efforts of those who do put in the time. Those efforts are very much appreciated.
I know there are active clubs in Fresno and Bakersfield (I live in between those), but even there, the tournaments for non-scholastic players are quite limited in number. (Thankfully, I will have the chance to play in one this coming weekend.)
Thanks, in advance, for any thoughts about this phenomenon (heavy emphasis on scholastic chess) and any constructive recommendations.
This sounds like a good question to ask the TD and players at the tournament you are going to.
Some of the various possibilities:
The available TDs are focused on scholastics and don’t have time left over for other tournaments. This might also include coaches and parents that would otherwise be likely players for other events.
There have been open events in the past that were not well attended, so the organizers gave up on them and there haven’t been other organizers to step in to replace them.
There have not been open events in the past because organizers “knew” they would not be well attended, and because there have been no well attended events in the past it is “obvious” that there is no demand. The definition of “well attended” might be as minimal as breaking even while using a volunteer TD. This is a viscious circle.
It looks like since 1/1/2010 there have been 9 events in Bakersfield and 8 in Fresno which had more than 5 adults in them. I don’t see any events in any other nearby cities.
That’s not very many compared to where you were living in SE Pennsylvania, but it is more adult events than there were in Lincoln NE, where I live.
BTW, Thomas, be sure to let the USCF know your new address.
I too just recently moved to CA (northern CA, I was living in Iowa/Chicago prior) and have gotten the same impression. Last weekend I attended my first tournament after moving here and was surprised that the vast majority of players in the tournament were scholastic players. In fact, at the tournament the organizers promoted a weekly-competition where adults rated 2000+ were admitted free of charge, indicating that they were having difficulty attracting non-scholastic competitors. This might have been specific to the organizer, but it still surprised me that the majority of players in the higher-level classes were scholastic. Of course, I’m hardly familiar with CA chess, so my impressions naturally are my own, and it’s possible that other events held that weekend played a small part as well (I think the American Open was in LA?).
On a somewhat unrelated note, I’ve been saddened to find that the “one and a half hour” trek into San Francisco (as quoted by Google) is “a little” more taxing than the one and a half hour into Ames or Cedar Rapids that I had in Iowa.
There’s a chess club that meets Thursday nights, if you are interested. It runs USCF rated tournaments, usually one round per week for 5 weeks. Here’s a pointer to the web page with more info: fofv.org/page.php?id=1
Or if that doesn’t work, google “Kolty Chess Club”.
I believe that one of the difficulties is that not all these events are well publicized. You can find those 17 events after-the-fact, but were they all advertized openly leading up to the day(s) of the competition? (I know the answer is not “yes” in all cases - from very recent evidence.)
I want to say (for balance) that the two events I did attend (one in Fresno, one in Bakersfield) were very well run and enjoyable. The competition was strong as well - as evidenced by my sad score last weekend in Bakersfield! I just wish there was a higher tempo of offerings.
Mike Nolan, you mentioned my change of address - and notification of USCF. I have not done so (yet), mainly because I still maintain my home in Pennsylvania. (I have an apartment in CA; family (and house) in PA. I think this will stay the case for a few more months, at least. So I’ll ask the question back, then - in this situation, does USCF want my ‘new’ (probably temporary) address, or my ‘old’ (possibly also temporary) one?
I believe we live in the same city (Visalia) in Central California. My focus as an organizer is on scholastic chess but I would like to see some adult events in our fair city. Feel free to contact me if you are able to help schedule and organize some open (all ages) events in Visalia.
Here are some points to consider:
Without the pool of young players created by the Chess for Kids program, open adult level chess tournaments would not be viable in Central California. Us aging ‘Fischer boomers’ could not support the existing open local tournament schedule. There would be no tournaments at all.
Between Bakersfield, Fresno and my scholastic events, the chess calendar is actually very crowded for adding additional events. 3 day weekends are suicidal for local organizers and with allowing for a few weeks between events to not saturate the market, there are really only a few good dates left.
You may be experiencing some ‘California distances’ culture shock relocating from back east. I have a chess playing friend from back east that experienced this when he moved here from Southern New Jersey. California is just a big state and the distances I consider local would take you across several state lines back east. If you live in Visalia for any length of time, the drive to Fresno is ‘local’. I live in Visalia by choice to be close to Sequoia National Park; I understand that I have to drive out of town for certain cultural events (although Visalia has a surprising good local cultural scene.) To me, Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced/Modesto and coastal San Luis Obispo are local events.
What about seeing if the scholastic tournament organizers would be willing to run a small [3 round] side event for Adult players at their scholastic events? I know of one Illinois scholastic organizer that does this. Quads or Octogons are not hard to run, and the idea is for adult players to find more games. This could be run as a ratings only event [i.e. no prizes] and as a way to generate added revenue for the running of the scholastic event(s) that the organizer is doing already. Talk to some people and see how they feel about the idea. You never know unless you ask.