Recently I’ve noticed some players whose memberships have been expired for a number of years starting to return to tournament play. I don’t know if this is a worthwhile statistic to track or not, but I wonder if there is any kind of trend developing, where players whose memberships expired prior to 1999 (for example) are reactivitating themselves?
I haven’t run the query for about a year, but if there was a trend, it was that former players who are now about the right age to have kids getting active in chess seem to be the most likely to be returning to tournament chess.
Who needs to waste time compiling actual statistics when you can have anecdotal evidence (preferred by 4 out of 5 media reporters for its gut-wrenching “reality”) right now? 
I’m one of those members. I had already cut back to mainly postal chess when I let my membership lapse in 1999. Personal responsibilities just demanded too much of my time.
I rejoined in 2007 and have played in 3 rated events: a weekender in '07, a club event and a match, both over several weeks last year. Would still like to play in more but time demands from the job are now restricting my opportunities.
I suspect there are many others near my age group (I’m 55) who have similar tales. And once you stop being a OTB tournament regular, inertia plays a role, as does the nearly certain knowledge that lack of practice affects your play.
The biggest reason in my long-declining frequency of play before the lapse was the speeding up of tournament chess. It used to be easy to find “serious” events with 40/2 primary time controls. I enjoyed the quality of play slower controls enabled. After my last return, all the events were faster - the weekender was 35/90, G/1, and the club games were G/90. I only played in them because I miss playing.
There are eight million stories in The Naked City; this hasn’t been one of them (I live in South Carolina).
I’m sympathetic with the argument that most chess tournaments are at time controls that are too fast these days, at least for me.
However, I can also state from first-hand experience that events with slow time controls (like 40/2, 20/1) will:
- Draw fewer players.
- Cost more to run.
Then there are those of us who have lapsed after returning… 
In my case I started tournament play in 1965, played a few years then stopped while in the military. Started playing again during the Fischer boom – what a zoo those tournaments of '72-73 were! 
Stopped playing for five years or so, got back into it again during the 80s, became halfway decent for a while then realized I probably wasn’t much good at the game, at least not as far as becoming a master, so I hung it up around 1990. Had my life fall apart not too long ago when my wife died, found I no longer wanted to do much of anything till I wandered into a chess book the other day, went through a dozen grandmaster games, and now I’ve got the old bug back.
This is the first time in my life, being retired, that I can play without feeling it’s only a game and there are better things to do.
The twenty year layoff (didn’t read a game or play socially during all that time) may have helped in an odd way. Of course I’m not the player I was once was, but the flip side is I’m much more organized than I used to be and I’ve already got a good study program going to get me back to a competitive level. I’ve got a very simple goal now, just to become a master before I go to that big looney-bin in the sky. If I don’t get there, oh well, it’s not as though I missed being a grandmaster. And I’m sure they’ll be park benches up there with the usual patzers looking for a game; perhaps they’ll even be a certain young lady sitting beside me again (and this time I won’t give up chess for our marriage). Till then it will be pounding the clock once in a while and trying to get something by reading through the truly brilliant games of others.
I have done many player surveys through the years and their preferred time control has long been 40/2, SD/1, which I find also draws the most players for two day or longer tournaments. In a recent online survey of players on the CCA mailing list (about 450 replies), with 0= will not play, 1= below average, 2= average, 3= above average, and 4= excellent, the following time controls received these average ratings for a 5 round Swiss:
40/2, SD/1 2.8
30/90, SD/1 2.3
G/2 2.1
G/90 2.0
G/60 1.5
G/30 (one day event) 1.1
For one day events you can’t play more than two games with the slower controls, not enough to make the tournament interesting for most people, and most events in the US are one day only, which I think is the main reason the faster controls are often used.
While there is a preference for slower controls, it also seems that many players will not bother to travel to a tournament which has fewer than four games, and for a one day event 5 rounds, G/30 and 4 rounds, G/60 will usually outdraw 3 rounds, G/90.
Longer time controls, given the same number of rounds, do tend to cause extra cost for playing sites.
Bill Goichberg
Bill, Have you ever done a survey for Seniors only?