According to the NY Times “This Morning” online edition, this morning, in a piece labeled “Inaccurate
Sotomayor” Justice Sotomayor is blasted for stating “We have over 100,000 children which we have never had before in serious condition, and many on ventilators”. Justice Gorsuch is also blasted for not wearing a mask, and in an article by Mike Davis, a conservative activist and former Gorsuch clerk, Davis stated, “We know cloth masks don’t work”. Regardless, Gorsuch not wearing a mask is rude to the extreme-whether medically justified or not (and much scientific evidence points to such a justification), to the elderly sensibilities of Justices such as Breyer and Sotomayor who have underlying medical conditions. The article further states that the # of hospitalized children across the USA is only 5,000, thus making Sotomayor’s statements grossly inaccurate.
Now, what does this have to do with chess? We cannot deny that we live in a politically charged polarizing environment, BUT, that does not mean we have to bring politics into chess which it clearly does not belong.
As has been very well pointed out elsewhere, I am not a physician or even a theorist. I am a 100% USCF youth
chess activist who has organized hundreds of online USCF-rated tournaments during the pandemic period, and with
this quite a few dozens of USCF memberships have been purchased, and/or renewed. I am delighted to state
truthfully, that North Texas is one of the “hottest” beds of youth chess activity in the South Today.
It is quite necessary for the growth of our sport to return to OTB play. And in this regard, in the last few
months, I have directed and helped organize about a half-dozen major and minor youth chess events. And, God
willing, many more to come. In all of these events, masking has been required. I am dismayed that my order of
N95 masks has been delayed, and will not arrive for this weekend’s OTB events as I have read about the far greater
safety these masks provide.
Certainly, it is a parent’s call to determine if returning to OTB chess tournaments is in their child’s best interests. I simply shall continue to do as I can to create such options. Whichever side of the political spectrum one
is on-we MUST come together for the sport of chess which so many of us cherish. And no, as I have told more
than a few concerned parents- “we absolutely cannot guarantee the safety of ANY chess event from the pandemic”
Either come, or don’t. But we must work together to resolve this issue for USCF.
THE Issue of our time, and no responses, no input. Amazing. The Main Thread is “Running Tournaments” There is no more important issue facing these events right now. Thoughts please!!
I’m not sure why you think what you are calling for isn’t happening.
Perhaps if the first paragraph hadn’t been totally off-topic, people might have read further.
More white space would have helped, too.
That you and others cannot grasp it is 100% on target is EXACTLY the problem!!
+1
I must confess that, due to the seemingly random formatting, I can’t tell how many paragraphs there are, or where the first one ends.
I wish Mr. Jones would learn how to press the “Enter” key twice between paragraphs, and never touch it otherwise. This would make his posts much easier to read, and it’s extremely simple to do. It’s like he just randomly hits it every now and then for no particular reason.
+1
Bill Smythe
Even well-established writers struggle when writing for an online forum.
In online writing, I think you have two sentences to set your tone, explain what your topic is and interest the reader sufficiently to keep them reading.
You wrote 4 sentences using 135 words before you even gave a hint of what you were talking about that would have anything to do with a chess discussion forum. Most readers will tune out long before then.
Readabilityformulas.com gave an average grade for your opening 4 sentences as:
Grade Level: 18
Reading Level: very difficult to read.
Reader’s Age: College graduate
Perhaps he’s editing from a phone or tablet and not a PC, and that’s causing him to hit enter when he seems to need a due to the functionality of his entry system.
I suppose that’s possible, but even on my phone (which is more primitive than most such devices – it barely has text capabilities at all), text wraps automatically. I don’t ever have to do an “enter” or “return” unless I specifically want to start a new line – and the only time I would want to do that is to start a new paragraph (or a bulleted list or table).
I’m having difficulty imagining any device modern enough to access the internet that doesn’t wrap text automatically.
While I’m sympathetic with the criticism, it is still sad that the only comment relating to Rob’s actual points was my question about why he believes we haven’t done this (returned to OTB chess). Just as people love to dismiss Micah Smith’s comments often by reminding us he isn’t a delegate, we tend to dismiss Rob’s posts without even pretending to pay attention to the content.
Perhaps if everyone hadn’t jumped on him for his word-wrap skills, he might have actually answered my question. In any event, I’d say the criticism of his skills are just as much of an impediment to discussion as his lack of those skills.
Perhaps, to borrow a phrase from Gertrude Stein, there is no there there in the OP.
I’m not convinced that there is any big crisis here. In my area (southern Wisconsin), OTB chess is returning slowly but surely. So far, all of our OTB tournaments have required masks (but not anything beyond that – i.e., no vaccination requirement), and that has probably kept some players away (I am one of these, although I have directed two of these tournaments, and dutifully wore my mask throughout both), but in general, attendance has been reasonably good, and we haven’t experienced any COVID-related problems. We are currently planning to run our State Scholastic Championship (an unrated, non-USCF tournament) in March as usual, and I will be one of the TDs as usual. We did not run this event last year, so this is another sign of a return to normality. I’m not sure what Mr. Jones is upset about. Chess is doing as well as anything else these days.
In Georgia we ran our State Championship last month. We required masks be properly worn in all our areas, but did not require vaccination proof. Our prize fund was changed from $10K guaranteed to $10K with a based on a figure of roughly 120% of our average attendance of the last two years when the tournament was in-person as opposed to on-line (2018 and 2019), and we drew almost exactly the same number of players for 2021 as we had for 2018 and 2019. I don’t see any big problem in my little neck of the woods.
Among the things US Chess could do is to encourage proper mask wearing. Some younger children have that every small button nose common in children, that just doesn’t do a good job of holding up a mask - and none of us wants to make a mask so tight that it’s onerous. We could recommend some of the N95’s that have a special adjustable (and replaceable) “nose mold” or “nose wire”.
The point is, people don’t always think about these things unless pointed out.
In my area, we typically have a half dozen 200+ player tournaments during the “chess season” in addition to an annual MLK day tournament that averages 250-300+ players. Today’s MLK tournament was around 100. At this point, that’s the only tournament scheduled for the year because principals are reluctant to allow chess clubs to host chess tournaments due to COVID. One potential tournament was cancelled because basketball continues as usual, and the athletic director wanted the gym for his team to practice before attending a tournament.
Looking at regular rated (regular/dual) games, the number of rated games in December, while up a lot from 2020, was down from November and still only about half of where it was pre-COVID. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re back to where we were then.