i realize the youth movement is important to future growth but is anyone else getting a bit tired of all the kids’ news? maybe i’m just an old curmudgeon that would really like to see more quality games. just wondered on other’s opinions…
Usually, the complaint I hear is too much emphasis on the pros and far off tournaments and not enough attention to the amateurs. Tis the season for the big spring scholastics and other junior events. Come summer and you won’t have to read about the kiddies so much, unless the wunderkind are scoring well in the major tournaments.
There was a feature in the old Chess Life & Review, called “Here and There,” which gave short accounts of amateur doings. Some complained about that and that we were not covering professionals enough. In a social media age, you not only can’t please everybody, you can’t please anybody anymore. Everybody has a complaint to tweet.
yeah, i understand… sometimes “they” just seem to forget about the “other guys”. i used to like the “here and there” columns. maybe a game or two every now and then that clinches a state championship or heritage-type event would be nice. used to like “gligo’s” game of the month too. c’est la vie… thanks for your thoughts.
Hey, I liked “Here and There.” Thought it was another good way for member retention. Yeah, it was archaic and a throwback to another era. But in many ways so is chess, and baseball, for that matter. Everyone is so hyped up on doing everything fast. Fast games. 5 or more games in a day. Instant ratings. No one has patience anymore. We lose a lot of history when we don’t cover even the tidbits about amateur play. I remember seeing players patted on the back because their name or a game made CL&R. Those kind of things stay with the player and the chess culture of that area. Sometimes you saw a snapshot of a soon to be great.
You want “more quality games”?
Have you already played through all 1 million master games that come free with Fritz? Or that are easily found on ChessGames.com?
I am sympathetic to this complaint.
Along a similar sentiment, I’d like to see the USCF use its central position to organize an online tournament (standard long time-controls) among the champions of all 50 states. Instead the USCF mostly just accepts bids from others who step forward to do the organizing and the rest of the work too. The USCF is not impressive in this area.
As something new, this would be more interesting to me than just another annual US Open.
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Why couldn’t “Here and There” be a CLO component?
I think, and the various committees can correct me if they like, that the reason we don’t have an “online regular” system is because there is too much potential for cheating (using books or another computer) at a slow time control. To make this idea work, we’d probably need 50 TDs supervising the players. That gets expensive.
Alex Relyea
Yes, I’m tired of it as well. But that’s the way it is, and I guess that’s the way it will be. I’m 57 years old (58 in a few weeks) and a “returning chess player,” and there’s not much in Chess Life that interests me or is useful to me.
I’ve said before on this forum that I grew up on the old “P-K4” notation and have had trouble getting used to the new algebraic chess notation. It is a style of notation that is “centric” to the person playing white, which does not make any sense to me. When I look at the analysis for a game, I still have to go “a, b, c, d,” etc. to determine what piece is being referred to. The new notation is [to me] slow and cumbersome to use and makes me less likely to bother reading along with the analysis. When a game is being analyzed in the magazine, why not print the numbers and letters alongside the chess board? Some chess boards are sold this way.
Most of the articles in Chess Life seem aimed at players who are far, far above my level of skill. The writers seem to be writing to impress people of their own level, playing out clever alternate lines and better lines and dead end lines…I just can’t keep track of what is being explored, especially when I have to count out “a, b, c, d,” every time a move is mentioned.
I realize that the problem is me. Maybe I’m just too old and living too much on my memories of when I played chess a lot in the 1970s. There are articles in the magazine that I’ve enjoyed a great deal, but not many. Why doesn’t the magazine run biographical articles about great players of the past? Why doesn’t it run articles about the chess scene in different foreign countries? Why does game analysis in the magazine have to be so exhaustive, exploring and comparing so many different “lines” or play, that you have to be a grandmaster to make any sense of it?
I’ve never entered a tournament because I just don’t have money to throw away. I’ve never tried to play online because getting beat up by strangers does not sound like fun to me. I don’t have money to throw away on online chess.
I’m NOT a chess beginner, but I’m also not an expert, a grandmaster or a 10 year old prodigy.
But I realize that I’m almost certainly a minority here. Anyway, I apologize if I’ve offended anyone. Thank you to anyone who is still reading this.
don’t get me wrong, there are some wonderful articles in CL. i loved the recent piece about james tarjan, a guy i “grew up” with. used to like following their endeavours on the international scene and the olympiads. some great stuff.
antonin, you really should try to get to a local tournament some time. just for the experience. if you don’t have fun, consider it a lesson learned anyway.
i am trying to find out whatever happened to william mcelyea from the cleveland area. anyone know? used to run the chess tournamnets at cleveland state university back in the day. chartered buses to take youth to the nationals in philadelphia too. fond memories. thinking about trying to start a memorial tournament.
thanks, …scot…
Scot L Henderson
I agree with Mr. Henderson that Mr. Morgan should save up and try tournament play. It will at least give him a rough idea of where he stands. He may be better (or worse) than he thinks. I just checked the Ohio TLAs, and there are many tournaments that cost $20-30, with some even less.
Alex Relyea
There was a great article in the January 2015 issue: “Reconnecting with Caissa,” by GM Jim Tarjan. While I didn’t understand his point that US chess would have been better off if Bobby Fischer had never learned to play, I loved his “Senior Chess” story of “returning” to the game after dropping out in the 1980s. It was fun to read about a person roughly my age, getting back into the saddle after so many years.