Rex Sinquefield

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  • Rex Sinquefield

    Rex Sinquefield has certainly made St. Louis the chess mecca of the west. Coming up, in 5 days time, the inaugural Sinquefield Cup, billed as a battle of the top 2 in the world, Carlsen and Aronian, versus the top 2 in the U.S., Nakamura and Kamsky, with a prize fund of $170,000, and an average FIDE rating of the 4 participants of 2797.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinquefield_Cup

  • #2
    Re: Rex Sinquefield

    Originally posted by Jack Maguire View Post
    Rex Sinquefield has certainly made St. Louis the chess mecca of the west. Coming up, in 5 days time, the inaugural Sinquefield Cup, billed as a battle of the top 2 in the world, Carlsen and Aronian, versus the top 2 in the U.S., Nakamura and Kamsky, with a prize fund of $170,000, and an average FIDE rating of the 4 participants of 2797.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinquefield_Cup
    It's rare that living in MS has a chess upside but I am really looking forward to seeing this in person . I think I can make the round on the 15th and still get back to work Monday morning . tickets are only $15 which seems absurdly low to me . When I was a young teen I traveled from Ottawa to Montreal in 1979 to Watch Tal,Karpov, Spassky etc To this day I consider that afternoon one of my all time favorite chess memories . I especially remember Tal taking what seemed like forever [was maybe 50 minutes ] on a move against Hubner and then unleashing this sacrificial attack that sent his Caro packing . I don't recall Tal taking more than a minute on any move after his big tank . It was unforgettable .

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    • #3
      Re: Rex Sinquefield

      Rex Sinquefield

      March 26, 2015

      from:

      http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/amer...cher-1.2153177

      An excerpt:

      Rex Sinquefield was once a passenger on the same international flight as the notoriously irascible grandmaster Bobby Fischer. For a chess nut, this proximity to America’s best ever player, a man then at the peak of his powers and fame, was too good a chance to pass up. Even when Fischer’s travelling companion warned Sinquefield off making an approach, he couldn’t help walking down the aisle and taking his shot. He just had to meet his hero and remind him that his matches against Russian opponents were about way more than just pieces on a board.

      “I hope you beat those commies, ” he said.

      “I will, ” said Fischer.

      It wasn’t much of an exchange and reeked of the time when chess was one of the many fronts on which the Cold War was fought, but it was enough. Decades later, after Fischer had died an international outcast in Iceland, Sinquefield paid $61,000 (€56,000) at auction for his personal library of chess tomes and notebooks. A trifling sum for a man whose wealth was at that point estimated to be near a billion, the collection is currently on display at the World Chess Hall of Fame in St Louis, Missouri, a venue that represents just one part of Sinquefield’s impressive and ongoing investment in the sport in America over the past seven years.

      The Guardian calls him America’s chess Maecenas (after the Ancient Roman patron of the arts). The New York Times compares him to Jurgen Klinsmann (for the manner in which he’s trying to attract chess-playing children of the diaspora to play under the stars and stripes). If the way in which he’s willing to spend big on a sporting passion definitely brings to mind the plutocrats dabbling in European soccer club ownership, Sinquefield may just be having a lot more fun than any of them.

      Almost every profile of Sinquefield uses the adjective Dickensian to describe an especially hardscrabble childhood. Born with a cleft palate, his family were so poor after his father died that he and his brother spent years living in a Catholic orphanage in St Louis. Growing up, he found solace in chess, flirted with entering the priesthood, and later came under the influence of Nobel prize-winning economist Eugene Fama at the University of Chicago. Eventually, he put his free market theories to work on an index-linked investment fund where he made so much money that he confessed to becoming bored.

      In retirement, he moved back to his native Missouri from California and quickly became famous for two things; turning St Louis into the chess capital of America and spending tens of millions supporting political candidates who shared his right-wing views on taxation and the outsized influence of teachers’ unions. If the philanthropy has made him a hero in the chess world and to the 2,000 public school children to whom he gives annual scholarships, his attempts to influence elections are, predictably, a lot more divisive. “I would love to be able to say I’m a grand schemer, ” said the 70-year-old. “I’d love to be able to say, like the Emperor in Star Wars, ‘Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. ’ It just happened. ” As if a man who made his fortune playing the markets and spends his free time studying chess would ever plan anything.

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      • #4
        Re: Rex Sinquefield

        The chess world did it self a huge disservice rejecting Garry's bid to head up with FIDE replete with full fledged support and financing of Mr Sinquefield. Mr Sinquefield offerd $10,000,000 in the FIDE bank payable the day Garry took office and Kirsan replied by doubling his offer to $20,000,000 and then the next day in a press conference came up with ZERO and said that the $20,000,000 was a "misunderstanding".
        So instead of events like those mentioned above in Missouri we are stuck with Sochi and other ass backward places to hold WCC events backed by the biggest piece of shit in the world ...Putin himself.
        Countries like Norway are now working with the Kasparov Chess Foundation to make chess a non optional part of the curriculum in schools. Here is an article about Norway's parliment voting to start working on this effort.
        http://en.chessbase.com/post/norway-...chools-program

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