Are FIDE or the CFC destined to be forever ineffective at promoting organized chess?

[Kevin Pacey]

Paul Bonham posted the following in another thread, which perhaps ought to be discussed in a seperate thread of its own:

Anyone who is part of the chess establishment and who is not completely anti-FIDE is part of the problem and not part of the solution. There will be no solution coming from FIDE -- ever.

But the worst part of it all is that organized chess doesn't offer itself up to other solutions. It isn't just a matter of money, it's the bigger matter of public and commercial perception of chess. FIDE has helped to make that perception mostly negative, probably 90% or so negative. Therefore chess is in reality stuck with FIDE, and actually is in the unfortunate position of having to be thankful that FIDE even exists at all. There isn't a Mark Cuban or any other "shark" who is going to come along and rescue chess...

It seems FIDE needs some form of purging to stop its slide towards a financial crisis, and to be more effective at sanctioning and running major international chess events, i.e. its core mission (questions of corruption, currently, can be thrown in for good measure). I'm not sure FIDE is even trying hard to otherwise directly promote organized chess globally, perhaps leaving that largely to national federations, much as the CFC seems to leave the direct promotion of organized chess in Canada largely to provincial associations or leagues, with its core mission being sanctioning/running national events.

That would be due to limited resources in the case of the CFC, and likewise for FIDE. I doubt even a (reasonably) very generous contribution from a 'shark' would significantly alter this dynamic, at least in the case of FIDE, which would need to spread its newfound resources globally (as opposed to just provinces and territories). So for the forseeable future, promotion of (solely) chess (in its current form) would seem to rest with national federations, or their subordinate bodies. That's why I thought the CFC ought to be discussed in this thread, too, if not primarily.

Based on past posts, I can guess Paul's revolutionary solution is to mix chess variant promotion with chess promotion, whether at global or national level. This might work, but it'll take a while, perhaps a long while, to pick up steam. Chess variants have had the benefit of the internet for many years now, but they are slow to gain in popularity nonetheless.

My take is that if FIDE isn't going to be reformed anytime soon (unlikely), perhaps in the meantime the CFC can finally really get its act together. Lately things are looking up a little on the membership level front, but so much more can be done, even incrementally. To recap some (largely old) goals of mine that might be aimed for, here's a link to a blog entry of mine:

http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/en...-for-in-future

[Mathieu Cloutier]

Re: Are FIDE or the CFC destined to be forever ineffective at promoting organized che

Based on past posts, I can guess Paul's revolutionary solution is to mix chess variant promotion with chess promotion, whether at global or national level. This might work, but it'll take a while, perhaps a long while, to pick up steam. Chess variants have had the benefit of the internet for many years now, but they are slow to gain in popularity nonetheless.

If you think chess variants are the solution to make chess more popular, I don't know what to say. It's so disconnected from reality.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Are FIDE or the CFC destined to be forever ineffective at promoting organized che

If you think chess variants are the solution to make chess more popular, I don't know what to say. It's so disconnected from reality.

It's more Paul's position (at least in the past) than mine. I used to think chess itself must eventually suffer by effectively promoting even one of the most promising chess variants, but now I'm not so sure chess and at least some of its variants cannot co-exist, and each be very popular with the public (if promoted effectively), in the long run.

Paul used to write of many variants of Poker co-existing, and hope the same for chess someday (I suppose the theory is chess would piggyback on the relative/regional success of other variants that some learn first [e.g. Shogi or Chinese Chess], and vice-verca). I countered that mastering just one variant of chess (or chess itself) likely requires a larger time investment than for Poker variants. In playing many chess variants, I've found chess skills seem to transfer well to quite a few, but by no means to the whole wildly differing range of types.

Chess is not that unpopular, if FIDE's website claim of 600 million adults playing globally is to be believed. That easily makes it more popular than Poker (100+ million) or Go (40 million). The catch is that this is not all for organized chess play. Somehow chess organizers have to get their act together, from international level on down, if organized chess is to be effectively promoted. This is true whether chess variants are promoted (seperately or together with chess) or not.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Are FIDE or the CFC destined to be forever ineffective at promoting organized che

Paul Bonham posted the following in another thread,

I read this far and stopped reading.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Are FIDE or the CFC destined to be forever ineffective at promoting organized che

Chess variants are silly and you would not have any less of a hurdle in promoting them versus promoting regular chess. Aside from blitz and bughouse I don't see many other variants gaining a toehold and I don't see anyone spending endless hours trying to promote them. I certainly have no interest in that.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

sure I like variants! So do ten-year-olds.

Chess variants are silly and you would not have any less of a hurdle in promoting them versus promoting regular chess. Aside from blitz and bughouse I don't see many other variants gaining a toehold and I don't see anyone spending endless hours trying to promote them. I certainly have no interest in that.

Now, now, Vlad, variants are quite popular among the children at a local chess club that I run. Mind you, they tend to be the same children whose opening repertoire consists of 1.h4 followed by 2. Rh3, who look down upon silly adult concepts like development, king safety, etc.. , and who haven't yet quite mastered the rules of orthodox chess like castling and en passant.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Are FIDE or the CFC destined to be forever ineffective at promoting organized che

Chess variants are silly and you would not have any less of a hurdle in promoting them versus promoting regular chess. Aside from blitz and bughouse I don't see many other variants gaining a toehold and I don't see anyone spending endless hours trying to promote them. I certainly have no interest in that.

Now and then I have to convince myself that chess itself is not silly, especially due to modern concerns with computers, high elite level drawing frequency, advancing opening theory, etc., which can turn off some people even from the start. The personalities involved (message board posters, organizers, TDs, players [including grumpy oldsters or children & their parents]) sometimes can be a turnoff too, though this is true in other activities, e.g. tennis. What's most disheartening is that organized chess in North America has stagnated for ages, often going backwards before recovering a bit (I don't mind that chess itself must eventually be played out and die out, to be replaced by some variant[s], at least at the elite level, as that will presumably be well past my lifetime). What's needed are methodical organizers (issues of corruption aside) who have a long laundry list of things to get done to promote organized chess, and actually execute a large chunk of them. That includes trying to think of everything, and trying to leave nothing to chance or procrastination.

The particular chess variant website I go to has a huge selection of variants to examine or even play by email (with help of diagrammed boards and clocks etc.). There are a lot of bad variants, but some are close to being gems like chess IMHO. At least they compensate for what they lack compared to chess with features chess doesn't have. For example, Shogi (Japanese Chess) has a very low percentage of drawn games, even at elite level. Compared to chess it lacks e.g. a nice average of 40 moves for a whole game, and has less pretty figurines than chess for pieces. On this website chess itself is considered one variant among the many to choose from. The website also has a high proportion of its contributors who are tech-savvy/geniuses, which may be part of the problem for chess variants, more than chess, i.e. they're not so much for the common man to take seriously. There are a number of lists of recommended variants on the website to guide newcomers in choosing their favourites.

Good chess variants are admittedly difficult to invent. I've only been modestly successful with one of 16 of my inventions to date, a 10x10 board variant called Sac Chess, which I produced when I still was of the opinion computers might not be able to master every complex board game in time, if an effort was made. One concern I had with Sac Chess was that games might be too long on average, but so far this hasn't been the case. I also worried there'd be fewer quickie mates for amateurs to fall into (perhaps a good thing), but one opponent found a way to get mated in only 8 moves, by a sort of mate that's impossible in chess:

http://play.chessvariants.com/pbm/pl...m-2017-286-042