Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

[Alex Ferreira]

Hello all, and Happy New Year of 2018!

---

A new policy was recently announced, and is now in progress:

Chess'n Math will be charging organizers of chess events $20 (tax included) per event to advertise on this site or they can purchase a 2018 subscription for $100 (tax included) which allows them to advertise as many events as they wish in 2018.

They must also post the results here.

Please contact me in order to make your payment. bevand at chess-math dot org

Larry Bevand

---

Hart House will not be advertising its events at Chesstalk in 2018, should this new policy continue. Chess players should expect Hart House to continue hosting its two regular, open to the community tournaments, in February and December. We welcome you to visit our website and facebook group.

---

It's not about the money. $20 is peanuts for the Hart House Chess Club, and those $20 would certainly be paid for in revenue from entries of players who signed up by having seen the Chesstalk post.
In 2018, it will be $20. But why stop there? Hart House and any organizer able to field 150+ players can afford $50 or $100 and it still be a profitable investment. Eventually the question will be: "What will the market bear?" -- And that will be your fee in the year 2020 or 2025.

We at Hart House clearly do not have a good mind for business, because:
- we charge among the lowest entry fees, yet return among the highest percentage of entries in prizes (70%), across the GTA region and SouthWestern Ontario.
- we purchase not only "Chess n Math" carbon copy scoresheets, but also board mats, providing someone else with free publicity.
- when people ask us where to buy chess stuff, we send them over to Strategy Games instead of the Internet.
- we have welcomed retailers and new business initiatives, including Strategy Games / Chess'n' Math on plenty occasions in the past, to come sell at our tournaments, free of charge or commission.

This new policy appears to be a mercantile tactic by a forum that holds a monopoly in advertising in Canadian Chess.
The bigger detriment will come to a new organizer trying to start a chess initiative, where an advertising fee may be significant.
It seems to me that this will take out even more chess out of chess-talk. If anything, it's insulting to be charging those promoting chess.
Meanwhile... anyone else can join the forum, some of them likely under a phony pseudonym, and discuss Trump and climate change, for free.


Alex Ferreira
Hart House Chess Club
https://harthousechess.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TheHartHouseChessClub/

[Roger Patterson]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

Hello all, and Happy New Year of 2018!

---

A new policy was recently announced, and is now in progress:





---

Hart House will not be advertising its events at Chesstalk in 2018, should this new policy continue. Chess players should expect Hart House to continue hosting its two regular, open to the community tournaments, in February and December. We welcome you to visit our website and facebook group.

---

It's not about the money. $20 is peanuts for the Hart House Chess Club, and those $20 would certainly be paid for in revenue from entries of players who signed up by having seen the Chesstalk post.
In 2018, it will be $20. But why stop there? Hart House and any organizer able to field 150+ players can afford $50 or $100 and it still be a profitable investment. Eventually the question will be: "What will the market bear?" -- And that will be your fee in the year 2020 or 2025.

We at Hart House clearly do not have a good mind for business, because:
- we charge among the lowest entry fees, yet return among the highest percentage of entries in prizes (70%), across the GTA region and SouthWestern Ontario.
- we purchase not only "Chess n Math" carbon copy scoresheets, but also board mats, providing someone else with free publicity.
- when people ask us where to buy chess stuff, we send them over to Strategy Games instead of the Internet.
- we have welcomed retailers and new business initiatives, including Strategy Games / Chess'n' Math on plenty occasions in the past, to come sell at our tournaments, free of charge or commission.

This new policy appears to be a mercantile tactic by a forum that holds a monopoly in advertising in Canadian Chess.
The bigger detriment will come to a new organizer trying to start a chess initiative, where an advertising fee may be significant.
It seems to me that this will take out even more chess out of chess-talk. If anything, it's insulting to be charging those promoting chess.
Meanwhile... anyone else can join the forum, some of them likely under a phony pseudonym, and discuss Trump and climate change, for free.


Alex Ferreira
Hart House Chess Club
https://harthousechess.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TheHartHouseChessClub/

As Victoria Chess has an advertisement further down for the bc open , we clearly came to a different conclusion.

But why stop at advertising? Pay your TDs etc nothing as well. Wouldn’t want to encourage them to think that by receiving a a pittance that they could someday charge what the market would bear. And frankly, an organization that charged what the market would bear would be providing enhanced advertising along with metrics supporting their costs. Sounds like something I could live with.

I would hazard a guess that your 70% payout ratio has a lot to do with favourable venue rental rates and the basic cost structure of large events rather than a higher level of benevolence than your competitor organizers.

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

HHCC is free to do what it wants, of course, but the club's position that it's not the $20 that concerns it, rather it's the slippery slope, doesn't seem entirely logical. After all, the club wouldn't be contractually committed. If the slope gets too slippery the club could advertise its events elsewhere. L.B. has been offering what amounts to a free service here for roughly 20 years. If, as you seem to confirm, there is an acceptable business case for paying the $20, then why not go with it?

[John Brown]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

Websites cost money. Larry should charge. I'm glad Niagara Falls Open stopped using Chess talk for its promotion. We may go back to the Good Old days when organizers mailed out flyers to clubs.
I really do not think that chess will end whether you pay Larry or post on your club sites. It's like walking through the yellow pages.

[Neil Frarey]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

We may go back to the Good Old days when organizers mailed out flyers to clubs.

We [ Society of Chess Aficionados a.k.a. SoCA ] copied the entire Clubs listing on chess dot ca ... chess dot ca / clubs. After the laborious task of trying to verify who's who [ what links are still alive etc. ] we are now in the midst of designing our mailchimp campaign for when we launch our new website.

The Clubs listing is very very useful data.

Level up!

[Neil Frarey]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

Add to that, every time there's a problem with the forum, such a virus or whatever, L.B. has to pull someone off what they're currently working on to solve the problem. That person now has to double their $/hr efforts. Once for the forum and twice for their regular duties.

[Jonathan Yu]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

Larry trying to pump up that revenue stream for his website valuation :-)

In all seriousness though, making money and promoting chess are not necessarily unaligned objectives. I'm sure most of the biggest contributors to Canadian Chess make a living from what they do too. They just produce value far greater than their income. There seems to be a stigma regarding people who contribute to chess especially between chess people. For example: teaching chess is not a real job, chess people are cheap etc.

Even for "good" professional jobs, there is a pervasively negative work culture starting to take root so chess isn't so special. For example, once upon a time, it was a big honor I hear to be an accountant, lawyer or doctor but it has become "cool" to complain about your job as locker room talk.

There are tons of smart people here. I think we should all brainstorm more ways for Larry to monetize Chesstalk so he doesn't have to sell. I'm sure whoever he sells to won't be nearly as good or invested as Larry. Remember if chesstalk is worth something, your posts are worth something!

-Jon

[Mavros Whissell]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

ATT: LARRY AND ALEX

Hey Guys,

What about a tit for tat exchange?

If a tournament organized by a third party is advertised on Chesstalk, the organizers could announce Chesstalk as a sponsor for their tournament and distribute some information such as pamphlets about Chess n' Math or Strategy Games?
Especially for smaller tournaments this seems an equitable solution. And then for evidence the organizers could do something like a photo of announcing CnM or SG items to the general public and post it on CT or send it to Larry, clearly showing the announcement at the start of the tournament. Larry or a Chesstalk rep could even be present in some areas.

I think that would be a fair exchange, one advertisement for another. CnM could then advertise most recent tournaments, and Strategy Games could announce a new item or two or sales, etc.

Mavros

[Alex Ferreira]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

Hi Mavros,

There's no doubt in my mind that Chesstalk is the main hot-spot online for advertising chess tournaments. I don't have any issue in recognizing that.
We at Hart House welcome anyone else to advertise their own chess initiatives or doing anything that promotes chess. Irrespective of the new policy, Hart House Chess Club will continue to welcome Strategy Games to set up shop at our tournaments if they would like to. Let us know in advance and we will set up a booth.

Alex Ferreira

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

Hi Mavros,

There's no doubt in my mind that Chesstalk is the main hot-spot online for advertising chess tournaments. I don't have any issue in recognizing that.
We at Hart House welcome anyone else to advertise their own chess initiatives or doing anything that promotes chess. Irrespective of the new policy, Hart House Chess Club will continue to welcome Strategy Games to set up shop at our tournaments if they would like to. Let us know in advance and we will set up a booth.

Alex Ferreira

I haven't been to any of the previous HH tournaments, but I am wondering if Strategy Games has already taken you up on your offer in the past?
(manning a booth for a weekend is a reasonable commitment of time and money, so perhaps it isn't worth it for them?)

[Alex Ferreira]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

I haven't been to any of the previous HH tournaments, but I am wondering if Strategy Games has already taken you up on your offer in the past?
(manning a booth for a weekend is a reasonable commitment of time and money, so perhaps it isn't worth it for them?)

Hi Kerry,
It's been a couple years or longer since the last time they came, but Strategy Games has set up shop at our tournaments in the past, with some regularity.
I don't know too many details, but I believe they've had good and bad sales days here. Our Holidays Open is right before Christmas which is probably their busiest time of the year at the store. I imagine the reason why they stopped is because it wasn't financially viable for them.

Alex F.

[Mavros Whissell]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

Hi Mavros,

There's no doubt in my mind that Chesstalk is the main hot-spot online for advertising chess tournaments. I don't have any issue in recognizing that.
We at Hart House welcome anyone else to advertise their own chess initiatives or doing anything that promotes chess. Irrespective of the new policy, Hart House Chess Club will continue to welcome Strategy Games to set up shop at our tournaments if they would like to. Let us know in advance and we will set up a booth.

Alex Ferreira

Alex this is a good gesture. It carries economic weight too, and therefore has significance beyond a nominal promise.

It's hard to imagine this offer by Alex as anything but completely fair, or more. This is the good-natured humility and sharing that economically challenged sports like chess needs to keep it going. I urge Chess n Math to seriously consider this as an alternative with Heart House and other organizations and clubs. Surely something such as setting up a booth in a tournament cycle that can have tournaments exceeding 150 people is well worth the exchange. The advertising and certainly the occasional sales event at bigger tournaments must be worth more than the $20 fee?

Mavros

[Mavros Whissell]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

Lack of a response is still a response; I've learned in the business world.

I once discussed a business idea with Larry and I find him to be an intelligent and receptive person, but he is also hard-nosed about business - and you have to be to survive. Mining industry and every other industry is the exact same - its about money. And I guess a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

I'm sorry Alex, but I think you were being more than fair.

I don't agree with a monetization of the website without any significant discussion among its many members. Maybe this is a failure in some respect on the CT members to come up with alternatives at an early point. However Chesstalk is what it is, and without enough people to dissent, the policy seems like it will continue unabated. Unfortunately for places like Sudbury, this policy makes little sense due to its tiny tournaments, so Sudbury (not under my control or influence) will probably drop Chesstalk advertising too as I see Matthew hinted at.

I still think the exchange of advertising connection is a much better idea, for all sizes of tournaments. It would be great to spread CnM and Strategy Games business and website in this way. But Larry has to know what he is doing, CnM and SG appear fairly successful in a largely chess ignorant world.

Mavros

[Neil Frarey]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

...in a largely chess ignorant world.

What do you mean by that? And how did you measure that?

[Mavros Whissell]

Re: Hart House & Chesstalk Advertising

What do you mean by that? And how did you measure that?

Chess is not mainstream in Canada where Larry operates.