Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

Ask her best friend.

Seriously, the question is open - could a professional marketing firm make the Canadian champion a "celebrity" in the mold of a Tiger Woods? I doubt it. There's just not enough identification ("Hey I could do that") or inspiration ("Hey I can't do that, but I understand why it's so impressive") derived from chess, because laypeople simply don't understand the game well enough. When people feel that identification or inspiration watching someone, that person can become an icon.

David, part of the question revolves around chess itself. I personally agree that classical chess as we all know it cannot appeal to the masses on TV, even for casual (non-club-member) players. However, if you take chess and make a few tweaks, you could have something that would make it on TV. Earlier in this thread, I responded to Garvin Nunes, who was asking what it would take to get a Canadian Closed to happen next year, complete with sponsor(s). I mentioned that if Garvin is a chess purist, as many regular chess players are, then he can at best hope for a break-even event with very few frills.

In that post, here is what I wrote about what I personally think is needed to get something RESEMBLING chess on TV (the purists will flame all this, but none of it is meant to take the game of classical chess away from them):

1. Change the game to have some element of luck. This allows Joe Woodpusher to enter with at least a glimmer of winning something.

2. Change the game to contain multiple games within a game. Poker has hands, baseball has innings, hockey, basketball, football all have stoppages of play, golf has holes, tennis has games and sets, bowling has frames. My suggestion for chess is to do away completely with the opening, which is a sore spot anyway, and have a match be a series of middlegame positions (determined perhaps by some other skill of each player, and containing no more than 8 pieces / pawns per side including the King, making each position more understandable by a chess newbie spectator) which all contribute to a total match score.

3. Allow the players to talk to each other during the game. Encourage it, in fact. In poker, it's part of the game, because the players try and influence each other's decisions. This influencing of decisions could also happen in a modified chess that didn't have perfect information.

4. Create a more dynamic scoring / rating system. This really goes hand-in-hand with point 2.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

Paul, I'm getting confused. Where are the original comments from Jean Hebert that have upset you so much?

Peter, are you referring to Jean's comments condemning Hal Bond? If so, they were contained in this thread (warning, it's a biggie):

http://www.chesstalk.info/forum/showthread.php?t=1894

If that's not what you are meaning, I'm not sure what original comments from Jean Hebert you are referring to.

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

David, part of the question revolves around chess itself. I personally agree that classical chess as we all know it cannot appeal to the masses on TV, even for casual (non-club-member) players. However, if you take chess and make a few tweaks, you could have something that would make it on TV. Earlier in this thread, I responded to Garvin Nunes, who was asking what it would take to get a Canadian Closed to happen next year, complete with sponsor(s). I mentioned that if Garvin is a chess purist, as many regular chess players are, then he can at best hope for a break-even event with very few frills.

In that post, here is what I wrote about what I personally think is needed to get something RESEMBLING chess on TV (the purists will flame all this, but none of it is meant to take the game of classical chess away from them):

1. Change the game to have some element of luck. This allows Joe Woodpusher to enter with at least a glimmer of winning something.

2. Change the game to contain multiple games within a game. Poker has hands, baseball has innings, hockey, basketball, football all have stoppages of play, golf has holes, tennis has games and sets, bowling has frames. My suggestion for chess is to do away completely with the opening, which is a sore spot anyway, and have a match be a series of middlegame positions (determined perhaps by some other skill of each player, and containing no more than 8 pieces / pawns per side including the King, making each position more understandable by a chess newbie spectator) which all contribute to a total match score.

3. Allow the players to talk to each other during the game. Encourage it, in fact. In poker, it's part of the game, because the players try and influence each other's decisions. This influencing of decisions could also happen in a modified chess that didn't have perfect information.

4. Create a more dynamic scoring / rating system. This really goes hand-in-hand with point 2.

That's got to be the stupidest thing I've ever read on ChessTalk.

[Garvin Nunes]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

...There really isn't anything wrong with wanting a bigger prize fund and better playing conditions for a national championship...

This part of what Jean is saying does make total sense.

I'm still wondering if anyone here cares to convert words into action.

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

Captain Succinct strikes again!! :D Did you ever get your book from you-know-who?

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

Yes, that's the thread I was looking for. I read all of Jean Hebert's posts and as many of the others as I had time to get through. That thread and this one are two big threads but, frankly, I was left with one very clear impression from all of this, viz.: Jean Hebert generally made his points logically and effectively. I think that you and a lot of others need to listen more carefully to what Jean is saying.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

That's got to be the stupidest thing I've ever read on ChessTalk.

Oh, of course, I forgot the most critical part:

"what I personally think is needed to get something RESEMBLING chess on TV on a regular basis

Without that added part (in bold), it IS stupid. Anyone can get chess on TV.... ONCE.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

I don't know if your suggestions will get chess on TV on a regular basis or not. However, I am sure that dummying-down chess is going to alienate chessplayers.

Trying to attract the average person to chess is just a losing proposition.

Really, do you think a land with an almost uncountable number of chowderheads is ever going to be interested in anything more taxing to their brains than "Deal or No Deal"? Gee, should I pick box 3 or 17? What a mental challenge!

Yet these are the people you hope will be interested in chess? Seriously? Chess is an elitist game played by elitist people - people who find thinking interesting. What percentage of the population does anything requiring thought (as opposed to impulse) for the fun of it?

George Carlin summed it up best: “Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider.”

[Carl Bilodeau]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

I don't know if your suggestions will get chess on TV on a regular basis or not. However, I am sure that dummying-down chess is going to alienate chessplayers.

Trying to attract the average person to chess is just a losing proposition.

Really, do you think a land with an almost uncountable number of chowderheads is ever going to be interested in anything more taxing to their brains than "Deal or No Deal"? Gee, should I pick box 3 or 17? What a mental challenge!

Yet these are the people you hope will be interested in chess? Seriously? Chess is an elitist game played by elitist people - people who find thinking interesting. What percentage of the population does anything requiring thought (as opposed to impulse) for the fun of it?

George Carlin summed it up best: “Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider.”

You make my day with this message. :)

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

Really, do you think a land with an almost uncountable number of chowderheads is ever going to be interested in anything more taxing to their brains than "Deal or No Deal"? Gee, should I pick box 3 or 17? What a mental challenge!

Hey, don't slag Deal or No Deal quite so readily... clearly, picking which case is purely a question of which model you want to see up close (not a bad thing) BUT that show appeals to the mathematically-challenged... a HUGE section of the population. The same crowd that plays Lotto 649 and correctly observe that they double their chance of winning by having two tickets...

One observation though: it is usually a chowderhead that walks away with a suitcase of money or wins the lottery... I haven't noticed Stephen Hawking winning either lately. At least on 'Jeopardy' or 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' you likely have to know something - or do you?

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

I don't know if your suggestions will get chess on TV on a regular basis or not. However, I am sure that dummying-down chess is going to alienate chessplayers.

Trying to attract the average person to chess is just a losing proposition.

Really, do you think a land with an almost uncountable number of chowderheads is ever going to be interested in anything more taxing to their brains than "Deal or No Deal"? Gee, should I pick box 3 or 17? What a mental challenge!

Yet these are the people you hope will be interested in chess? Seriously? Chess is an elitist game played by elitist people - people who find thinking interesting. What percentage of the population does anything requiring thought (as opposed to impulse) for the fun of it?

George Carlin summed it up best: “Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider.”

You bring up excellent points, and thanks for the Carlin quote, I'd forgotten that one!

First: "dummying-down chess is going to alienate chessplayers".

Yes, it is, BUT.... once they see poker-like prize funds materializing because the dummying-down (I like to think of it as "luck enhancing") is bringing in flocks of entrants who believe they have enough skill that just a little luck could see them win it all, do you think the chessplayers will be so alienated as to not participate? We are talking about life-changing amounts of money. Additionally, possible international stardom beyond what any current GM is used to.

Next: "Trying to attract the average person to chess is just a losing proposition."

Yes, if you are meaning attracting them to spectating of chess (I'm assuming that's your meaning). That's why the luck-enhancing is necessary. Nothing else will bring in - repeatedly - the average non-chess-playing person to spectate chess. Well, maybe free beer, but even if someone offered that as an incentive, thinking they could make a profit, they'd end up finding out that getting juiced only makes the public LESS interested in chess. Still, it would have made a great Seinfeld story line, Kramer and Newman trying it out... the spectators getting rowdier and rowdier, the GMs glaring at them for making noise, an eventual melee....

Next: "Yet these are the people you hope will be interested in chess? Seriously? Chess is an elitist game played by elitist people"

I didn't actually write that I hope anything, but yes, I do hope that something resembling chess, in which chess moves must be made to win, but in which luck plays a significant part as well, can become very popular and result in poker-like prize funds and international competitions broadcast on TV. The elitist aspect is the inertia that has to be overcome, but enough money can overcome anything.

I could just be satisfied with poker, but I find that poker is too much on the opposite end of the skill vs luck spectrum as chess. There can't be a Tiger Woods of poker, the luck gets in the way. There needs to be a game that is somewhere in the middle of the skill vs. luck spectrum and in which the skill part is the kind of thinking that is embodied in chess.

I have devised such a game, with a complete set of rules and a computer program that generates the chess portion of the game, and I am beginning to plan for a round of testing, probably in the spring of 2010. I will recruit, likely through Craig's List, both regular poker and regular chess players in my local area, because one of the eventual selling points to TV networks is that pitting pro poker players vs. GM-level chess players would be a major attraction to the general public. There's a huge TV audience for poker, and poker does require thought and analysis (calculation of probabilities). But what adds interest to it is the psychological element: the fact that the players talk to and cajole each other, and no one but the TV audience knows the entire truth. That element is something I listed as necessary for TV success, IMO.

BTW, if you read this Gary Ruben, this is NOT the chess variant I was asking if you and your CC friends would want to try out. That was a completely different thing, one of my many ideas for chess variants.

[Carl Bilodeau]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

You bring up excellent points, and thanks for the Carlin quote, I'd forgotten that one!

First: "dummying-down chess is going to alienate chessplayers".

Yes, it is, BUT.... once they see poker-like prize funds materializing because the dummying-down (I like to think of it as "luck enhancing") is bringing in flocks of entrants who believe they have enough skill that just a little luck could see them win it all, do you think the chessplayers will be so alienated as to not participate? We are talking about life-changing amounts of money. Additionally, possible international stardom beyond what any current GM is used to.

Next: "Trying to attract the average person to chess is just a losing proposition."

Yes, if you are meaning attracting them to spectating of chess (I'm assuming that's your meaning). That's why the luck-enhancing is necessary. Nothing else will bring in - repeatedly - the average non-chess-playing person to spectate chess. Well, maybe free beer, but even if someone offered that as an incentive, thinking they could make a profit, they'd end up finding out that getting juiced only makes the public LESS interested in chess. Still, it would have made a great Seinfeld story line, Kramer and Newman trying it out... the spectators getting rowdier and rowdier, the GMs glaring at them for making noise, an eventual melee....

Next: "Yet these are the people you hope will be interested in chess? Seriously? Chess is an elitist game played by elitist people"

I didn't actually write that I hope anything, but yes, I do hope that something resembling chess, in which chess moves must be made to win, but in which luck plays a significant part as well, can become very popular and result in poker-like prize funds and international competitions broadcast on TV. The elitist aspect is the inertia that has to be overcome, but enough money can overcome anything.

I could just be satisfied with poker, but I find that poker is too much on the opposite end of the skill vs luck spectrum as chess. There can't be a Tiger Woods of poker, the luck gets in the way. There needs to be a game that is somewhere in the middle of the skill vs. luck spectrum and in which the skill part is the kind of thinking that is embodied in chess.

I have devised such a game, with a complete set of rules and a computer program that generates the chess portion of the game, and I am beginning to plan for a round of testing, probably in the spring of 2010. I will recruit, likely through Craig's List, both regular poker and regular chess players in my local area, because one of the eventual selling points to TV networks is that pitting pro poker players vs. GM-level chess players would be a major attraction to the general public. There's a huge TV audience for poker, and poker does require thought and analysis (calculation of probabilities). But what adds interest to it is the psychological element: the fact that the players talk to and cajole each other, and no one but the TV audience knows the entire truth. That element is something I listed as necessary for TV success, IMO.

BTW, if you read this Gary Ruben, this is NOT the chess variant I was asking if you and your CC friends would want to try out. That was a completely different thing, one of my many ideas for chess variants.

THE RULES:

When it is my turn to play I roll the dices and this tells me which of my pawns or the king I can move (no knight, no queens, no bisshops and no rooks as you said). If I am a GM I will try to find the less worst move possible wearing sun glasses. Then I move the pawn or the king and I have to pick a card for the square where my piece go. I take this card and have to play a poker hand againts my oponent. If I lose then the piece has to go back where it was if my opponent ask me to do so (if my opponent is no good at chess I should pretend the move is either bad of good and hide my emotions).

It would for sure be very appreciated in Schools all over the world. It could even become more popular than Chess-boxing.

Carl

[Craig Sadler]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

In that post, here is what I wrote about what I personally think is needed to get something RESEMBLING chess on TV (the purists will flame all this, but none of it is meant to take the game of classical chess away from them):

1. Change the game to have some element of luck. This allows Joe Woodpusher to enter with at least a glimmer of winning something.

2. Change the game to contain multiple games within a game. Poker has hands, baseball has innings, hockey, basketball, football all have stoppages of play, golf has holes, tennis has games and sets, bowling has frames. My suggestion for chess is to do away completely with the opening, which is a sore spot anyway, and have a match be a series of middlegame positions (determined perhaps by some other skill of each player, and containing no more than 8 pieces / pawns per side including the King, making each position more understandable by a chess newbie spectator) which all contribute to a total match score.

3. Allow the players to talk to each other during the game. Encourage it, in fact. In poker, it's part of the game, because the players try and influence each other's decisions. This influencing of decisions could also happen in a modified chess that didn't have perfect information.

4. Create a more dynamic scoring / rating system. This really goes hand-in-hand with point 2.

blitz matches would cover most of these...you could have it split screen (or picture in picture) of the electronic board with camera angles on the players. they can talk back and forth or there could be play by play. in any case, on a 3-minute blitz game it would last about 5 minutes, they could do a little replay of the "losing/winning move" with quick alternatives and maybe post a little thicker analysis in a sound byte on a website. you would need some chess players who weren't introverted, but that would show more of the sporting side of chess than the technical side. you could do thematic, fischer random, middlegame positions, etc. based on this theme. the personalities help t.v. poker as much as being able to have more information than the players.

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Few personal notes about Canadian Closed

How about a show called So You Think You Can Dance and Play Chess at the Same Time? or Chess Idol? (you have to kibitz and sing at the same time)