Recognize Chess as a Sport in Canada

[Vlad Drkulec]

Ok, I didn't realize we were about to argue, but since you say that, it indicates to me that you are in support of public funding for chess. Which means you are ok with yourself waiting up to 45 hours for medical attention in an ER, as long as there is money to have some high number of titled chess players in Canada.

As usual whether posting as Paul or Pergat you continue to construct straw man arguments. I don't live in an area where you have to wait 45 hours. Usually it is about 12 hours to 18 hours but you go to Chatham or Leamington and the wait is much less.

This is mostly bad management and not lack of funds. Young doctors are chased out of the region by the old doctors that control operating room time. I have two brothers who are doctors and a niece and a nephew in medical school with another niece who graduated as a naturopathic doctor. One brother who is an orthopaedic surgeon had to go to the U.S. because he was not getting operating room time. He went for the same pay as he was getting in Canada at first but has done very well since to a level that would not have been possible in Canada. He may be retiring in his early fifties.

That is an interesting advice, do nothing which is of no use. Doesn't chess fall into that category? I'm not referring to the learning of chess, but to the dedicating your entire life to it and the funding of it to create titled players. Of what use to humanity is that? Chess should be a side interest only, just as all sports should be amateur only. If we had plenty of doctors, nurses, engineers and scientists, things would be different, but we are too deficient in all of those.

See my other post about the outcomes for the Ottawa 2013 CYCC under 14 girls section. Only one professional chess player in the bunch but lots of great outcomes.

[Pargat Perrer]

And that is why you fail, Paul Bonham.

The point is not to make a large number of professional chess players. The point is to prepare you to compete and gain strategic skills in larger areas of life.

Lets look at the girls that competed in the 2013 CYCC under 14 girls in Ottawa.

https://www.chess.ca/en/ratings/t/?i...07028&p=152636

The first place finisher Qiyu Zhou became a world champion one year later. She has published academic papers, she has created courses for chessbase, she has been on our Olympiad team several times and is part of an e-sports team and has an online following.

The second and third place players both from the Windsor area and students in my Friday Chess advanced class Erica Forshaw (also my first or second private student along with now IM Rohan Talukdar who both asked me to coach them privately on the same night) and Rachel Tao (daughter of youth coordinator Christina Tao) went on to gain entry into Canada's best engineering school at the University of Waterloo in chemical engineering and nanotechnology respectively. I believe that both are doing very well. Rachel landed a very nice high paying job in California at one of the tech giants. I haven't talked to Erica or her family lately but I am told that she was doing well also.

Agniya Pobereshnikova (tied for fourth with Ashley Tapp and Kristen Li) also started in engineering at Waterloo and was Rachel Tao's roommate. She later transferred into a program in theoretical physics. So the class of 2013 resulted in one top woman player for Canada and at least three girls that made it into Canada's top engineering school. Engineering (and theoretical physics as well) is a profession that tends to be dominated by men but the girls who compete in chess tend to compete in other areas of life successfully as well.

The story does not end there. Ashley Tapp is a student at the University of Toronto. Kristen Li is at Wharton. Janet Peng may have been at Carnegie Mellon studying chemistry or chemical engineering (though may be mixing her up with her sister Jackie who was recently featured in a documentary that spent a few hours giving background information for).

Minya Bai also from Windsor and a member of our Friday chess class at Sobeys got into McGill university.

For the ones that we have been able to keep track of, there have been excellent results in their academic careers and this is typical of chess players both male and female. There are few poor outcomes in this bunch and in most of the young chess players.

If I ever hear from Paul Bonham, I'll be sure and let him know that he really did a number on you Vlad, and you are haunted by him to this day.

Glad to hear about these stories, but if you are taking credit for all these success stories because you helped these young people learn chess, well, have another glass of ego nog.

I am sure all these success stories would have happened without your chess lessons, and again, not against anyone playing chess. I'm against taking these stories to the Ontario government and saying "Put taxpayer money into chess and there will be an explosion of these success stories." There is zero evidence to support that.

I am sure there are "poor outcomes" if you tracked all the young people who have ever studied or played chess, but of course you don't do that.

Chess isn't a magic elixir, it is far from being the only and necessary thing that opens people's minds and enables them to succeed in other fields.

[Vlad Drkulec]

If I ever hear from Paul Bonham, I'll be sure and let him know that he really did a number on you Vlad, and you are haunted by him to this day.

Glad to hear about these stories, but if you are taking credit for all these success stories because you helped these young people learn chess, well, have another glass of ego nog.

I am sure all these success stories would have happened without your chess lessons, and again, not against anyone playing chess. I'm against taking these stories to the Ontario government and saying "Put taxpayer money into chess and there will be an explosion of these success stories." There is zero evidence to support that.

I am sure there are "poor outcomes" if you tracked all the young people who have ever studied or played chess, but of course you don't do that.

Chess isn't a magic elixir, it is far from being the only and necessary thing that opens people's minds and enables them to succeed in other fields.

I am not taking credit. I am pointing out outcomes.

I don't care what a fictional character whose author does not even live in Ontario is for or against. I tell these stories whenever I am talking to a decision maker in government or elsewhere because people remember stories but not statistics which may also tell stories.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Lovely to see Vlad and thats not the minority. I have similar success stories I could post but the point is well taken.

I have many such stories as well but the interesting part of that story is that you have the three girls next on the wall chart after the winner landing in the top engineering school in Canada. Certainly an interesting coincidence.

Every kid who was a part of organized chess that I have been involved in has done well in life even where they have given up chess. The stereotypes of our younger years don't hold up. These are champions in every sense of the word. And not one of them posting on Chesstalk.

[Dilip Panjwani]

I have many such stories as well but the interesting part of that story is that you have the three girls next on the wall chart after the winner landing in the top engineering school in Canada. Certainly an interesting coincidence.

Every kid who was a part of organized chess that I have been involved in has done well in life even where they have given up chess. The stereotypes of our younger years don't hold up. These are champions in every sense of the word. And not one of them posting on Chesstalk.

And top notch companies and Universities have been actively seeking, for a long time, accomplished chess players for their most challenging positions; given that they continue to do so means that they reap good benefits out of doing so..

[Pargat Perrer]

This is mostly bad management and not lack of funds.
....

I already posted a link showing that nurses in Ontario cannot get full time jobs with benefits. Funds would solve at least that problem, and more besides.

So you are ok waiting 12 to 18 hours in an ER for lack of nurses. Nice to know.

[Pargat Perrer]

I am not taking credit. I am pointing out outcomes.

I don't care what a fictional character whose author does not even live in Ontario is for or against. I tell these stories whenever I am talking to a decision maker in government or elsewhere because people remember stories but not statistics which may also tell stories.

But I am a real person living in Ontario. Why else would I care about Ontario taxpayer money going to chess? I'm not anti-chess if that's the brush you are trying to paint me with.

As I've already stated, I'm against Ontario taxpayer money supporting individual athletes of any sport to pursue their sport as adults. I am not against corporations doing the same thing.

[Pargat Perrer]

And top notch companies and Universities have been actively seeking, for a long time, accomplished chess players for their most challenging positions; given that they continue to do so means that they reap good benefits out of doing so..

Ok, so Dilip my Libertarian friend, are you in favor of Ontario taxpayer money funding chess? Even if much of it goes into funding players to travel the world entering tournaments?

I don't dispute your claim. "Accomplished" chess players can do well in many fields, for sure, and I am in favor of them going into those fields rather than chess. By the time a player in university age, he or she is already either "accomplished" or not in chess.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Vlad:

Thanks for taking the time.........and making the point on skills transferable from chess to life............. very clearly.

Bob A

[Dilip Panjwani]

Ok, so Dilip my Libertarian friend, are you in favor of Ontario taxpayer money funding chess? Even if much of it goes into funding players to travel the world entering tournaments?

I don't dispute your claim. "Accomplished" chess players can do well in many fields, for sure, and I am in favor of them going into those fields rather than chess. By the time a player in university age, he or she is already either "accomplished" or not in chess.

Libertarianism is a system wherein individuals, families and other progressively larger units within Bob's LPUs, have the ability to pay for practically everything, including efficiently managed health care and fair sports activities, by themselves, not being burdened by any government managed wasteful systems...

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Dilip:

The Planetary "Collection of Villages" Concept

Just to be clear.....my view is slightly different than Libertarianism.

The electors within a Local Political Unit (LPU) will decide what, if any, services they wish to have provided by their local government. For example, an LPU might decide to have a Disability Support Program, for those disabled such that they cannot work. The electors might feel that these fellow-residents should not be existing solely on the possible charity of their fellow residents, and its uncertainty. Or the residents may want local garbage pick-up, as they have had.

Such a system means that the electors would have to implement some type of self-taxation at a rate that meets their needs.

Also, two contiguous LPU's might decide that it is cheaper for each to have a common garbage pick-up in both LPU's - both will split the cost. No "Higher Level" body likely needs to be created to implement this "Common Contract". But if it is needed, it can be time limited with the length of the pick-up contract, and in future, at the end of the period, it will have to be reviewed.

All LPU's could decide this by themselves, and are not bound by what other LPU's may be doing.

This is the Democratic Marxist twist on it, implementing the principle that the majority should pay for services needed by residents who are incapable of self-supplying their own needs. Also, sometimes, government centralized planning, by the LPU, may be helpful in terms of both cost and efficiency. An example of this might be "Affordable Housing".

Bob A

[Fred Harvey]

Hi Dilip:

The Planetary "Collection of Villages" Concept

Bob A

I haven't been following the details of this concept, so may be out to lunch! Don't we already have this village concept built into our current system - called municipalities. If the argument is to devolve more power to municipalities, as a one-time councillor, I heartily agree. However, there will always be a need for consistency across regions. Otherwise you will forment disputes, and end up with "balkanization" which has a terrible historical record. I'm not seeing how your theoretical model has a hope in hell of working in todays society!

[Fred Harvey]

For what it's worth, I see no evidence that Pargat is someone else. I think he has defined himself pretty clearly, in a way that no other poster would ever do. What a pile of conspirator theorists we have on here......

[Vlad Drkulec]

And that is why you fail, Paul Bonham.

The point is not to make a large number of professional chess players. The point is to prepare you to compete and gain strategic skills in larger areas of life.

Lets look at the girls that competed in the 2013 CYCC under 14 girls in Ottawa.

https://www.chess.ca/en/ratings/t/?i...07028&p=152636

The first place finisher Qiyu Zhou became a world champion one year later. She has published academic papers, she has created courses for chessbase, she has been on our Olympiad team several times and is part of an e-sports team and has an online following.

.

Qiyu Zhou in addition to being an accomplished chess player and online presence also made it into the University of Toronto where she did those published studies.

[Vlad Drkulec]

But I am a real person living in Ontario. Why else would I care about Ontario taxpayer money going to chess? I'm not anti-chess if that's the brush you are trying to paint me with.

As I've already stated, I'm against Ontario taxpayer money supporting individual athletes of any sport to pursue their sport as adults. I am not against corporations doing the same thing.

Yeah, that's your story and you are sticking to it, Paul Bonham. I am sure you will get better at the deception over time if you are not very good at it now. To what end? So that you can write obscenities on a chess discussion boards that might be seen by kids? Real mature.

Every penny that goes to chess will likely see a ten to one or hundred to one saving in other areas like the criminal justice system.