The BC Open has 295 people pre-registered with 9 days to go.

[J. Crowhurst]

That includes 104 people in the Under 1000 category. Are other provinces seeing these kinds of turnouts?

Big congrats to Paul Leblanc and the other organizers.

[Frank Dixon]

Extraordinary!!!

[Hans Jung]

Truly fantastic numbers!

[Ian Findlay]

Very well done. The Banff Open benefited from from about 40 BC entries last year. Chess is booming in BC.

[Hal Bond]

Congratulations to Paul and his team! Is there a link for this tournament? The timing is interesting. I am always curious about the anatomy of success.

[Tom O'Donnell]

BCOpen Pre-Registered (victoriachess.com)

Shoutout to Phil Harris and Mau-Seng Lee.

[Fred Henderson]

Very well done. The Banff Open benefited from from about 40 BC entries last year. Chess is booming in BC.

So does anybody know what they are doing differently out there? Might be useful to find out where in BC all those entrants came from. Province wide? Or a local hot spot? Also look at the age/racial distribution of the BC Open entrants. A lot of Asian (Chinese?) youth? Do they put more emphasis on giving the children every advantage? Of course I (we) must be careful when ascribing racial/cultural characteristics.

[Neil Frarey]

Congrats to The Queen's Gambit! ... COVID-19 pandemic! ... online Chess streamers!

Paul Leblanc, BC Open, and other organizers to be right there to reap the benefits for Chess in Canada!!!

[Vlad Drkulec]

There has definitely been a sea change because of Covid, the Queen's Gambit series and the popularity of online platforms. I get more adult students from online platforms than from any other source. Some of them become CFC members after taking a few lessons.

[Salim Belcadi]

Amazing! Congratulations to Paul Leblanc and his team!!

[Fred Henderson]

There has definitely been a sea change because of Covid, the Queen's Gambit series and the popularity of online platforms. I get more adult students from online platforms than from any other source. Some of them become CFC members after taking a few lessons.

What do you mean by "sea change"?

I can see why things like The Queen's Gambit, COVID, and online platforms (like chess.com ?) would play a role, but these things are universal (Canada wide). And have been with us for several years. Why B.C., and why this year? Is the game more popular in BC with adults? Or is the BC open mostly youth?

[Mario Moran-Venegas]

Having acquired a Master Level in Stat pliers I can tell you a few things possible explanations about this data:

1. It is an evil attempt by the BC Chess player to test the maximum capacity of 320.

2. The Microsoft chip in the vaccine is doing its work...get ready.

3.Evil organizers made the fees outrageously cheap at $13.33 a long TC game!! Add this to the exorbitantly low parking fee of $8 a day!!...Get ready.

4. Smart and foreseeing chess players know that La Niña effect is winding down around tournament date and are unsure about the El Niño effect in March. Get ready.

5.BC having allowed possession of small amounts of hard drugs like CHESS has cause reckless abandon in the minds of chess players.

6.Nothing but smart scheduling...Family Day!! ..Divorce rates caused by this money grabbing organizing group will not be noticed.

[Vlad Drkulec]

What do you mean by "sea change"?

I can see why things like The Queen's Gambit, COVID, and online platforms (like chess.com ?) would play a role, but these things are universal (Canada wide). And have been with us for several years. Why B.C., and why this year? Is the game more popular in BC with adults? Or is the BC open mostly youth?

A sea change, is a profound or fundamental transformation.

It isn't just BC. We are seeing this upsurge in Alberta, Ontario and BC so far. Hopefully it is happening everywhere.

At the last Ontario Open, if you waited until the last day of the early registration deadline, it was already too late to get into the tournament. I know because I did wait that long and entries were restricted to titled players.

[Alex Ferreira]

Congrats to the team in BC and great to see chess flourishing there! If I remember correctly, last year the Grand Pacific tournament was also very well attended.

It's as people mentioned above.
Pandemic - online platforms - online streams - Queen's Gambit.

Society (in Canada, it is not the case world wide) has awoken from the pandemic hungry for chess.
Where there are organizers, there's chess being played. And clearly there's chess being played even if there aren't organizers - see below about unrated players.
Clubs are returning / opening up and doing so successfully.
Weekend tournaments are having record turn-outs.

Most importantly, to the point someone made but it wasn't so dug into.
Many many many unrated players. Still, a year on.
And many of them are not beginner-level chess, so they've been playing quite a bit!
This is phenomenal for the chess scene in Canada.
Keep in mind we also lost many players due to the pandemic (I don't mean covid deaths, but people are creatures of habits, and I've noticed many of the pre-pandemic regulars have not returned yet).

I am not sure how long this trend will continue for. Lets hope for a while. If unrated players keep coming up at this rate, we also need to retain them :D so lets see where we end up.

[Paul Leblanc]

Entries are still coming in. We reached room capacity of 314 this morning. Squeezing in a few more to take advantage of the fact that there are a few players with byes in each round.
I have been doing this for 15 years and I can say the biggest change since COVID has been the age demographics. We used to get 70% kids and 30% old guys with most new players being kids. Now half of the new players are in their 20's and 30's and there is more broad age distribution. We're still not attracting enough female players but even that is showing some signs of growth. Much of the credit for the surge in numbers has to go to the Vancouver Chess School which churns out hundreds of graduates every year and to fellow organizers VanCity Chess, Penny Chess Club and Fraser Valley Chess who have been building momentum with numerous and popular one-day Rapid events. Now if only I could play better...