A new strategic plan for the Chess Federation of Canada

[J. Crowhurst]

Players are driven by ego. The CFC should be looking at fodder to feed that need, as should the larger provincial federations.

One element might be a web page that is a bit more professional than the current one, and a lot more interactive. It might have a lot more content that is dedicated to the accomplishments of lower-rated players. An example would be, alongside the lists of top players, juniors, and other age brackets, have lists of the players who were top ten in rating increase from the previous month, or a list of the biggest upsets in the past month. Perhaps the latter might link to a 10 minute video that covers a few of those games, with analysis by somebody titled of the key positions in the game. The video content might also include a brief interview with the winner of one of those games.

Along the same lines, the CFC might consider having a YouTube page. One possible source of video content could be chess tournaments themselves, with a videographer present approved by the CFC to shoot footage of gameplay from a distance, and narrative or interview content between rounds. Whatever. Something that the players who played in the tournament might watch in the hopes of seeing themselves or their friends mentioned. I'm thinking a 44 minute piece structured similarly to those shows that cover poker tournaments that consist of play, profiles of players, analysis, and interviews. There would be a learning curve, but if the people making that content get good enough, it isn't entirely unthinkable that one of the sports or fringe TV channels might be interested in buying a package of 10 episodes that they can air at 3 am (3:30 in Newfoundland, ha ha). The provincial federations would have to be on board for this, obviously.

The CFC might consider promoting the awarding of trophies or medals as prizes for all sections and rating groups, and in particular trophies for top juniors in each section. Trophies become a permanent reminder of a player's success, and perhaps more importantly, for juniors it's a permanent reminder for the player's parents of their child's success, and a positive reinforcement for them to encourage the player's future participation.

Here in B.C., there used to be a weekend three day swiss tournament, the B.C. Amateur Championship, held concurrently with the B.C. Closed Championship. Anybody who was not eligible by rating to play in the B.C. Championship could enter the Amateur. Over the years, there was discussion about having the winner of the Amateur be granted a seat in the following year's B.C. Closed. I don't know if they ever tried that, I didn't stick around long enough. I only know they stopped organizing the Amateur event some years ago. The CFC (and provinces) might consider doing such a thing for their respective championships. The promotional value of having a... [insert favoured term here] ...in a provincial or national championship would be great, and the presence of such a player would be doing little violence to the reputation of the top event.

The unspoken undercurrent in all of these suggestions is that we are trying to retain the younger players for as long as possible until they graduate from high school or university and enter the workforce. Once they are working for a living, their priorities will change, and the influence of the actions CFC et al will be diminished in terms of getting them to continue turning out.

[Vlad Drkulec]

A lot of interesting and useful ideas in your post Mr. Crowhurst.

My own perspective on the loss of juniors as high school gets more intense and jockeying for position at Universities becomes more of an issue is that we need to instill a love for chess which somehow compels them to return to chess once adulthood kicks in.

The statistics that would be needed might come from a new rating system. A youtube channel would require some of the same skills that many of our top players that are active in this sphere already have.

[David Ottosen]

Players are driven by ego. The CFC should be looking at fodder to feed that need, as should the larger provincial federations.

I couldn't disagree more with your central premise. If you promise ego boost from chess, you are making a promise you can't deliver upon, which leads to quick abandonment of the product.

Classical OTB chess should be promoting the challenge and the difficulty, not that you're going to objectively succeed. Because you won't; you might have relative success, you can play a good game, you can outperform your rating, but you aren't going to go win the weekend swiss if there's a bunch of masters playing.

[Erik Malmsten]

The CFC is the national chess body and so has the obligation to organize Canada’s participation internationally. A major purpose is finding players and funds for national champions and teams. Bernard Freedman raised funds for our first Olympiad team in 1939, and organized the 1957 World Junior in Toronto, lobbying for government funding. But he was also very busy at the local level. Organizing a local club, inter-club events, and local championships, teaching 1,000s of kids in schools, and getting press attention such as with the annual chess festival.

The CFC is made up of organizers whose main volunteer chess activity is running local clubs, local newsletters or websites, and local weekend tournaments. Provincial and national championships rotate among these great people. Some now make a living teaching chess, in person and online. But everyone only has a few hours available for national chess. And it can be wasted in endless discussions, rather than assigning tasks. The CFC used to have a manager who calculated ratings, wrote and mailed the newsletter, and sold equipment. The jobs of the CFC are too big for one person.

There are more players in youth tournaments than adult. When I go to a kids softball game there is always a group of parents helping out. And the same happens in chess. Parents can help set up and clean up, keep the noise down, and provide or pickup food. Some of our hardest working organizers are parent volunteers who stay with chess after their child has moved on. Sometimes a parent owns or works at a business that can donate a prize, or provide a playing hall for free, or advertise an event. Cold selling does not get sponsors, inside connections do. Many of the youth champions of the past have high paying IT jobs now, so may, at some point, be able to donate something back to chess.

There is a pyramid of strength:
- the 14 GMs, 35 IMs, 2 WGs and 13 WMs at the top,
- the 1,000 who play rated chess,
- and the million Canadians who play casually.

The CFC has to help the masters by providing championships and playing opportunities with titled opponents, with FIDE paperwork, training IAs and organizers, and help in getting jobs as school teachers, simultaneous performers at conferences and festivals, or internet streamers. The present method of collecting CFC memberships from tournament players is not a sufficient means of funding our FIDE participation. Licensing chess teachers was an idea, but there is the liability issue. Advertising at chess tournaments/websites is a small, but educated market. Surely there is some company that pollutes the environment or our bodies that would benefit from sponsoring the mental accomplishment of chess?
The CFC also needs to meet the needs of the 1,000 tournament players (4,110 in 1978) such as maintaining the up to date rating system and informing them of new FIDE rules. But more: to make them feel that they are accomplishing something or getting better, keep them interested in continuing to play (and pay). Players need to get public recognition when they have an upset win or draw, win a section, move up a class, or make a big rating gain. This doesn’t cost money like giving out a trophy. The CFC does have certificates for reaching a class. I’m partly interested in chess because I have the illusion that I have some talent for it.

For the million of casual players the CFC can be a source for learning the rules and tricks, information about chess clubs and where to get chess lessons, where to watch masters play, and why should they play in tournaments and get a real rating. To reach the million, chess organizers need to engage the media, to have a contact person for chess news, to participate in social media. To be on streaming sites. How many tournaments have live interviews online? As well as to reach people by participating in community events such as school and street fairs, having posters in libraries, notices in community newspapers. There were large chess sets on the street in Yorkville a few weeks ago, and on King Street this upcoming weekend for the Toronto film festival. Would be nice to have someone wearing a chess t-shirt handing out flyers on the services of the CFC (if there are any) to those watching the game. Wherever people see chess, the CFC logo should be there.

[J. Crowhurst]

I couldn't disagree more with your central premise. If you promise ego boost from chess, you are making a promise you can't deliver upon, which leads to quick abandonment of the product.

Classical OTB chess should be promoting the challenge and the difficulty, not that you're going to objectively succeed. Because you won't; you might have relative success, you can play a good game, you can outperform your rating, but you aren't going to go win the weekend swiss if there's a bunch of masters playing.

You misunderstand. I'm talking about ego in terms of the drive, not the result. "This could be you" is the appeal to ego, in a phrase.

For some people, the lack of positive results will lead to abandonment of the activity. But the existence of Las Vegas proves that lots of people will happily persist despite negative outcomes.

[Fred Henderson]

I have been ill for a while, but I'm back up to speed. You may wish to have a look at the American Bridge Association. Bridge is rock solid, at least in the U.S.

[Pargat Perrer]

.....

For some people, the lack of positive results will lead to abandonment of the activity. But the existence of Las Vegas proves that lots of people will happily persist despite negative outcomes.

The success of Las Vegas casinos owes itself to games of CHANCE. Slots, craps, roulette, blackjack, etc.

You cannot apply this to a game of perfect information like chess.

Don't believe it? Maybe you didn't hear about Maurice Ashley's attempt (along with Amy Lee, a Canadian entrepeneur) to turn chess into a Las Vegas attraction in 2014, 2015, 2016. He started the infamous "Millionaire Chess Open".

Millionaire Chess - Wikipedia

The result was totally predictable .... the appeal to the chess players' egos was met enthusiastically at first (but less enthusiastically than hoped). The second attempt, the egos were in retreat. The 3rd and LAST year, only the hardiest of egos remained. And that was all she wrote.

Perhaps J. Crowhurst you didn't know about this, but you know now. Chess can never be poker.

Chess is unique in that it is a game of perfect information, which to my mind disqualifies it from ever being a sport. So is checkers, a game that unlike chess has been 100% solved. Even though chess can likely never be 100% solved, just the fact that it has perfect information means the best players will almost always, with only the smallest of variation, rise to the top. Yes, there are upsets because rating systems are too static, not nearly up to date enough to truly capture things like the rapid improvement of junior players, for example. It is junior players who have the best chances to progress in chess.

There are 2 main points to be made about people who take up chess and are driven by ego:

- people who take up the game early in childhood: by the time they are about 24, 25, maybe even younger, they are as good as they will ever get, even if their rating might fluctuate plus or minus 100 points.

- people who take up chess in their 20s or later: they can never rise to the cream of the crop, because they missed out on memorizing opening theory during their childhood. Although it might be possible ... that a person with photographic memory could take up chess at 30 and get very good by virtue of memorizing all the best lines of opening theory, while also having natural knack for middlegames and endgames. I don't know if any such person has ever attempted this.

Given those 2 points, it seems provoking the ego is not a workable means to get people who don't have photographic memory into chess.

So the adult chess player is either a devout lover of chess or s/he is not. If s/he is not, s/he will abandon the game if s/he is not good enough to consistently win events. If s/he is, s/he will remain a club player and maybe a regular rated tournament player. There are only so many of these people in existence. To try and "create" them in their adulthood is doomed to very limited "success". Just ask Maurice Ashley and Amy Lee.

[Vlad Drkulec]

The present method of collecting CFC memberships from tournament players is not a sufficient means of funding our FIDE participation.

I am not sure that I agree with that premise. It would be nice if there were more ways to fund FIDE participation but currently we are meeting our funding requirements sometimes with the help of FIDE.

A nice thoughtful post.

Getting funding is all about relationships but sometimes it is just the right time and the right place.

The biggest change from a few years ago to today is our embrace of Sport Tourism. This actually started some years ago but in 2018 we started to attend the Canadian Sport Tourism conferences at the expense of the organizers. These later became Sport Tourism Canada conferences when the organization changed its name. We formed relationships which led to most of the recent and upcoming headline tournaments. The big change has been that we are no longer seeing situations where organizers lose money by organizing these events. Most organizers get somewhere between $5000 and as much as $20,000 from their local tourism bureaus for these big flagship events. The net effect is that the CFC no longer has to subsidize these events as we had to in the past.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Getting funding is all about relationships but sometimes it is just the right time and the right place.

Considering recent and future high profile tournaments in Toronto, people have monies for chess in Canada.

[Fred Henderson]

Considering recent and future high profile tournaments in Toronto, people have monies for chess in Canada.

hmmm, so much emphasis on money tournaments. Fueled by demands for prize money, mostly from those who have a good chance to make it back. Which is fine. People can play or not.

Let me ask you. Technically, the CFC only concerns itself with a rating fee, which is between the promoter and the CFC. Also there is membership fees, either a tournament fee or a yearly membership. Technically, neither the CFC, nor the GTCL, since we are talking about Toronto, concerns itself with prize money. That is between the promoter/organizer and the players. Correect on both points?

Based on your reply, I have some ideas that I might put to the test. I know a lot of good players who don't care about playing for money, just the love of the game, and continual improvement. being the best you can be is also big. They may be amenable to some kind of relatively inexpensive way of getting themselves onto the FIDE rating list. To be perfectly honest, the CFC rating doesn't mean much to the players I hang with, both at the tables and on the net. I also I have some hooks into some good spaces for small and large tournaments.

Awaiting your reply...

[J. Crowhurst]

The success of Las Vegas casinos owes itself to games of CHANCE. Slots, craps, roulette, blackjack, etc.

You cannot apply this to a game of perfect information like chess.

Don't believe it? Maybe you didn't hear about Maurice Ashley's attempt (along with Amy Lee, a Canadian entrepeneur) to turn chess into a Las Vegas attraction in 2014, 2015, 2016. He started the infamous "Millionaire Chess Open".

Millionaire Chess - Wikipedia

The result was totally predictable .... the appeal to the chess players' egos was met enthusiastically at first (but less enthusiastically than hoped). The second attempt, the egos were in retreat. The 3rd and LAST year, only the hardiest of egos remained. And that was all she wrote.

Perhaps J. Crowhurst you didn't know about this, but you know now. Chess can never be poker.

Chess is unique in that it is a game of perfect information, which to my mind disqualifies it from ever being a sport. So is checkers, a game that unlike chess has been 100% solved. Even though chess can likely never be 100% solved, just the fact that it has perfect information means the best players will almost always, with only the smallest of variation, rise to the top. Yes, there are upsets because rating systems are too static, not nearly up to date enough to truly capture things like the rapid improvement of junior players, for example. It is junior players who have the best chances to progress in chess.

There are 2 main points to be made about people who take up chess and are driven by ego:

- people who take up the game early in childhood: by the time they are about 24, 25, maybe even younger, they are as good as they will ever get, even if their rating might fluctuate plus or minus 100 points.

- people who take up chess in their 20s or later: they can never rise to the cream of the crop, because they missed out on memorizing opening theory during their childhood. Although it might be possible ... that a person with photographic memory could take up chess at 30 and get very good by virtue of memorizing all the best lines of opening theory, while also having natural knack for middlegames and endgames. I don't know if any such person has ever attempted this.

Given those 2 points, it seems provoking the ego is not a workable means to get people who don't have photographic memory into chess.

So the adult chess player is either a devout lover of chess or s/he is not. If s/he is not, s/he will abandon the game if s/he is not good enough to consistently win events. If s/he is, s/he will remain a club player and maybe a regular rated tournament player. There are only so many of these people in existence. To try and "create" them in their adulthood is doomed to very limited "success". Just ask Maurice Ashley and Amy Lee.

Jesus f***, this is what you're choosing to argue about?

I'm really only interested in talking about issues relating to increasing turnout, membership, and revenue. I don't think anybody is interested in your thoughts on what I know and what I don't, or anything else that you have mentioned above.

[Pargat Perrer]

Jesus f***, this is what you're choosing to argue about?

I'm really only interested in talking about issues relating to increasing turnout, membership, and revenue. I don't think anybody is interested in your thoughts on what I know and what I don't, or anything else that you have mentioned above.

Holy Moses, this is what YOU are choosing to get pissed off about?

I wasn't arguing.

You suggested that the CFC can use people's egos as a hook into chess, and you mentioned Las Vegas and its success story in getting people to lay out money to try and win more money. I merely showed 2 things: that Las Vegas' success is only pertinent to games of chance, which chess is not, and secondly that this attempt to target people's egos was already attempted before in chess, in fact in Las Vegas, and it failed miserably, despite huge investments and huge marketing efforts.

I don't care at all whether or not you knew about the Millionaire Chess misadventure, I merely suggested that maybe you didn't know because it was such a potent demonstration that appealing to people's egos isn't going to work to expand chess. And this question of whether you knew or didn't know is what you choose to get pissed about. Weird!

Let's not bicker over what you knew or didn't know and just agree that competitive chess cannot grow by appealing to people's egos, ok?

[Dilip Panjwani]

You misunderstand. I'm talking about ego in terms of the drive, not the result. "This could be you" is the appeal to ego, in a phrase.

For some people, the lack of positive results will lead to abandonment of the activity. But the existence of Las Vegas proves that lots of people will happily persist despite negative outcomes.

You are right, in a way. Chess players generally have a lot of 'faith' in their favorite openings and defenses, and in their strategies, forgetting how bad they are in tactics (like gamblers who have faith in their 'luck', forgetting that statistically they are almost certainly going to lose money gambling in Las Vegas).

[J. Crowhurst]

...and just agree that competitive chess cannot grow by appealing to people's egos, ok?

I can certainly agree to disagree on that point, and agree that the rest of it doesn't merit further discussion.

I have often found that when two well-informed and reasonable people disagree about something, then usually they aren't talking about precisely the same thing. I think I didn't communicate my point well, which has resulted in some misunderstanding (not just with you). I'll try to think of a better way of putting it. Even "achievement" instead of "ego" might have been an improvement.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

hmmm, so much emphasis on money tournaments. Fueled by demands for prize money, mostly from those who have a good chance to make it back. Which is fine. People can play or not.

Let me ask you. Technically, the CFC only concerns itself with a rating fee, which is between the promoter and the CFC. Also there is membership fees, either a tournament fee or a yearly membership. Technically, neither the CFC, nor the GTCL, since we are talking about Toronto, concerns itself with prize money. That is between the promoter/organizer and the players. Correect on both points?

Based on your reply, I have some ideas that I might put to the test. I know a lot of good players who don't care about playing for money, just the love of the game, and continual improvement. being the best you can be is also big. They may be amenable to some kind of relatively inexpensive way of getting themselves onto the FIDE rating list. To be perfectly honest, the CFC rating doesn't mean much to the players I hang with, both at the tables and on the net. I also I have some hooks into some good spaces for small and large tournaments.

Awaiting your reply...

"people have monies for chess in Canada." - it just mean that there were people interested in running/seeing high-profile tournaments (and reminder the last and this year chess.com super event; the next year FIDE Candidates). These are not your regular weekend Opens.

As for your interest in any tournaments - go for it. It is up to you to run any kind of chess tournament with some exclusions:
* you want to have not rated event - more than welcome to do it. Then CFC or OCA or GTCL will not bark at you at all :)
* no money prizes - if you'll find players - you'll have a tournament. There was one already advertised while ago. I think it had a decent number of players. You could find results at the CFC website.
* with CFC/FIDE rated events, you'll need to do your homework what and whom you need.

CFC and GTCL might get after your if you would want to run like Canadian Open (in July); or Toronto Closed (in Spring). In principle "naming rights"

As for your hooks - it is valuable information. You should talk with local organizers about it.