What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

They [players at the base of the pyramid] need to feel a greater sense of pride and accomplishment in what they are doing. Having them repeatedly losing games in the first 12 moves because they simply haven't read their ECO book cover to cover is the wrong way.

No player I know of reads ECO cover to cover.

There is memorization, yes, but for the most important, critical lines, and to learn traps (primarily to avoid falling into them).

Learning how to narrow down memory work, if a player wishes, is a normal part of learning how to play tournament chess. Some players like to learn buckets of theory, but even then a lot of the time they don't get to use it in a given game, at least below IM level.

Often I use books as way to see what to AVOID. I memorize the stuff that's useful to survive the opening, and to put difficulties in the way of the opponent if it doesn't cost too much forced memory work.

Most players soon get past losing in the first 12 moves, if I am to take you literally. They may get a slightly worse position, but that is not why they lose. It is mainly tactical and (less so, perhaps) positional blunders. Opening study can be relatively skimpy for a long time in one's career. Understanding chess and doing tactical exercises is most important for class players, if they wish to advance. If they can't figure it out on their own, they can buy better books, hire a coach, or make friends with stronger players.

Class players can still win class prizes, so that's some satisfaction enough for many, if they have no great ambition to improve quickly. Not to mention the other possible satisfactions of chess (e.g. the odd interesting game, for them; the feel of battle; getting away from the home life a bit), and the social stuff before and after games.

Players who get frustrated (with poor results and stymied chess ambitions) that leave organized chess quickly may be a normal aspect of the turnover for a sporting/gaming organization like the CFC. It's up to the CFC to do a better job of bringing in more new members to replace those who 'wash out'.

[Jean Hébert]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

Once the newbies realize that they they aren't ever going to be able to say "I came, I saw, I kicked butt", they will leave. Jean made basically the same point in reference to the base.

Do not flatter yourself. I made no such point and any point of agreement between your "views" and mine would be pure coincidence based on opposite reasons.

He really believes that organizers are lax or lazy if they aren't constantly bringing in corporate sponsors. He really believes that even in this horrible economy, there are corporations willing to put money into chess if ONLY someone would ask them.

Well lets look at some facts. "Tour du Québec" (FQE Grand Prix so to speak) sponsored (10,000$), Championnat ouvert du Saguenay 2010 in April, heavyly sponsored (prize fund over 5,000$ for about probably 60-75 players), Championnat ouvert de Lanaudière 2010 coming up later in April, prize fund over 5,000$, very sponsored. The FQE's junior championships and Quebec Open will be sponsored this year (for the first time, in a "bad economy"...). In short, almost all major events in Québec this year have found sponsorship and some on a rather impressive scale. Congratulations on the people responsible for that, namely FQE president Marc Poulin, tournament organizers Éric Gravel, Patrice Gérard, and Ronald Thibault (I forgot to mention the "ch. ouvert de Montmagny" which was also sponsored) and others.
Even in difficult economic times, some businesses do well and sponsorship continues and sometimes activities requiring relatively smaller amounts of sponsorship have better chances...

[Jean Hébert]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

I was responding to your points one by one. Your arguments, on the other hand, lack specific solutions.

There is time and place for specific solutions. You should try to understand that. Without agreeing on some basic principles and guidelines looking at specifics is a loss of time only resulting in endless discussions.

If you read less emotionally, you will see in my posts I am always allowing the chance that your way, whatever exactly it might be, might succeed. I am asking for more specifics as to what it is, and how to do it. If you can't produce ideas that are applicable to Canada, you have far less of a leg to stand on.

There is no need to come up with "new"ideas. Those that are working elsewhere in the world are also applicable to Canada unless we believe that we are of some sort of extraterrestrial descent. If you look beyond the limits of Ontario for guidelines and specifics you may find what you need.

So far all I have seen from you that's specific is the tired suggestion on message boards to eliminate class prizes.

Obviously you haven't read me closely enough. It is not very encouraging to write for your benefit. :)

[Jean Hébert]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

I could be misinterpreting you, but it seems you would prefer Canada to become economically impoverished, if it resulted in Canada having a handful or more of super-GMs that were in contention for the world title? If that is truly what you wish, you are a Jean Hebert disciple.

It is simply impossible not to see your utter ignorance show up at every corner. On the contrary there is a strong case to be made (and having already been made) between economic growth and development, and chess development. As we speak the developping super economic powers of China and India are also the most striking chess developping countries!

Simply put, thinking games (that excludes your game my friend) go along with technological development requiring imagination, planning, etc. There are no developped countries without a prominent thinking game being widely practised in its midst. For your information in Japan they play Shogi and Go, games similar to chess in their complexity, without chance and dices.
Keep rolling.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

There is time and place for specific solutions. You should try to understand that. Without agreeing on some basic principles and guidelines looking at specifics is a loss of time only resulting in endless discussions.

There is no need to come up with "new"ideas. Those that are working elsewhere in the world are also applicable to Canada unless we believe that we are of some sort of extraterrestrial descent. If you look beyond the limits of Ontario for guidelines and specifics you may find what you need.

Since you are proposing overall changes, I imagined the onus was on you to show specifics of such that work elsewhere, and would work here, in your view, even if they come from Mars:).

Obviously you haven't read me closely enough [in thinking I recommended eliminating class prizes]. It is not very encouraging to write for your benefit. :)

My mistake (I guess) for connecting the dots:

J.Hebert: "...but in North America, because here we kept focusing on the "average-Joe" with class prizes tournaments..."

[Jean Hébert]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

My mistake (I guess) for connecting the dots:

J.Hebert: "...but in North America, because here we kept focusing on the "average-Joe" with class prizes tournaments..."

That illustrates well the point that I made: you don't read closely enough, like some others. Reading is one thing, understanding is another. I did not use nor meant the word "eliminate" regarding class prizes, I merely suggested to change the focus... Quite substantial still, but very different.
To make things better there is no need to bulldoze everything. Just changing the focus a little may be enough. A little change in direction can lead to a completely different destination.

[Jean Hébert]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

They need to feel a greater sense of pride and accomplishment in what they are doing. Having them repeatedly losing games in the first 12 moves because they simply haven't read their ECO book cover to cover is the wrong way.

For your information, if you lose your games in the first 12 moves, that has very little to do with ECO. It is simply because you are a very weak player. Hard truth to face but nonetheless inevitable.
If the game would start in the middlegame or in the endgame, you would most certainly lose even faster!
Trying to change the nature of the game to fit your disabilities would not do you any good either. Unless you manage to take away every little bit of thinking out of it (you'd have to be smart for that...) your attitude condemns you to mediocrity at best.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

That illustrates well the point that I made: you don't read closely enough, like some others. Reading is one thing, understanding is another. I did not use nor meant the word "eliminate" regarding class prizes, I merely suggested to change the focus... Quite substantial still, but very different.
To make things better there is no need to bulldoze everything. Just changing the focus a little may be enough. A little change in direction can lead to a completely different destination.

Yes, we all make incorrect conclusions from time to time.

How might you 'change the focus'?

Short of eliminating class prizes altogether, I guess there is running fewer events offering them, or having events with a lower % of the prize fund offered to class players. However, as I posted elsewhere in the thread, this change to the typical modern North American prize structure is up to each individual organizer, not the Federations. You have some legwork to do, perhaps:).

If this is the centrepiece of your specific idea(s), I still say it could cause class players to leave organized chess in droves. They are accustomed to class prizes at North American events, and notice how much is alloted to class prizes, as opposed to the place prizes.

Tom once posted elsewhere that in Hungary there were no class prizes offered in events he played. But then, I vaguely recall that only FIDE ratings were used there, with none under 2200 being published at the time.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

Just changing the focus a little may be enough. A little change in direction can lead to a completely different destination.

I guess another way you might have meant by changing the focus is simply to increase the number of elite tournaments, while still running class events as usual. That's fine: I'm all for increasing the number of tournaments in North America. However organizers seem to be maxed out at the moment, since there are so few of them.

Get more members by expanding the base, e.g. by a membership drive, and you'll recruit more organizers. Then you've got more people out there going after sponsorship, recruiting more members and organizers, or doing whatever you'd like. It's the CFC's fault for screwing up so often and not having a membership drive that expanding the base was never given a fair shake. Sponsorship is nice, but not so sturdy as having lots of organizers and a big base.

Expanding the base first and eventually doing whatever you have in mind aren't clearly mutually exclusive.

[Jean Hébert]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

Expanding the base first and eventually doing whatever you have in mind aren't clearly mutually exclusive.

Of course not. The problem is that for you, class prizes = expanding the base. This is wrong and it does not work. Yes it may work for a few events that attracts lots of class prize hunters, but for the remaining events it is disastrous. Typically these people play only in the most rewarding events (usually once a year) and take no part in other activities, at the club level for example, because they are first and foremost lured by the illusion of making money.
The largest "base expansion" occured after Fischer-Spassky in 1972. And it had nothing to do with class prizes. It has to do with the fact that suddenly chess became trendy and glamorous, centered on a mega-star. Afterwards chess organisations in North America found nothing better than "class tournaments" to maintain that sudden growth. This predictably has failed, just like it would fail if applied to golf or tennis. From the moment when the average-joe start considering its pastime as a source of income and stop playing for the pleasure he gets out of it, then opposite results than those seeked are bound to happen. The base here with our big class prizes events has been shrinking when elsewhere in the world it has been expanding.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

The problem is that for you, class prizes = expanding the base.

Now who's jumping to conclusions :)? Are you sure you didn't want to totally eliminate class prizes :)?

Class prizes may be required at the moment, to avoid SHRINKING the base, in North America.

You can eliminate them (say if you email all North American organizers, and they listen - already a bit of a fantasy from Mars :)). What will probably happen, after the blood bath of exiting class players, is you can impose what you think works elsewhere, and hope it works here. Good luck.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

Of course not. The problem is that for you, class prizes = expanding the base. This is wrong and it does not work. Yes it may work for a few events that attracts lots of class prize hunters, but for the remaining events it is disastrous. Typically these people play only in the most rewarding events (usually once a year) and take no part in other activities, at the club level for example, because they are first and foremost lured by the illusion of making money.

Do you play Open sections or do you play in the classes to win the prizes, when you qualify for the classes?

The prizes are important these days. Why would a weak player bother spending a week to play in an event with no chance of winning anything? I can see a junior doing that for experience but not very many adults.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

Membership drives are always good. I guess the provincial organizations would have to be involved.

Hi Gary

I happened to speak very briefly with someone on the CFC Exec last night, and I mentioned the idea of a membership drive. He told me one was presently being considered, but no details.

I like it when my hopes may come true out of the blue. Unlike Jean's.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

It is simply impossible not to see your utter ignorance show up at every corner. On the contrary there is a strong case to be made (and having already been made) between economic growth and development, and chess development. As we speak the developping super economic powers of China and India are also the most striking chess developping countries!

Simply put, thinking games (that excludes your game my friend) go along with technological development requiring imagination, planning, etc. There are no developped countries without a prominent thinking game being widely practised in its midst. For your information in Japan they play Shogi and Go, games similar to chess in their complexity, without chance and dices.
Keep rolling.

Jean, how is it you see utter ignorance in everyone outside yourself?

I wasn't writing about overall number of people playing chess or any other thinking game. I was writing about development of super-GMs, those in the top 10 or 20 in the world. Let's see, are there any Japanese in there? Any Americans? Greatest economic power in the world, and where are their super GMs?

There's at least one Indian there, but India is only recently having a true economic boom. China? Now there's a country that is known for flouting human rights and keeping it's citizenry under an oppressive Communist regime to the point where even a certain form of meditation is a state crime. You really want to point to China as a shining example for Canada to follow? Looks like as usual you have a case of foot-in-mouth disease. :D

Ah, Jean, I have so much fun with you. So, let's see now, in Japan they play Shogi and Go. And this proves what? They also play poker, my "friend", like in pretty much every other nation on earth. Now, do you want to compare numbers and incomes of poker professionals versus numbers and incomes of chess professionals? Do you REALLY want to do that?

I've never mentioned any games of dice, that's just you trying to pin something on me. Nice try.

Keep smoking what you're smoking, Jean, keeps us all amused!

[Jean Hébert]

Re: What can Canada do to nurture its chess talents?

Jean, how is it you see utter ignorance in everyone outside yourself?

After 40+ years of involvement im just about every aspect of the game at every level I can at least claim to be slightly less ignorant than most. Following your line is pure stupidity.

On your part however I can hardly understand that while admitting freely several times to have absolutely no first hand knowledge on the people and topics discussed here, you are still determined to prove it convincingly and to keep pollutting this message board with uninformed and disrespectful posts.