Mark Bluvshtein says good bye

[Fred McKim]

http://markbluvshtein.wordpress.com/

Mark we will miss you and will keep the candle burning in the window. Best of luck in your future endeavours.

[Ken Kurkowski]

Re: Mark Bluvshtein says good bye

Back in the 70's many of our top young chessplayers continued to play seriously well into their adult years- some, such as Spraggett, Hebert and (occasionally) Day are still competing. Why do we not see that anymore? It's not like prize money was any greater in those days, and I suspect there were actually fewer opportunities to earn money on the side coaching kids.

[Kenneth Regan]

Re: Mark Bluvshtein says good bye

I can speak as one-such player south of the border: I was US Jr. co-champion in 1977. In my case I always had other interests, and knew by age 13 that I desired to go into academic research, exactly the job I'm enjoying now. I played through college and graduate school but decreasingly, and near-nil thru being faculty and raising a family.

Of course that's different from having pursued the game further, studying openings seriously, and being a GM, but anyway my story.

Item today on the blog I co-manage, blending chess with research: http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2011/1...ory-in-theory/ I wrote the first paragraph and the last section.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Mark Bluvshtein says good bye

http://markbluvshtein.wordpress.com/

Mark we will miss you and will keep the candle burning in the window. Best of luck in your future endeavours.

From his blog:

"The idea that professional chess players expect to be paid to “just” play chess is quite naive in a society where all other professions require social interaction and working with others."

Canadian chess loses this insightful perspective and meanwhile retains the poisonous rantings of a deprived elitist from Quebec...

[Ken Kurkowski]

Re: Mark Bluvshtein says good bye

"The idea that professional chess players expect to be paid to “just” play chess is quite naive in a society where all other professions require social interaction and working with others."

ALL professions? What about non-team professional sports, e.g. golf, tennis, boxing (you might include poker too)? And Olympic 'amateur' sports where athletes get grants from their governments and often support from corporate sponsors?

And who says chess does not require social interaction and working with others? For example:

• Giving simultaneous exhibitions
• Giving lectures
• Teaching/coaching
• Organizing/directing tournaments
  Playing on an Olympiad team

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Mark Bluvshtein says good bye

"The idea that professional chess players expect to be paid to “just” play chess is quite naive in a society where all other professions require social interaction and working with others."

ALL professions? What about non-team professional sports, e.g. golf, tennis, boxing (you might include poker too)? And Olympic 'amateur' sports where athletes get grants from their governments and often support from corporate sponsors?

And who says chess does not require social interaction and working with others? For example:

• Giving simultaneous exhibitions
• Giving lectures
• Teaching/coaching
• Organizing/directing tournaments
  Playing on an Olympiad team

Ken, you raise some good talking points about Mark's quote. I doubt that Mark meant literally "all" other professions. But in your comparing of chess to golf, tennis, boxing, and even poker, you miss one very important facet: chess, unlike all the others, has little to no money behind it. Even the horrible "sport" of bowling, in which the participants could be thousands of miles apart in separate bowling alleys for all the good it does them to be in the same bowling alley, has more money behind it than chess.

This means that chess, exponentially more than the others you mention, requires its participants to exude goodwill to each other and to the general public, in order to justify what pitiful amounts of money it does get from outside itself. All those other games can survive even if many of its main celebrities are a-holes, because the public (and by extension, sponsors) will continue to pour in money. Not so for chess. Even a single a-hole chess player can turn away sponsors / public who are already heavily prejudiced against chess as an interesting game to spectate. And I believe this is the main message behind Mark's quote.

Now, as to the activities thay you say chess "requires". No one demands that chess players do ANY of these activities. Remember, it is the players that Mark is talking about here. Organizers / directors are usually not also players, so strike that activity off your list. Playing on an Olympiad team requires that you be either exceptionally good or that you be pretty damn good and a good team player. The exceptionally good can get away with murder, figuratively speaking. The pretty damn good must be good at getting along with their teammates, yes. But I think getting along with teammates was NOT what Mark was getting at with his quote. So let's strike that activity off as well, not pertinent.

The rest of the activities are done by some chess players (on a pure profit basis, mind you). But the key point is that there is no requirement that a chess player do these things. A chess player can quite literally expect to be paid to "just" play chess.

Well, so can tennis players, golfers, bowlers expect to be paid to just play their sport. But again, the difference is that their chosen game is financially viable even if they make that choice en masse. Even if no pro tennis player teaches or gives lessons, tennis itself will still thrive. This is NOT the case with chess. Chess is so barely viable as a "commercial" venture that to even survive financially, it NEEDS players to give simuls, to lecture, to teach. And it needs the players that are doing those activities to exude nothing but a positive attitude in all their dealings with the public.

This is the insight of Mark's quote. You can agree or disagree as you see fit, but you can't run from the facts. The continuous, never-ending pitiful financial state of chess continues to prove the above points.