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In the past number of years, there have arisen a number of conflicting tournaments in the Toronto area. As an organizer, I have taken great pains to avoid scheduling conflicts. However, it seems that a prime directive of the GTCL, according to their web page is >>>>>>>
To co-ordinate and harmonize chess activities in the league area.
I also see that the GTCL annual meeting is due to take place in April.
Perhaps the GTCL President will there explain what he has done to discourage
scheduling conflicts and in fact why he has personally taken part and therefore
leant his personal sanction to a conflicting tournament. If the GTCL president
cannot make good the prime directive >>>>>
To co-ordinate and harmonize chess activities in the league area.
In the past number of years, there have arisen a number of conflicting tournaments in the Toronto area. As an organizer, I have taken great pains to avoid scheduling conflicts. However, it seems that a prime directive of the GTCL, according to their web page is >>>>>>>
To co-ordinate and harmonize chess activities in the league area.
I also see that the GTCL annual meeting is due to take place in April.
Perhaps the GTCL President will there explain what he has done to discourage
scheduling conflicts and in fact why he has personally taken part and therefore
leant his personal sanction to a conflicting tournament. If the GTCL president
cannot make good the prime directive >>>>>
To co-ordinate and harmonize chess activities in the league area.
then he should resign.
Vlad,
I take it you're referring to the Hart House Blitz tournament which was scheduled on a Saturday, thus conflicting with the regular Saturday rapid tournaments you run on the Danforth.
I also know that you do indeed "take pains to avoid scheduling conflicts" as you consistently cancel your regular Saturday tournaments on Labour Day, during the Canadian Open, etc.
And it is not just your practice but a general "unwritten rule" in Toronto chess organizing (well, maybe it is written - or implied - as GTCL objective # 2). In any case, when we set up the Annex Club, we chose Monday nights in order not to be on Thursday (SCC night) or Tuesday (Willowdale), etc. We definitely had this rule in our minds. As a result, a number of players play both at our club and at Scarborough, and chess is available in Toronto every day of the week.
I take it you're suggesting that Michael Barron, upon hearing about the Hart House Blitz tournament, should have
(1) added his voice to yours asking Hart House to re-schedule to a different day of the week (or to a more distant Saturday when you might be willing to cancel your tournament)
(2) or perhaps convened the GTCL executive to pass an emergency resolution critical of the Hart House tournament
(3) and then personally boycotted (and perhaps urged a broader boycott of) the Hart House event
I'm doing a lot of guess work, here, but I hope I'm catching your drift.
For full evaluation of GTCL's lack of interference, though, maybe we should cite all three of their stated objectives.
Our Objectives:
To promote interest and participation in chess at all levels for the purpose of increasing the popularity of the game.
To co-ordinate and harmonize chess activities in the league area.
To be the sanctioning and administrative body for the annual organization of the GTCL events.
As I see it...
The case could be made that the Hart House Blitz tournament be supported by the GTCL for its achievement of objective#1 in spite of a mild negative effect under objective#2 (I say mild because it's a one-time or occasional event competing with a regular, weekly one).
I'm not sure that objective#2 has ever been the over-riding directive of the GTCL, the way you see it. As I understood it, it was more of a rule we all try to adhere to (for the most part) as organizers.
So if I were you, I might be upset at Hart House, but I'm not sure I would hold the GTCL responsible, or its president personally responsible. Maybe I don't understand the extent of that organization's (or his personal) powers and responsibilities.
I'm not sure what other events you have in mind...
I thought the whole purpose of the GTCL is to promote chess events in the Greater Toronto Area? What would be the benefit and reasoning behind boycotting a chess event held in Toronto that would benefit the players directly? As for our scheduling conflict, the HHCC is run by students and as students, we have duties to write exams in April and as such, scheduling an event while we have exams going on is detrimental to our academic goals and would run counter to the common understanding that chess and academic studies should not co-exist at the same time.
Furthermore, you can't just call for a monopoly on Saturday chess events and expect everyone to oblige. I always thought that chess was a charity and not a business but in that sense I could be wrong seeing as how so many players call themselves "coaches" and make themselves great hourly wages. When we hosted the recent HH blitz tournament, we returned 90% of entree fees and also gave discounts to encourage players to play. What % of the prize fund have you returned to the players? I understand that you were a backgammon and poker player and as a result, you probably want to make money off your profession. However, making money off chess players isn't necessarily an act to be proud of. While I understand you do not want conflicts, sometimes it's unavoidable and as long as it wasn't intentional, there's no need to make a big deal out of it.
Lastly, the players that showed up to your weekly tournament seemed to be consistent with the numbers that showed up in prior weeks. However, the players that showed up to the HH chess club would most likely not have gone to your event even if we did not have one. Therefore, your attendance did not suffer and you still raked in your weekly allowance off chess tournaments and so I don't understand why you're complaining about more chess events being held. As an extra, I remember how slow you were with your manual pairings at that one Canadian Open. We worked hard to speed up the pairing process so our players are happy and are more likely to return in the future. We seek to promote chess by volunteering our time and receiving very minimum compensation if at all and I find it highly ironic that someone running their chess events as a business quoted a chess organization run as a charity and demanded their president to resign due to one small event.
Let me address some of the concerns which arose due to my original post above.
At no time did I suggest that people should boycott the Hart House Blitz. I am aware that they normally hold a blitz event on Friday nights and this would have been a good evening for their feature blitz. We did have a surprisingly adequate turnout for our Rapid that Saturday (the 24th) but this was partly due to a number of players showing up to lend their support to the ongoing tradition. There were some four or five who would normally play in the Saturday Rapid but prefer 5 minute chess but that was to be expected. As a rule, I support the Hart House weekenders by cancelling the Saturday Rapid.
My original post was more aimed at the general principle of not scheduling
conflicting events and although I did not specify, I had in mind two instances
in the past where weekend tournaments were scheduled in conflict. One was
a November tournament I had promoted for an empty weekend a few years ago and was approached two weeks after I announced my event by Bob Armstrong on behalf of the president of the Scarborough Chess Club who wanted to hold a tournament on the same weekend. They went ahead with the conflicting event to the detriment of both. Another event occurred when Mark Dutton was managing the club on Bayview and another organizer arranged a conflicting event downtown.
Now organizing chess tournaments is not a profitable business but the person
organizing stands to lose money if the turnout is poor so it only makes sense to avoid conflicting events if we want to maintain the few organizers that we do have. That is where the GTCL president should step in and urge the conflicting organizer to reconsider their action. This has not been done in the past.
Nor do I stand to make money from the regular Saturday Rapid. For me, this is a purely social event where I can get together with some friends and share a beer or two after the games are done. To suggest that I am running this as a business is ludicrous in the extreme. If at times I feel that I am ahead, I invite some deserving players to play with me paying their entry - Alex Ferreira still has an outstanding paid entry to collect, by the way. And, in fact, I donated five paid entries at the last Hart House tournament.
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