The vision thing

[Alan Baljeu]

Re: The vision thing

Jean, my memory may be faulty. I thought the math curriculum included a segment on chess and was contributed to the strength of Quebec chess.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: The vision thing

The CFC has the foundation so they aren't exactly destitute of cash.

If the membership is increased by 1,000, as an example, and they all opt for life membership there will more than a 50% increase of players and with that membership money going into the foundation they will have Bupkis to do the administration. What's needed is a "reallocation" of funds.

Most of the membership increase will typically be junior age players. They are unlikely to sign up for life memberships.

A large part of the administration is due to rating of tournaments. This should be covered by the $3 plus HST rating fee.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: The vision thing

In itself the size of the membership is meaningless. Increasing numbers should not be a goal in itself if they are only temporary and the result of artificial measures. For example, overnight the CFC and CMA could strike a deal upon which every CMA kid who has ever touched a chess piece would become a CFC "member" for let say a nominal price of 2$ per year. Overnight the CFC so called membership could triple or quadruple for whatever it would be worth. But in actuality nothing much would be changed by that. Most of these kids would still not be "real" chess players, most of them would still have a hard time figuring out the en passant capture, many of them would remain unfamiliar with chess notation (thanks to CMA's unwillingness to have mandatory score keeping in its events, even the top ones), and most of them would still give up chess at the first opportunity.

The 10,000 figure is based on the current model of paid memberships (mostly junior memberships) and not a discounted model though I would really love to sell 1 million memberships at $2 each as an alternative to the current fee structure. Its just hard to get from here to there.

It is possible that I am living in a fantasy world and chess is a much harder sell everywhere else than it is here.

[Jean Hébert]

Re: The vision thing

Is this not Quebec's experience with the mandatory school education?

What "mandatory school education" ? Tell me about it I am curious.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: The vision thing

The chess server idea may be taken off the back burner and moved to the front burner.

Written 1980, published 1982:
Fermov's Last TN
"A program that not only played chess, but contained all the teaching material and amusements from 1,000 chess books. Other "games" could have got there first but the Chess Federation of Canada had enough foresight to see what was happening in 1983 and had everything prepared when the big change came.

By 1989 the Chess Federation had the biggest membership at Computer Central. Over 11 million Canadians subscribed to one service or another - chess news, postal chess, weekend tournaments, national opens, play the computer, problem solving, problem composition, top recent games, best games of all time, computer annotate your game, human annotate your game, computer teach you, human teach you, find the combination - and more, all at the touch of a fingertip."

OK, I didn't invent server bullet chess, but did I earn an LOL card?

[Alan Baljeu]

Re: The vision thing

The CFC should not sponsor a server development project, nor contract someone to set up and host a server. A quality system will surely cost $1M+. But even if it were only $100K it's out of range. So the only option for our few dollars is to align with an established service.

About growing chess through children's chess: Jean, the argument here is that quantity breeds quality, even though only a small percentage make it. Having more "not really players" will lead to more "real players", and meanwhile revenue goes up leading to more available to support the top tournaments. Is this not Quebec's experience with the mandatory school education?

[Jean Hébert]

Re: The vision thing

Ten thousand members would be a huge improvement on the status quo in Canada today.

In itself the size of the membership is meaningless. Increasing numbers should not be a goal in itself if they are only temporary and the result of artificial measures. For example, overnight the CFC and CMA could strike a deal upon which every CMA kid who has ever touched a chess piece would become a CFC "member" for let say a nominal price of 2$ per year. Overnight the CFC so called membership could triple or quadruple for whatever it would be worth. But in actuality nothing much would be changed by that. Most of these kids would still not be "real" chess players, most of them would still have a hard time figuring out the en passant capture, many of them would remain unfamiliar with chess notation (thanks to CMA's unwillingness to have mandatory score keeping in its events, even the top ones), and most of them would still give up chess at the first opportunity.

[Peter McKillop]

Re: The vision thing

... the online server market. ...

Approaching such a project without the necessary financial, management, and technical resources, a sound business case, and without a clear sense of purpose that relates to the CFC core mission is asking for disaster.

Therefore, this is clearly a perfect project for the CFC!!! I suggest that the CFC use a two-step approach to get started: 1. engage the OCA to provide technical expertise; 2. burn its way through the Foundation's cash. :D

[Roger Patterson]

Re: The vision thing

.....
I think that the current approach of contacting lapsed members and calling them back is not the best use of volunteer time. I was a lapsed member for long periods of time at least twice in my life and there is little that could have been done to bring me back ....

yes. I think of the equivalent for me in curling. I curled for 15 years or so, enjoyed it at the time but don't curl anymore. I could go into the reasons but really it is just not something that suits me now. An appeal from the local curling clubs would be pointless. Similarly, I have had absences from chess due to other considerations and like you, an appeal from the CFC would have had no effect.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: The vision thing

The CFC has the foundation so they aren't exactly destitute of cash.

If the membership is increased by 1,000, as an example, and they all opt for life membership there will more than a 50% increase of players and with that membership money going into the foundation they will have Bupkis to do the administration. What's needed is a "reallocation" of funds.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: The vision thing

It should be clear if the CFC wants 10,000 members it won't happen with the status quo.

I think it could happen if the status quo in Windsor were applied across the country and with all the major chess federations and groups (CFC, FQE and CMA) in Canada working together and pulling in the same direction. "Ten thousand in ten years" is a relative puny goal but has a nice ring to it and if it turns out that we were being overly pessimistic we can always change the slogan to "20,000 in 2020" or maybe "20k in 2020". Ten thousand members would be a huge improvement on the status quo in Canada today. Let's get 'er done!

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: The vision thing

Does the CFC have the financial resources to implement an online server? no, it does not.

Currently it does not and it is clearly absurd to pursue such a project on any other basis than one where someone else provides the financial resources and technical resources and is willing to do this solely in exchange for an ongoing share of the future stream of profits from the venture with no up front investment by the CFC. Further partners presenting such deals would have to be able to point out examples where other federations made a similar deal and were happy with the arrangement after the venture was implemented and launched. Any schemes that vary from this set of seemingly too good to be true parameters can safely be rejected at this time and for the forseeable future.

Approaching such a project without the necessary financial, management, and technical resources, a sound business case, and without a clear sense of purpose that relates to the CFC core mission is asking for disaster.

I totally agree with you on every point that you have made, even the ones I edited out.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: The vision thing

You old guys don't understand what the young players, who are the future of the game, would find attractive with the kind of technology we have these days.

It should be clear if the CFC wants 10,000 members it won't happen with the status quo.

[Roger Patterson]

Re: The vision thing

The chess server idea may be taken off the back burner and moved to the front burner. In the course of some discussions on the long term plan, some intriguing possibilities were brought up with respect this issue.

Events are starting to move quickly in a number of key areas and some things that seemed like distant pipe dreams suddenly seem very achievable on an accelerated timeline.

Does the CFC have the financial resources to implement an online server? no, it does not.

Does the CFC have the management resources and expertise to run an online server business? No, it does not.

Does the CFC have the technical expertise to run an online server business? No, it does not.

Is the the idea of an online service part of the CFC core mission to deliver rating services, national championships, and interface with the international community? No, it is not.

There might be an arguement if there were no online servers available but that is not the case. There are many. And as others have noted, there are many examples of failed attempts, all with more resources and expertise than the CFC is ever likely to have.

There is no call for the CFC to enter the online server market. Others do it, the CFC would not be adding value, something that cannot be found elsewhere.

Approaching such a project without the necessary financial, management, and technical resources, a sound business case, and without a clear sense of purpose that relates to the CFC core mission is asking for disaster.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: The vision thing

To me magical thinking is meant for desperate causes. Chess, even in Canada, is no desperate cause.

It is likely that we are using slightly different definitions of magical thinking. In a manner analogous to the approach to certain chess positions where you conceive of a fantasy position that you would like to achieve by putting all of your pieces on their ideal squares, magical thinking would mean to me conceiving of an ideal situation where all of the very real impediments to this vision have been removed magically. Once you can conceive of this fantasy position off in the future then it is only a matter of logically determining the steps that need to be taken now and in the future (the series of intermediate steps) to turn that magical thinking into reality.

I agree that chess is no desperate case in Canada. Millions of people play it even here and it is used in advertising and in discussions of sports on television (soccer, hockey and football analysts) regularly use the analogy of a chess game to lend intellectual weight to the psychological and physical battles that take place on the field or ice surface.

Worldwide it is one of the most popular leisure activity/sport/hobby and still growing. There are many reasonable things to promote chess in this country that have not been tried or done on a regular basis, while they are being used elsewhere.

We can use the experience of sport federations within Canada as well as those of other chess federations. Tennis, hockey and golf all have active outreach and marketing programs which have been very successful and can be adapted to the needs of Canadian chess.

I am not aware of any chess federation that have used the "server idea" to engineer any significant and long lasting growth. Your last paragraph tells me that you are not so convinced of the idea yourself.

You are right on both of your statements though in the first case it may be that the track record is simply not long enough in any case. Though I am not convinced by the "server idea" I am also convinced that I am not smart enough to predict every result that our actions and choices might produce. I have been told of two federations who have had some good results from developing a chess server. If this anecdote upon further investigation turns out to be accurate there may be some lessons to be learned from their experiences in this area. I am certainly not the appropriate person to champion this idea and at the same time would not dismiss it entirely. Time will tell.

However searching for new ways and new ideas is always commendable. But next to the the huge success of ICC and a a few other servers, there are also stories of disasters. It is in my view too late to get into that market.

We are more intrigued by the individual Canadians playing chess in this manner than the market for these services. It would be foolish to try to do something that is entirely outside of our capabilities and where we can provide no added value.

According to my ballpark estimates if the rest of Canada were proportionately as successful at turning out CFC junior members as the Windsor area is we would have at least seven to eight thousand junior CFC members in Canada. I will do a more thorough analysis when I find time (between giving chess lessons and presiding over junior chess classes and junior chess clubs) but this was shocking to me. My feeling based on the feedback that I am receiving is that the Windsor potential is still largely untapped.