12/below: 31170

My guess:

10,000: gifts from grandparents
1,000: gifts from parents
20,000: schoolchildren registering as groups because of a school activity
170: rising chess stars

If the USCF were to collapse, I think it would be very difficult to replace.

Perhaps Bill Goichberg and CCA could do it. He's actually managed to run a (presumably) profitiable national chess tour for a long time now.

I pretty much agree.

The kicker is... Would he want to?

Why would you think that it would be difficult to replace the USCF, or that you'd want anybody who's already associated with them to do it?

Go google "united states <insert game> federation." Basically every single game has a federation. As a random example, I googled the US domino federation. A game that shouldn't have even a fraction of the draw that chess has - yet they just had an event that not only drew hundreds of people (~600) but it was even televised on ESPN. What gives? Why are chess events being put on on a comparable scale to domino events? Why is chess where it is? It's a game that takes 10 minutes to learn, anybody can play and has infinite depth, is an excellent tool for learning logic, calculation, spatial reasoning, blah - yet it's not significantly outpacing a game where the goal is to connect the dots.

This game could be absolutely huge in the US, but it never will be with the USCF.

The World Open typically draws more than twice the number of players as that dominoes tournament you mentioned.

Chess is a much harder game (I imagine) to become good at than Dominoes, this keeps some people away. It also isn't as easy to explain to a mass audience.

All your arguments basically amount to an emotional rant about a topic (American Chess) that you obviously know next to nothing about.

I'm confident that a majority of adult tournament players would agree that the most valuable service the USCF provides is a reliable rating system.

Any replacement for the USCF would have to provide this service to have any credibility. But, I can't see how a nation of chess players is going to trust and pay for a completely new entity to do this.

CCA would seem to have a chance since they run so many tournaments. I think the chess community rightly trusts CCA.

Yeah they kind of blindly do, as CCA typically rakes what? 25-33% of each entry fee. Even a casino doesn't rake that much for a SNG or MTT. I'd bet that a decent number of faithful CasinoCA tournament players don't realize that the rake (CCA cut) is actually that much.

I don't understand all of CCA's costs of running a tournament. However, they run their tournaments in some nice hotel ballrooms. That's got to be a big expense.

Finding qualty yet cost-efficient tournament locations is always a problem for the Massachusetts Chess Association which runs 5-6 tournaments a year, a few of which are only a little smaller than CCA's similar tournaments in New England.

Chessplayers trust the CCA because it has demonstrated itself to be competent and reliable in providing a service chessplayers care deeply about: Running major tournaments.

The juice is very high, but they don't force anyone to play.

Chess SNGs sounds like an interesting idea. I wonder if they could work. Starts, for instance, whenever 6 players are ready to go and pony up $50 or whatever. Ratings work as a handicap: if you have an expectation of +1.5 over the field then you start with -1.5 points. First place ships 65%, 2nd place 35%. Ties are split accordingly.

A friend of mine had an Idea for a chess tournament similar to a SNG that would be useful if someone didn't want to/couldn't pony up $300+ for a World Open entry.

Instead have a "SNG" like chess tournament with 6 players who pay I guess $60~ and the winner gets enough money for a World Open entry.

And as far as people who play in CCA tournaments and don't mind the rake.. I guess that they feel "The juice is worth the squeeze."

-Girl Next Door ftw

Interesting to hear. I actually saw Goichberg's analysis of the 2007 elections while I was reading about the current mess, and his assessment was pretty similar. It's too bad Polgar used her good works as a way to get elected and then went nuts. Hopefully it all gets worked out after this election cycle...


There already exist places that set up quads -- everyone in split into round-robin groups of four according to rating, with prizes distributed accordingly. These work pretty well. Complicated adjustments by rating are likely to fail. Look for a local chess club if you want to play for money...

Also, it's a little silly to complain about the rake at these large tournaments without making any effort to understand the cost structure, or to complain about the USCF without knowing that most players join it precisely for the rating mechanism.

the uscf is moderately tight, but the fide is quite tight

Any new organization could easily duplicate the rating system by just using the same system , and even starting 'new' members with their old USCF rating if they have one. I don't see why this would even be an issue.

It's an issue because tens of thousands of players would have to agree to pay that organization to do that work. How are you going to convince the hobby tournament chess player to pay the fees to a new organization they don't know and don't have any reason to trust?

Nobody is saying the calculation of the ratings is a difficult thing to do.

that's the sole source of my 1400 chess rating - Monday night quads at the Local chess club - ton of fun unless we're short handed then I'm fighting 1900's but at least it doesn't drop my rating much

RB

I think the thing is I'd like to see some sort of revolutionary change here. People shouldn't be paying the organization just to keep their ratings which takes pretty much no work.

The first thing I just can't understand is why the the USCF hasn't made significant attempts to partner/affiliate up with related organizations. The PCA was able to single handedly get a multiyear $7million contract setup with Intel. And it's not like Kasparov's name was a huge seller back then. This was way before Deep Blue, Kasparov/Pepsi on the superbowl, etc. Yet somehow it still happened. If the USCF could sign up affiliates (not even just sponsors) for a fraction of the income stream, things could radically change. And instead of bureaucratically wasting however many hundreds of thousands on USCL, why not work on developing a mutually beneficial partnership with ICC not only profiting both organizations but again also adding value to the membership for your common member.

Imagine a chess federation with sponsorships leading to the ability to play in sponsored free tournaments. Imagine instead of receiving some dinky magazine each month, in lieu of it you received a DVD with contemporary discussions from GMs. Imagine small things like the ability to receive text messages about any upcoming tournaments in your area, etc, etc.

Aside from the sponsorship deal none of these are really out there and none would really cost the organization much, yet they add a huge amount of value to a membership and give you a reason to WANT to subscribe to the organization.

We should expect so much more out of our federation than simple ratings. What sort of value is that? Ratings should be a given. In fact you should not even need to be a member of the USCF to obtain your USCF rating. I don't directly pay FIDE to give me an ELO. And more locally, in my current nation I didn't pay to get a rating. The concept that their primary source of 'value' is ratings just seems so awkward.

Players wouldn't pay directly. It would be paid for by rating fees, rating list subscriptions, and mailing list purchases, all paid for by tournament organizers. (Similar to FIDE, I never had to "join" FIDE to get a rating).

Probably the role would be filled by the CCA, which would allow other organizers to submit events for rating for a fee.

There is some work involved to maintain a large database, web server, and all associated software. The "back-end" part of the USCF website for submitting tournaments is pretty complicated yet comprehensive. There is also some work involved in investigating possible ratings fraud.

U.S. Chess Federation Lawsuit Becomes Criminal Issue

Bump for this: http://main.uschess.org/content/view/9620/544

a little more info in the NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/us/10chess.html

Check and Mate

This is just really, really sad imo. I very well may have had a completely wrong impression, but prior to the Polgar/Truong run for the EB, I thought Susan was doing a lot of really good things for American chess. She was key to the 2004 women's olympiad success, 2003 USCF Grandmaster of the Year, founded the Texas Tech chess institute, has promoted chess for girls, etc, etc. Now to see her removed from the national organization is just sad.

That's what you get for suing the organization which you hold a seat on the Exec. Board for $25 million (later reduced to $10 million)..

Heck, this removal of Polgar/Truong was about a year over due.

No doubt at all. They had to go. It's just a ****ty situation all around.