"J.D. Walker" wrote in message
...
David Kane wrote:
"J.D. Walker" wrote in message
...
David Richerby wrote:

Fundamentally, though, chess does little more than entertain, just
like any other sport/etc.
*** To its niche market, ***

it's very entertaining. It would be foolish to base a `chess economy' on
anything other than its entertainment value.
Exactly. Explain it to the people who suggest moving into the mass TV
market
to bring big bucks into chess.

Define "big"

e.g. NFL, NBA, MLB all have a major media presence. BTW, I detest the NFL,
and the NBA. Such a poor American am I...


99 golfers earned over $1 million dollars on the PGA
tour last year. #1 (Tiger) earned over $10 million. Is that big?


I do not see how this relates...

There are two points. First, it attracts a much bigger portion of
the entertainment pie than chess. Second, it's a sport that is often criticized
for being "boring". I suspect if the hundredth best chess player in the world
could make even 1% of what his golf counterpart makes, there would
be a lot more people working to get better at chess.


Wikipedia has an entry on professional Go
tournaments. It lists 7 major international
tournaments, with a winner's purse
totaling $1.6 million. Then it lists 16 Japanese
events with a winner's purse of $1.8 million, as
well as events in Korea, China and Taiwan. That would
seem pretty "big" to most professional chess players.


Do you have a measure of the size of the fan base of Go enthusiasts in Japan?
I suspect that percentage-wise it is far higher than that of chess in the USA.
I once was an amateur san-dan at Go. It is a great game.


Sorry, I don't. In fact, I don't even have comparable purse numbers for chess.
For various reasons, I believe they are quite a bit lower, but don't know by how
much. But no matter how you count, there are a very large number of
Americans with some interest in chess.

Heh, I once purchased some books on Go from Ishii Press. I knew nothing of
Sam Sloan then.

The world checkers title was recently defended.
The prize fund was $3740.


Goodbye checkers...

Checkers still has enthusiasts - as will chess after it's high level game
is completely marginalized by the marketplace. That doesn't
mean that this trend is good for the game.


It is *not* a conspiracy driving the "checkerization"
of chess. It's good old-fashioned complacency, failure
to think analytically, an unwillingness to engage the
marketplace, etc. Basically, the professional chess
world (or what's left of it) defends its most stupid
and obvious flaws as virtues.


Care to explain your analysis and make suggestions?
--

Look in the archives and you'll find that I've gone
on at great length about some of my pet peeves, but
in broad terms I see the main obstacles as being the slavish
worship of the status quo coupled with a culture that
is out of step with the mainstream in many significant
ways.