"... When you take a city like Omaha with a metro population around 700,000
or Des Moines with less than 500,000, it is much more difficult to come up with
that many players..." (Vince Hart)
============
Over time I think adult USCF rated play will survive only in 10 or 15 of the
largest metro areas. Even Atlanta, 11th in size, is not in the best chess
shape.

RSHaas

Subject: USCF Dues
From: (Vince Hart)
Date: 9/19/2003 9:28 AM Mountain Daylight Time
Message-id:

Dan Heisman wrote in message
...
Bruce,

In Nebraska only one guy really runs all
the adult events in either Omaha and Lincoln. If he burns out, which he
will at some point, if no one steps up to replace him, it will be like
Des Moines. Another guy who runs some events in central Nebraska is
getting older and may not do it much longer either.

You raise a good note about organizers. I believe that, due to Internet
competition, it is becoming more
difficult for small organizers to make it worth their while to run events.

I am having lots of good luck running small events, but then again I don't
do it for the money. If I get
enough grief from being an organizer, then it would lose its fun and I
would stop doing it. Players often
don't realize that the organizer and TD (I am both) often are not doing it
for the money, but for a public
service, and take the existence of such events for granted. As more players
feel that they can get on the
Internet what they get OTB in terms of fun, the breaking point for
organizers becomes more easily met.

If you read my article on page 40 of Chess Life, our local club is booming
with adult USCF members. No one
thinks twice about paying $49 per year since they get about 50+ rated games
min for their money. In fact,
the nights we do not have rated games, but instead another activity, the
attendance is almost always down.
This example, with almost 100 adults, shows it is not just OTB playing that
is the perceived problem for
adults, but a combination of factors that makes it seem like it is not
worth the money.

Best wishes,
Dan Heisman

If you can get 100 players who will average playing about once a
month, then you can get twenty-five players for a weekly meeting,
which makes for a decent little tournament. That is about what we are
doing at our club. And the USCF dues work out to about $4/event which
seems pretty reasonable. Of course, the Chicago metropolitan area has
better than 8,000,000 people which means there are enough players who
want to play that regularly.

When you take a city like Omaha with a metro population around 700,000
or Des Moines with less than 500,000, it is much more difficult to
come up with that many players.

CCA has held the Mid-America Open in Des Moines each year since 2000. This
year it drew 142 players, about 40 more than the past three years.

Bill Goichberg

Suppose you only have 30-40 players
who want to play that frequently. Then you only have 10 per week at
best and it gets tougher to have interesting events.

I think that the $49 dues drives out the players who might only be
able to play a couple times per year. $4 per event may be a bargain
but $25 per event isn't. Unfortunately, clubs in smaller areas may
need those players to survive.

Vince Hart

RS,

For the most part, I get nothing; I am a volunteer. I do it as a public service.

My income is primarily from my lessons. On the weekends I TD, I would earn a lot more just giving a few
lesson so I take a loss even if I make some money!

And in his spare time he coaches the linebacking core at Penn State.

As for Bruce's comment, it is ironic that:

1) My great-grandfather Isaac's first cousin was John Heisman the football coach, who left the endowment for
the Heisman (pronounced HIS-man, with the first syllable rhyming with "ice", not "size") trophy

2) When I got ill from the smog at Caltech I transferred to Penn State where a young Joe Paterno was the
coach and Donald Byrne coached the chess team.

- Dan H

"1) My great-grandfather Isaac's first cousin was John Heisman the football
coach, ... " Dan H
===============
Ahhh ha!! You have a remote connection to the Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia
Tech, where John Heisman coached.

RSHaas

(RSHaas) writes:

"1) My great-grandfather Isaac's first cousin was John Heisman the football
coach, ... " Dan H
===============
Ahhh ha!! You have a remote connection to the Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia
Tech, where John Heisman coached.

RSHaas

But, can you tell me whee John Heisman *played*?


--
Kenneth Sloan
Computer and Information Sciences (205) 934-2213
University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX (205) 934-5473
Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://www.cis.uab.edu/info/faculty/sloan/

KidDon,
I know what you mean. And that's why I always made sure my players
knew the difference in case they ever joined USCF.

One reason ours didn't work so well is because there were a lot of
players who also played in a neighboring state, which had it's own
scolastic organization, so our organization had to cooperate with them
to maintain the ratings databaase. And you can imagine how well that
worked out!

Radishes

__________________________________________

"Local ratings" or "club ratings" can turn out to be a crock if not
controlled in some rational way. There is a county in Central
Florida, for example, that has had a series of large, "closed"
scholastic tournaments (open only to kids from that particular
county), which were locally rated. Because they were "closed," K-3
players from that county that might be USCF rated 800 - 1000, could
get a local rating of 1600 - 2000 by beating up on their weaker
opponents, and then come away thinking they were kings of the world,
well on their way to being 2200 + rated Masters, until they come to
Tampa and are beaten badly by more regular scholastic tournament
players, with USCF ratings of about half as high as the "Local
Rating."

KidDon

Recmate wrote:



CCA has held the Mid-America Open in Des Moines each year since 2000. This
year it drew 142 players, about 40 more than the past three years.

Bill Goichberg


Yes, Bill, your DesMoines event does and did well. One reason why is
that there are very few Iowa adult events being held in Des Moines
anymore. Naturally when one with a nice prize fund is run, people will
fall over themselves to attend and play.

Your tournament has also drawn about a dozen or more players from Omaha
and Lincoln, some of whom have won significant amounts of money. I
might also add, that your holding your Des Moines event on the same
weekend as a 25 year long traditional event in North Platte, a few years
back, helped to finally get that organizer to give up running events,
although your siphoning off two to three players were not the main cause
of its demise, which was the DeFeis TLA fee robbery of 2001. In the
case of Des Moines, there were once tournaments held once every month at
the Starlite Best Western downtown. I drove out to several of those
events and there were often 30-50 people in attendance. Those events
aren't being held anymore, for whatever reason. There used to be a Des
Moines attorney who sponsored a big cash tournament in the Summer.
That's no longer held.

Here in Omaha, there used to be unannounced tournaments held at the
public library downtown twice a month that drew sometimes as many as
20-30 players. Those events ended due to unannounced changes in USCF
office rules enforcement policies during the Cavallo regime.

Many Kansas organizers have given up, moved or quit, including one who
ran events in Leavenworth, one who ran them in Lawrence and Ralph Bowman
who no longer runs the Kansas Open. USCF chess in this part of the
United States is on its death bed, and even though your Des Moines event
draws a nice crowd, USCF is sowing the seeds of your ultimate downfall
as well with its foolish dues policy. In another two years, I fully
expect the adult numbers to be below 20,000 and USCF's grave will be
deep enough for them to be finally buried.

Presently, in Missouri, Kenneth Fee and Bob Holliman are keeping chess
alive by hosting many events in the Kansas City area. In South Dakota,
De Knudson and her husband still run the Governor's Cup, although I am
unsure what their intentions are next year now that their son is no
longer a scholastic player.

I don't know if Gotschall is still holding events in Ames, Iowa, but I
know that activity in Sioux City has pretty much ground to a halt.
Maybe Matt N. could tell us if eastern Iowa has more, less, or about the
same amount of adult chess activity that it once had?

Best Regards,

Bruce

" In the case of Des Moines, there were once tournaments held once every month
at the Starlite Best Western downtown. I drove out to several of those events
and there were often 30-50 people in attendance. Those events aren't being
held anymore, for whatever reason. There used to be a Des Moines attorney who
sponsored a big cash tournament in the Summer." That is no longer held.
(Bruce Draney)
==============
Bruce, in order to rehabilitate a fallen metro, the best and most time
honored tradition is to have the state chess association hire a C-130 and
emergency airdrop 100,000 state chess eyecandy newsletters all over the place.
It works wonders.
I've seen it happen in Tampa with my very own eyes. The FCA sent two
C-130s. Out of the first one came a shower of eyecandy newsletters. And from
the second plane came a string of parachutists.. tournament directors,
registrars, wallchart guys, chess politicians, and most importantly the money
men with bags of chess money tied to their legs. They got the money by shaking
down old jewish chess patrons over in Boca Raton.
Such a chess boom you wouldn't believe followed in Tampa.

RSHaas

In article , RSHaas says...

Bruce, in order to rehabilitate a fallen metro,

Now isn't this a riot. One non-member giving another non-member advice on how
to save USCF chess at a grass roots level.

Kevin L. Bachler

"Paul Rubin" wrote in message
...

I feel a responsibility to keep posting here because most other
players in my situation simply quit the federation quietly, and the
federation ignores its problems that led those players to quit.

Which situation was that?

StanB