In tennis, some players are great on hard court or grass but cannot play on clay. Some are masters on clay but falter badly on other surfaces. So how do you determine the best player?
In chess, we have the same situation. Some players are great in tournament play. And even in tournament play, some are great in Swiss and some are great in round robin format. Some players are great in match play. And some players are great in racking up rating points.
From the thousands of postings on various blogs and forums, even the fans are split in their opinions. Match play has been the long tradition in chess. But very few names can generate enough interest in big dollars sponsorship.
It is easy to say I want a billion dollars and have unlimited powers. It is easy to scream and shout about what one wants. But reality is another story. How many people are capable in finding real money in sponsorships in endorsements? There has been very little interests in sponsoring big money candidates’ matches. The offer so far is $15,000 prize funds as stated elsewhere on the Internet. That is a sad and harsh reality. We cannot all live in a fantasy world.
What about the World Women’s Championship? What does it say when the top 3 rated players in the world (Judit, me and Xie Jun) are not very excited about competing in any women’s cycle. Been there, done that, as they say. The last time Judit played in any Women’s World Championship was in 1992 (World Rapid and Blitz Championship). The last time for me was in 1996 and the last time for Xie Jun was around 5 years ago.
So what is the best way to decide the true #1 in the world? What is the best way to attract sponsors and stir up excitement for chess? What is the best way to motivate the best players to compete? I do not think Kramnik, Anand, Topalov, Svidler or Leko would be thrilled about playing World Championship Candidates’ Matches for $15,000 total prize funds. I certainly would not.
It costs a lot of money to train for many months to prepare for big matches. I basically gave up everything to train for my world championships. I was there. If I have never won any title, I may try it once. But once that goal is achieved, it does not make any financial sense to make big sacrifices to lose money.
Top level chess has many big problems. Some of the top players are not good with PR. Some do not possess good speaking skills. Some do not even care about the media. So before the fans start shouting about “We want this, we want that”, please think about ALL the aspects. Do you want many of the top players to sit out if there are no serious money for candidates’ matches?
We need to think with our heads and not on just emotions. Even a multibillion dollar sport like baseball changed their system by adding one wild card team in each league. Is there a system that everyone can be happy with?
Point system!
Chess needs a standardized format that is unwavering and is not at the whims of super gm’s saying oh I won’t play etc.
You don’t see the format change in baseball, hockey, soccer etc. its always the same.
Sponsors and fans like predictable formats with unpredictable results (score)!
Once chess professionals get over their ego and FIDE enforces a standard format, the sponsors and fans will be there.
Ever hear of a major leage baseball team refuse to play on artifical turf and forfeit a game?
Chess needs to grow up.
Also, sponsors don’t want to pay for people who don’t sit at the board most of the game and would certainly prefer sofia rules with no agreed draws allowed. Who is going to sponsor millions for 15 move draws with the players not at the board 75% of the time? Not me!
I will ponder on this question and post later. First, I wanted to comment about the inequity between the prize money for the women’s U.S. chess championship and the men’s U.S. championship.
During the 2006 match (men and women) the winner of the men’s received $25,000 and the women’s champion received, I think, $12,000.
Don’t quote me on the second figure but it was considerbly lower.
This seems strikingly unfair. Why should the women’s champ receive so much less?
Is it sponsorship? Or, something else?
I really don’t know.
Can someone please explain this?
Thank you.
Unlike other sports, in chess it is nearly impossible to earn a living playing chess. Only the very top GM’s can really make a living from tournaments and, possibly, endorsements.
If chess professionals were offered lucrative contracts, maybe the enticement to play would then exist.
I have a cunning plan that should persuade the top women players to compete – first simultaneously hold a Men’s World Championship and a Women’s World championship.
Then a match between the two winners to decide the undisputed World Champion!
Are you or your sisters interested Susan? 🙂
What “valid” opinion?
Who is censoring anything?
I suppose the best way to discover who the true #1 player in the world is, first, not to differentiate between men and women’s world championships.
Then you get Bobby Fisher
He won the US Championship at the tender age of 14 and subsequently won that title 6 more times, including the 1963 – 1964 championship with a perfect score of 11-0.
Topy Looking better slowly
Anonymous said…
she is trying to brainwash you on to her side.
Even if she did (I only wish she did)she would be telling the truth
What it comes down to for those who want to earn a living from this game is the ability to garner sponsorship dollars.
And that’s the problem.
Most successfull sports pay their professional players based on fans actually spending money, not on the largesse of companies looking for sponsorship deals.
Sponsorship in other sports is a bonus on top of actual revenue generated by the sport itself.
Now, we’re never going to have the kind of fan base in chess that allows for million dollar prize funds derrived from fan support.
So what to do?
Well, then you need an event that will generate the kind of media coverage that will allow for large prize funds.
And for that to be the case, you actually need stability in organizing the events.
The problem is not that Kramnik v Topalov can’t raise money from sponsors. The problem is that FIDE can’t be counted on to make the event happen for the sponsors.
And that doesn’t change if you move from match play to tournament play.
Sponsors lend their name and give their money to structures that are credible. The problem that exists now is the system to crown the world champion is haphazard and seems to change with the wind. If FIDE and the players would form a concrete world championship cycle that endures for more than a year, they might have a chance.
Look at other sports. Their championship cycles are carved in stone and recognized by all stakeholders as legit. Sponsors like predictable things.
The advantages of a tournament is players tend to play more for the win, with the result being exciting chess. If a match required a minimum number of wins, it would be much more entertaining. I can’t really blame Kramnik for trying to suck the life out of games once he had his lead because it was the correct strategy, but
the match became much more interesting when he HAD to win.
Could the Kramnik nutbars please knock off the attacks on our host? You make Danailov look sane and rational with your rants about censorship and bias.
Great topic
It is unlikely any reader of this blog remembered a period before FIDE controlled the WCC. Most probably have lived through the 3 year candidates cycle from the 1950’s through to the Kasparov-Short schism. The FIDE schedule of that era gave constancy and we had a regular cycle – financially things weren’t great however. It wasn’t until Fischer that there were big prizes from any matches or tourneys in the post WWII era. Consider this – Bent Larsen, one of the most successful tournament players of the 1960-1970s in an interview of that time, reported that he made only about $25,000 per year at that time. During Fischer’s rise, it popped up to the $125-$250,000 mark and later with Kasparov, hovered around $1.5 million for a total prize fund when he played Anand.
So that big payoffs many people think of as being regularly out there has only existed for a few people for a few years…
The earlier posters have all pointed out what is needed:
1. Dependable effort and aggressive play – no short “GM draws”.
2. Some consistent schedule of events. All other sports benefit from a regular season of matches, tourneys or events. Golf and Tennis have their grand slam events. Team sports have a regular season and playoff leading to a championship. Chess needs something like this – there are enough major events which have endured – Linares, Wik an Zee, Dortmund, ? Aeroflot, and add in a big event in North America and Asia and you’ll have enough big events to anchor a tourney schedule.
3. Faster time controls are inevitable I fear – I don’t necessarily like them but economically it seems hard to resist. There are more errors but there are more decisive games. A player could get a lucky win but in general the strongest players have historically also been quite good at quick play. Part of the interest in spectator sports is that one can watch something extraordinary occur under very competitive difficult conditions. I don’t think the general public is as enamored with the “truth of the position” like many chess fans are – and don’t expect a perfect game. The winner after all is just the person who made fewer and probably the next to last mistake.
4. Don’t see much hope unless a very charismatic champion comes along – on par with a Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Fischer or Kasparov.
The thing is, just because tournaments may be more financially doable, that doesn’t mean they’re a better method of determining the best chessplayer in the world. If they were then Zukertort might have been the first champ.. and Pillsbury would have “won” the world championship in 1895. Lasker could also have “regained” his crown in 1924 etc. Part of the problem is that corporate sponsorship ultimately comes from the consumer, and your average joe just isn’t going to understand why he has to pay 15 cents more for his cell-phone because Anand is playing Kramnik in the latest world championship in a sport he doesn’t even understand. Nontheless you can glue feathers on a pig all day long and call it a duck but it ain’t gonna quack, and likewise no tournament will ever be able to determine the world champion.
Most sports have tournament for the regular season, and matches for the postseason. The big problem is that you might have a player that never scores less than fifty percent (which means this person would always win a match), and someone who is really good at picking off weaker players. Obviously match play favors the former and tournament the latter. But if you ask the simple question who is the better player, and determine is the answer who would win head-to-head, then the answer is the match player.
Thanks for asking, Susan.
These are very broad and complex questions but they are very good.
To get your attention I want to state the good news first.
Organizing chess is NOT a rocket science at all.
Many fellow bloggers are already on the right track.
I won’t give you a simple (or single) answer but I’d point out numerous good examples to follow.
For the sake of our discussion, chess is a sport and this should be clearly understood.
Let’s take football (known as soccer in US). Some 140 countries took part in the latest Would Cup cycle.
That is a complexity we should be respecting. Moreover, in football everybody seems happy of what they’re
getting – players are well paid, sponsors are willing to chip in and fans love the show.
So, let’s study and learn.
The simplest thing of all is that fans are the most important part.
If millions of fans are ready to enjoy the match sponsors will be lining up and happy to attach zeroes to their offers.
What FIFA realized (few years ago) is that fans are more excited about games with results.
So, the scoring system was adjusted to encourage teams to try harder.
Draws are still possible but nobody is happy about them.
Why is this so difficult to apply to chess?
We all know the name of a famous GM who stands firmly against prearranged draws.
To illustrate my point further we have a fresh example from today – the game at Essent open
Goloshchapov vs. Brodsky. They agreed to draw after just 13 moves and exchanging a single pawn.
I found it tasteless and here is what Bob Hu had to say.
Should I mention that both GMs are from UKR? (former USSR)
Can you hear Fischer screaming that Russians are plotting against him?
“Those two gays just gave themselves an extra day off” is what I hear.
By introducing Sofia rules last year GM Topalov made a strong statement.
We can support him in his attempt to make our sport more appealing or we can keep reinventing the wheel.
It’s a matter of choice.
Somehow the link to Bob Hu post didn’t work.
Susan, don’t worry about those idiots who scream and shout. They’re the same people who wouldn’t pay a dollar to watch these matches but they want everything their way. You’re right. It’s a big problem.
I can speak about things from the fundraising perspective. Some people might remember that I managed to raise a $15,000,000 purse for the proposed match between Fischer and Kaprov, albeit purists would say it is not “chess” (but rather Gothic Chess, the variant I derived from Jose Capablanca’s ideas from 1924.)
Even having done this very quietly over the past 19 months, it is amazing how much hate e-mail I receive on a daily basis, and the number of ridiculous phone calls I get, now that the word is out.
It has been very difficult coordinating all aspects of the operations to make such a match happen. And when the hardest part has been completed, getting the money in place and the acknowledgments of the two greatest archrivals in history, I am inundated with flack from the community.
I no longer have to wonder why matches such as this are not commonplace. The chess community has an uncanny ability to shoot itself in the foot, repeatedly.
Listening to the meaningless diatribe on +ch 165 on I.C.C. during the World Championship Reunification match was rather painful. I can only be thankful that the investor to whom I would have been demonstrating the live feed to that day had to postpone the meeting. The toiletgate humor got a chuckle on the first go around, but the non-stop belittlement of two participants at the Pinnacle of Chess is not going to attract any serious sponsors.
It terms of dollars, live chess is a hard sell. There is little motion. We can’t read the minds of the players. And you have to be quieter than golf announcers who whisper…
“Tiger Woods, putting for par on 16…”
Even worse for our sport, computers have become so dominant, that just about anyone feels they can chime in with their “CPU assessment”, and insult seasoned grandmasters who are offering insightful comments during the game.
The base of the pyramid is what determines its height and stability. It is the millions of baseball fans that make the building of large stadiums and live broadcasts possible. It’s not the Cy Young Award winners and MVP Players that meet in those board rooms when banks are deciding to fund the building of a new ballpark. The fans are the pyramid base. The elite are the point at the top.
We must carry this analogy over to our domain. If 3,000 people in an internet chat are going to be hurling insults at the top 2 players in the world, we have no hope of elevating this game to the same level of, say, the World Poker Tour, which is now almost rich beyond belief.
One of the things we have to do to emulate more successful sports is to reduce the input of top players on the organization of events. Baseball players aren’t consulted about the season schedule or the post-season playoffs. If they were, baseball would probably be in the same sad state as chess. The same can be said of any other successful sport…
Let me comment on a sport that has done everything right: Tennis. I was watching McEnroe awhile back on TV saying that when he won the US Open in 1979, the prize was $39K (IIRC). Now, the prize is over $1mil. Back in the day, it was hard for middle of the road tennis players to survive too.
Why has tennis been so successful? First of all, they have the ATP and WTP to protect the players’ rights. They worked in concert (not dysfunctionally) with the ITF (composed of all the national associations) and the various grand slam and smaller tournament organizers. They had to cultivate an atmosphere of trust over the course of many years in order to do that. Sadly, Chess lacks this kind of cooperation. Additionally, Tennis officials worked very hard and consistently to grow the fan base of tennis (including growing amateur tennis); this way, they grew the sponsorship in tennis over the course of many years as well. This has never occurred in chess. Chess has been plagued by scandals, incompetence, and mismanagement.
There are no quick fixes to the problems in chess. It will take long term cooperation and organization to address them and restore respectability to professional chess.
CHESS IS GOING NOWERE WHILE UNDER IT’S PRESENT FIDE MANAGEMENT….
THE FIDE’S NEW SLOGAN ….
…..TRUST IN US….
12-24 game matches or bust
I don’t ecognize anyone else as a Champion
12-24 game matches or bust
I don’t ecognize anyone else as a Champion
I understand where you are coming from Susan, but I don’t understand why you are implying that match format can’t get funding?
Hasn’t the matches for world champion been far more succesful in generating interesting and press? It seems logical then that sponsors would like them better.
Is it just the candidate system that is the problem?
I am all for matches. But the offer is a total of $15,000 for the candidates’ matches. The players are outraged. Chess is not about the top 2-3 players. Chess is a sport and the system is badly broken. Ask Gata or Gelfand about their feelings of going to Elista for $15,000 total to be split by the two players in each match.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.PolgarChess.com
http://www.SusanPolgar.com
Charlemagne said…
I will ponder on this question and post later. First, I wanted to comment about the inequity between the prize money for the women’s U.S. chess championship and the men’s U.S. championship.
During the 2006 match (men and women) the winner of the men’s received $25,000 and the women’s champion received, I think, $12,000.
Don’t quote me on the second figure but it was considerbly lower.
This seems strikingly unfair. Why should the women’s champ receive so much less?
It doesn’t strike me as unfair. It strikes me as surprising the women’s champ even gets that much.
Why? Well, the women are worse players and (I believe) the men’s is really EVERYONE. If a woman is good enough to play for the men’s champ game they are allowed to just like a woman can play for the world championship.
If Judit can get strong enough to challange Kramnik she can do so.
If the men’s champ has the superior play, why shouldn’t they get the bigger prize?
NBA players get more moeny than WNBA players. Major league baseball has higher contracts than minor league baseball. etc.
Money goes with the superior skill. SPONSORSHIP also goes with the superior skill. Fans are more interested in top level chess, men’s basketball and major league baseball than women’s chess, WNBA and minor league baseball.
If women were to get the same amount of moeny you would be basically taking money AWAY from the men. The men would be subsidizing the women, whose prize would be artifically inflated.
In tennis, women get the same pay. So are women golfers.
Anonymous said…
I suppose the best way to discover who the true #1 player in the world is, first, not to differentiate between men and women’s world championships.
Jesus, do you people hvae any idea what you are talking about?
The women’s world champ is FREE to enter the real world champ competition.
Judit Polgar has entered.
The fact is that so far no woman has been powerful enough to win it yet. That may change soon, but that is how things are for various reasons.
We don’t need to have teh women’s champ play the “men’s” (read: real wrold champ), because we already know the men’s is vastly superior. Their rating will be 200 or more points higher and the women who CAN compete for the men’s world champ already ARE doing so.
Comparison of chess with other sports does not work. Tennis, basketball and soccer, for example, are major economic forces. They bring crowds, involving hotels, restaurants, traveling by airplanes and cars, etc. For the last soccer championship Germany even built special booths for sex workers. Chess is not in this league of money, and never could attract such crowds. It’s ok, many players and fans can be quite happy without such booths. However, consistency is a good idea, and a combination of matches and tournaments is a good idea. The way FIDE changes the rules every other month must be unattractive to sponsors.
alsht said…
Comparison of chess with other sports does not work. Tennis, basketball and soccer, for example, are major economic forces. They bring crowds, involving hotels, restaurants, traveling by airplanes and cars, etc. For the last soccer championship Germany even built special booths for sex workers. Chess is not in this league of money, and never could attract such crowds. It’s ok, many players and fans can be quite happy without such booths. However, consistency is a good idea, and a combination of matches and tournaments is a good idea. The way FIDE changes the rules every other month must be unattractive to sponsors.
Much of the problem, and im’ surprised this hasn’t been said yet, is merely one of TV.
Tennis, Basketball and Soccer are all big forces because people like to watch them on TV (and to a lesser extent watch the events live in stadiums).
THIS is where the money comes from. This is what gets sponsors and allows for big prizes.
Chess, frankly, isn’t that interesting to watch unless you are playing. Sure, in a big event like Kramnik vs Topalov for the crown, people will show up and watch live… but outside of the biggest matches, who really wants to watch someone play a few chess game stretched over hours and hours? It just isn’t interesting. It is more interesting to go back and analyze the game after its finished and play it through quickly yourself.
Anonymous said…
I suppose the best way to discover who the true #1 player in the world is, first, not to differentiate between men and women’s world championships.
To be a little more clear, they DON’T differentiate between the men’s and women’s world champ.
They differentiate between the WORLD CHAMPION (who can be a man OR a woman) and between Women’s World champ, who can only be a woman.
There is no “men’s world champ.” There is only the true world champ, plus a seperate title for women since, so far, women haven’t been able to compete as well as men in chess.
According to Charlemagne:
“During the 2006 match (men and women) the winner of the men’s received $25,000 and the women’s champion received, I think, $12,000.
Don’t quote me on the second figure but it was considerbly lower.
This seems strikingly unfair. Why should the women’s champ receive so much less?”
You are right! It does seem unfair: women players can win the overall prize or the women’s prize; men can only contend for the overall prize!
I think it’s about two things:
Image and Fun
The way it should be is for people to see chess and think “this is fun and exciting, I’d love the challenge and excitement of playing a game with someone”. People should see chessplayers and think “I want to be like that person!”
In the past chess players had a lot of respect but these days seem to have an image as crackpots, nerds and grumpy old men.
Think about Capablanca, he was charming, sophisticated and very much a social guy, he was like a Chess James Bond.
Bobby Fischer, in one word? He was a superstar (WAS, these days refer to crackpot).
Garry Kasparov? Another superstar, even non chess players know about the deep blue match.
In this field women chessplayers are doing really well these days, with people like Susan, who seems to be doing wonders for scholastic chess in the U.S. Also Judit is I think a great example of someone who can follow her passion as a chessplayer without giving up important things, like raising a family. Another example is Alexandra Kosteniuk, with her regular appearances in fashion and other magazines and television interviews as well as a sponsorship with a watch company and modeling gigs she demonstrates that you can play chess and be glamourous which if we are being honest, is a big priority for girls these days. There are of course other role models for girls and women i.e. Shahade etc. and I think that we are ready to see a big boom in women’s chess.
Which brings us back to men’s chess, which unlike women’s chess does not benefit from having celebrities that are well known to the general public (Kasparov, retired, doesn’t count). The exception is that almost every indian I’ve met knows who Anand is and are immensely happy about him.
Now at the start of the 20th century there were many players who were classy, urbane and very witty. The sort of person who is surrounded by a group of people at a party. Tartakower etc. (these days the closest we have is Nigel Short) judging by all the chess forums I’ve been to however, these days the average chessplayer spends his time on internet forums getting into fights about “my player is better than your player”. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would see that and think “I wish I was a chessplayer”.
What sort of things do we want people to associate with a chessplayer? We should be seen as classy, thinking, gutsy, strong-willed and sportsmanlike.
On the subject of world championships I think matches suit the image of the game better than tournaments. Fundamentally chess is a very competitive game and the one on one nature of a match really brings out the drama of the competition. And matches create names, reputations and legends in a way that tournaments do not. A tournament has a score, whereas a match has a story and much more potential for media coverage throughout it’s duration.
As for fun? That’s much easier, chess players should be more friendly, social and welcoming. We should also enjoy the game ourselves, otherwise what’s the point?
Finally I think it is extremely crass to insult the level of play of female players. GM Andorjan once said the difference between White and Black was 50 years (in terms of opening development) the gap between men’s and women’s chess works the same way and is rapidly closing. All the best women are now playing at 2500+ and someone like Judit has a real chance of winning in Mexico next year.
Another point where each one of us can play a big part is showing good manners and being friendly during internet games.
During the vast majority of the internet games I’ve played there is either silence or downright rudeness from the player on the other side. I avoid talking during games but I think there should always be a ‘hello’ and a ‘thank you for the game’ before and after. ‘Hurry up!’ (especially in a TIMED game) is one of the rudest things someone can say, it is a really bad way to try and distract your opponent during a game and shows terrible sportsmanship.
If people are rude and hostile on internet chess (who would act this way at the park or in a chess club?) casual players will be driven away from the game or might not find a community within it.
I am however also happy to say that there ARE friendly, polite and interesting people out there as well and I would like end the post with a joke told to me by a fellow Australian I met on Yahoo!Chess:
How many squares are there on a chess board?
66!
32 Black, 32 White and 2 ‘squares’ playing.
Finally I think it is extremely crass to insult the level of play of female players. GM Andorjan once said the difference between White and Black was 50 years (in terms of opening development) the gap between men’s and women’s chess works the same way and is rapidly closing. All the best women are now playing at 2500+ and someone like Judit has a real chance of winning in Mexico next year.
I disagree that I or anyone else here has insulted female chess players.
Champions like Susan are great chess players, better than 99% of the population. But I am sure she is smart enough to know she is not at the level of Kasporov or Kramnik or Anand or (insert whoever here). She can see the ratings and knows. Her accomplishements are great enough by themselves, we don’t need to pretend that there needs to be a match between the “men’s champion” (read world champion) and the women’s champion.
I am merely stating the facts. The facts are women have yet to be able to compete with men on the superGM level. Judit Polgar is the only woman in the history of chess to break into the Top 100 chess players by rankings.
This is not to say that women can’t continue doing well and continue raising their rankings. Soon the 10 best women might have scores equal to the 10 best men.
But we are not at that stage now. And as such, I don’t see why there is a problem giving the woman champion the same money as the main champion (which, again, can be a woman OR a man)
I doubt that Sherryl Swoope would be insulted if I pointed out she didn’t have the raw talent of Kobe Bryant, or that Sharpova would be insulted if I pointed out that she could not beat Federer in a match.
(and FYI, there are only 7 women in the current rankings who are 2500+
I mean, I agree. Judit has a chance in Mexico… which is exactly why the women’s world champ doesn’t deserve the same prize money as the men’s. Now, if Judit was barred from playing the men’s event then I agree they should mabye be getting the same money and maybe the winner of the men’s would play the womens, but that isn’ the case.
it’s amazing the FIDE which I read some where is the 3rd largest (!) sporting body after the IOC and FIFA is in this miserable position….
the first step is to have an accountable and sincere chess organization… i.e. FIDE has to be more accountable…
the alternatives to FIDE (e.g. the PCA) do not encompass the greater needs of the game and tend to be myopic (e.g. only the World Championship and not the development of the game)
If the world body is more accountable then sponsors would also be less reluctant to commit larger sums of money… the internet is a great way to broadcast the game (far better than television where it is not possible to go over the experts analysis at your own pace or review the moves without being unable to catch up later)
Thing is about Sharapova is that she would get roughly the same MONEY as Federer for winning a grand slam, which is something that’s necessary if we want to encourage women to take up and stay with chess.
Of course things like physical strength/stamina is different between men and women in any sport. I’ve even heard in an interview with a famous tennis player (I forget who) that in mixed doubles it is an unspoken rule that the men tone down their serves when they serve to women as a ‘gentleman’s practice’.
Now in terms of spectator draw (I don’t want to comment now on what this implies) women’s events seem to be very successful at raising media attention and hence publicity for chess. I don’t think that funding should be taken away from women’s chess. The zero-sum argument doesn’t really make sense, since funding will lead to a better image for chess leading to more players leading to more coverage and sponsorship etc.
Didn’t Kamsky say they could have easily found more than 15k for the matches, but it was yet again FIDE who f*cked things up with their false promises.
And yes matches generate more interest than tournaments so they should attract sponsors more easily.
The candidates cycle could be problematic. Who would sponsor say Kotronias-Motylev match? Not to insult the two players in anyway, but…
I must ask: $15,000 is obviously too little an amount to be worthwhile; what would be a suitable amount in your opinion, Susan?
Chess professionals are simply not paid enough. Why travel to the otherside of the planet for a “share” of 15,000? It simply isn’t worth it. Plus, this leaves out the many IM’s and other Master-and-above players. Where do they fit in? They are quite talented to be a master and can give a lot back by teaching/tutoring chess.
I don’t have an immediate answer. Yet, there needs to be a group of experts that give this topic a lot of thought and discussion.
More sponsorship? That certainly would not hurt.
How about a League of Chess Professionals? Something similiar to the PGA?
I’m not sure the latter would work nor could work. It is just a thought.
Charlemagne
Dear Susan,
You said, “Chess is not about the top 2-3 players. Chess is a sport and the system is badly broken.”
I agree. This is what I meant by mentioning in my last post about the many IM’s and Master level players.
The top 2 players are going to be well compensated. Chess is not merely 2-3 players…or FIDES top-100 list.
It is a sport. It transcends a list of 100 people or the “top 10.”
Any solution will be difficult to put into practice. But, I’m sure something can be done.
Maybe a “Chess Congress” should be held to discuss such questions. I suppose the first way to begin solving a problem is to ensure that everyone involved is aware of the problem and then begin the long process of finding a solution.
I wish it wouldn’t take years or decades to find a solution. Change is always slow.
We will see.
The obvious funding issue
is: How to attract media
attention so that we get
big sponsorship from big
companies. Here are two
pieces of thoughts:
1. When we hold a major
event such as candidates
tournament, organise some
other event at the same
time— event which stuns
the public about the depth
of the game, such as
blindfold simultaneous.
If a GM plays blindfold
against many others at
the same time, the public
is immediately impressed
(otherwise the public
cannot feel for themselves
if we just tell them that
the two top GMs in a match
“are extremely good”).
2. Some connection with
big computer companies,
so that we get beautiful
visual effect on the moves
(such as 3D graphic),
and some promotion by
chess machines. In this
way, public will be caught
interest when the theme
“human brain vs AI”
appears, when we have open
computer analysis during
a match between two
humans. The computer
companies are also more
likely to sponsor such
matches.
the analogy to tennis, i think, is a good one. tennis languished for decades due to, in a major part, not recognizing its professionals. until the “open era” starting in 1968, the major tournaments (i.e. the four grand slams: wimbledon, us open, french, and australian) were amateur only. (“open” in “open era” refers to being open to professionals, not just amateurs.) before 1968, the pros eked out a living mainly via exhibitions and challenge matches. this, i think, is the state that chess is in today.
the main problem with challenge matches (whether for the world title or otherwise) is that they lack stability. lining up sponsors is an ad-hoc affair and it’s prone to politics and corruption. this is how boxing operates, and i don’t think anyone here would suggest that chess look to boxing to solve its woes.
i referred to this in a previous (anonymous) post, and i’ll mention it again here. having a world title does more harm than good to chess. (in fact, it can only be sustainable if chess remains an amateur sport.) let me explain.
first of all, an entity must recognize “the” world champion. since another entity might feel otherwise, that other entity may claim its world champion. this happens repeatedly in boxing, and we all know that it happened in chess. that is why having a world champion will always end up being political, and politics is one thing chess does not need.
secondly, producing and promoting a challenge match for the world title isn’t a stable, regular event. the us open owes much of it’s success to being an event that can be counted on to occur every year and at the same time of each year. having this stability allows continuity and cohesion among past us open champions. this in turn greatly aids to the us open title becoming and remaining prestigious.
now, one may argue that fide can make the world title a regular, stable event. however, since it’s billed as “the” world championship, my first point kicks in. that is, it becomes too prone political fights and fractures. and that results, at best, in potential sponsors fleeing, and at worst to crooks running in to “save the day.” chess would be far better served by having separate championships–like tennis and golf–with none being a world championship. this would promote healthy competition among the major tournaments: each would benefit by the others’ successes while also tying to be better than the others. on the contrary, if you have multiple tournaments with each claiming to be for the world championship title, they will resort to unhealthy competition, constantly trying to kill off the others.
(i want to add here that we must take care in comparing an individual sport like chess to team sports. team sports all have regular seasons, which are only feasible because players can be replaced when injured or sick. for this reason, individual sports cannot have tournaments that are too long.)
both professional tennis and golf forbid any professional tournament to be billed as a world championship. i believe that this is a major ingredient to their success. if chess is to prosper as a professional sport, it must rid itself of the amateurish idea of a world champion.
william hanisch
new york city
Bob Hu said…
Thing is about Sharapova is that she would get roughly the same MONEY as Federer for winning a grand slam, which is something that’s necessary if we want to encourage women to take up and stay with chess.
Well, putting the issues of whether that practice in tennis is right or wrong, there are two major differences between tennis and chess here
A) Tennis is foricbly segregated. Men and women can’t compete. Chess iS NOT segregated. Women are perfectly allowed to compete against the men. And unlike Tennis, women certainly have chances to win tournaments. Does anyone doubt that Judit could win a tournament against men? She might do it this week….
B) Women’s tennis, while not as popular as men’s, is at least roughly as popular.
In Chess, the men’s tournaments (which again also include all the best women) is vastly more popular than the womens.
Popularity is what gets fans and sponsors and money.
And even if we are just talking about a theoretical level, not about reality, why should women be allowed to compete for BOTH prizes but men only have one prize to compete for? Doesn’t seem fair at all…
From my observations without being stone truths I can see the following:
The most popular sports in the world have one or more of:
1. Easy to understand for everybody: soccer, beach soccer, tennis, golf, races
2. Low cost equipment to practice: soccer, beach soccer
3. Easy to practice almost everywhere: soccer
4. Team sports attracts more fans than individual sports (they represent countries, states, cities, regions) : soccer, football, baseball, basketball
5. They are played in powerful countries: soccer, football, baseball, basketball, golf
6. Top players are close to their fans: written or live interviews, they talk about the game and of their personal and professional lives, they promote the sport and the sponsors
7. Games lasts about two to three hours at de most: soccer, baseball, basketball, football
There are sports that have a lot of action and they are popular in certain countries but doesn’t have much sponsorship or media coverage: ping-pong, badmington, cricket, kajak, among others.
In every sport even the best do blunders and magnificent plays too, so why to be so scared about them?
So my proposal would be:
1. We have to increase the critical mass that follows the game and that would be by:
a. Promoting chess from the childhood in schools, so there are more people that understand and maybe love the game later on
b. The show must be increased and that means that a game can not last more than two hours, maybe three
c. There has to be individual and team competing for their countries, states, cities, regions so the pride and competition among different act in our favor
d. Attract people that doesn’t care now giving simul, blind, blitz in public places
2. Now that we have fans and by so potential sponsors, I would organize the WCC as follows with some considerations:
a. There is no perfect way to do so, each system has its advantages and disadvantages, what is important is to define one and to stick with it no matter what
b. In every sport the champion must play in the cycle at a given time
c. Sport must be sacrificed at some time due to media coverage: in football is TV that sets the pace between plays due to advertising
d. Two year cycle
e. There has to be enough tournaments considered so every player among the top 25 has the chance to compete and not only the top 10, no invitational tournaments, every rated chessplayer among the first 25 can participate
f. Every tournament gives points combining the rating of it and the points reached by each player
g. At the end of the two seasons the first 8 struggle for a place against the actual champions with one month of time span for preparation, playing the best of 12 games with Sofia rules.
This combines the strength of tournament play and match play, the champion must compete as well, if he wins the final tournament, there is not going to be needed a match game or the first two if we want a match.
All the existing tournaments have already their budgets and have to deposit a certain amount to sponsor the final match…