Why do you think the USCF is losing money year after year? Why did this federation fall so far behind in so many areas while it used to be the King of ratings, publication, books and equipments, etc? Year after year, chess politicians would do or say anything to be elected. Why do you think they fail? What would it take to turn the USCF around and make it into a viable organization?
Please be respectful with your answers. I am truly interested in your opinions!
Thank you!
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
bad management it flows downhill.
The USCF has a lack of, or slow, response to a dynamic environment. The world is changing. Chess is changing. The USCF is still holding on to the past.
Good Question Susan. I need to give it some thought. First I reflex over the long years I have been a member and I can assure everyone it has been all down hill.
Let me say one thing that has really bothered me.
Recently we had 2 good sponsors. AF4C and the one in Minnesota did the $500,000 tournament.
Both had the same super serious problem. They sucked down the money into their own pockets and did nothing for the sponsors. They had no concern for the bottom line. They just treated the donors like big time fools. And big time sucker to get all the money they could out of them as fast as possible. They did nothing for the sponsor. They always kept up the pressure to constantly get more money from the sponsor.
Here is how it must work or all sponsors will fail.
Business people want to make a profit. You must do the maximum for the minimum cost. For example you must suggest how the company can do more for less money. Never go for more money. Always have the interests of the company first.
Those organizing the tournaments for the sponsor need to do it for free. No sucking out huge fees for doing nothing.
The one in Minn was such a disgrace. Blew them out of the water on the first shot. Maurice Ashley should be hung for that. Never use him again he does not understand how to do it. He ran the entire tournament on big ego dreams. everything was the big ego. Let me know if you want more details. It was a total disaster.
AF4C was a slap in the face. they took huge sums of money from them and then never every got out a press release. a minor thing. they obviously did not give a penny for those donating. that was plain and simple. That entire mess was incredible. total disaster.
I would run it entirely differently. Carefully and slowly over time build up a tournament. With minor costs and not big fees to the chess organizers. Everything would be designed to hold down costs to the minimum and the publicity to the maximum.
When it comes to handling money you do not turn it over to a chess player. You give money to a business man who knows how to make a profit with money. Anybody can buy the Brooklyn Bridge and both of these guys bought the Brooklyn Bridge from a bunch of Chess idiots. And by the way when it comes to money probably almost all the chess people are idiots and selfish ones at that.
the uscf has lost out on selling books, on the internet which was a given. they have accomplished nothing. why give money to an organization that always wastes money and never uses is properly. first and foremost the uscf must find someone who can control the money so the uscf makes a profit. You need good business men running the show not good chess players. being good at chess and having a high elo is probably a sign that the person knows nothing about money. he likes to play games and is a child with money. and sure enough they handle money like a child.
just a bit of my 2 cents.
I would not advise anyone to give 2 cents to this organization. I can do better dropping into a cup from someone in the gutter. he will at least spend it carefully on some cheap alcohol. the guys at uscf will spend it on the most expensive champagne to play their ego games. and that is today Tuesday Feb 27, 2007. and nothing so far has changed at USCF. They are all a bunch of loosers.
Well Goichberg probably makes good money for himself promoting the world open.
First of all, having former players or current players on the board that have a passion for the integrity of the game would greatly speed up the growth and popularity of the USCF and begin to turn around the tainted image of the past decade. Not to say the USCF has not done any things worthwhile in the past 10 years, but if we just got a team in the nucleus of this organization without too much regard for self gain and internal bickering amongst themselves perhaps a bright future could be on the horizon. I also truly believe we need visionary leaders and business minds within the USCF, perhaps a top merketing mind to be hired with his or her own staff to re-structure the image and give it a huge boost nationwide such as television commercials and think big! The key here is a much more cohesive team that thinks about its members and the whole image rather than unscrupulous behavior and perhaps even wasting the money that comes through no their own personal pleasures, which could be happening, and use that money into a bold risky marketing image that rstores the integrity of the USCF. I have never seen one nationwide commercial for USCF , ever. I mean what better way than to form an immediate image than a nationwide campaign that brings all chess players together and unites them! We need less conservatism when it comes to spreading the message and reforming an image and more risk taking!
Just one of my many ideas and opinions. Thank you for reading.
Justin
I know the USCF is a non profit organization.
But let us imagine that it was a company and you sold it to me. I guarantee I would make a huge profit every year. NO PROBLEM.
But you have this bank account not owned by anyone and a bunch of children minding the candy store and well children love sticking their hand into the cookie jar.
If I owned it, the cookie jar would be all locked up.
2nd and most important. If you do not work you get immediately fired and paid for your time up to that moment immediately. Get your check on the way out. Done it lots of times. I am not going to pay people with my money for doing nothing.
Running a business really has nothing to do with being a chess player. Chess players should play chess not mind the bank accounts and not get paid for nothing.
If you want to meet a Black Hole Vortex that sucks down money, Just talk to the guy on the Executive Board who is banned from this Blog. What a super waste. He can function only at USCF because we are such a disaster. NO ONE would put up with him. We need to find him another place to live his life. A sanatarium is my suggestion. A good one with a one way door. in and never to get out.
>>bad management it flows downhill.
Brilliant! The USCF is having problems because they’re doing something wrong! Thanks for clearing that up.
I am probably one of the few people who, at age 38, is joining the USCF for the first time in my life. I must admit that the reason that I joined was to play in the local tournament. I had a very good time, thought it was well run and am planning on playing in another in March.
The March tournament will involve an overnight stay, several meals for my wife and I, and some shopping for my wife while I play. As you can tell all of this could become an expensive hobby! And basically none of it has anything to do with the “Chess Politics” or loosing sponsors or lying on the USCF forums or any of the other topics that get discussed regularly around here.
So what are my concerns? That I’m a member of a respected organization. That my participation in a few tournaments a year doesn’t go unnoticed and I can look up my rating when I want to. That I have a chance to play some rated games on the internet. That when I say I joined the USCF people will have an idea of what I’m talking about. So that I can see some chess on television.
I’m concerned that I don’t have an idea who the US champ is. I’m concerned that I never hear of a US player in the major tournaments that I have been following lately. I’m concerned that I don’t hear of any major tournaments held here in the US. I’m concerned that if I vote for the four best people (Susan’s team) that none of this will change and three years from now I’ll be sitting at the local bar playing poker (for free) every Wednesday night.
L8R
Raths
New USCF member number 13652235
Besides good management, it needs a sound business model (and new marketing plan) for the next 5 and 10 years.
Also, provide ways for every member to get involve in supporting chess and the USCF.
It’s important to ask potential sponsors what they would want from sponsoring USCF events.
Can the USCF offer books and equipment more cheaply than other sources in the age of the web: maybe not – so that source of revenue is gone-ish.
What exclusive services can the USCF provide members which others cannot?
A group of us plays speed chess at a local StarBuck coffee shop every week for fun. People stopped by and watched, especially kids. I told those who would like to come play the game again to check out uscf and susanpolgar.com.
May be StarBuck could be a long-term partner to promote the game.
Go team StarBuck!
I would like to ware a very nice chess T-shirt with a cool design to promote chess. But, no such item on ebay or websites.
Despite the implication in Susan’s opening post, in some ways the USCF had to decline when the internet age arrived.
Before the web there was no medium in which competitors could grab share away from the USCF. No matter what the USCF did, dozens of chess web site were going to appear, and win some attendance and “market share”.
The Books & Equipment sales division had an almost monopoly before the web. Obviously the web fragmented that. There was no way the USCF could have maintained its pre-web levels in sales.
In general, the USCF cannot out-compete against all the enthusiastic web entrepeneurs in America. Each is led by an owner-dictator who does not need to build consensus before enacting even small changes.
ORGANIZATIONAL CENTER
Instead, the USCF should try to be an ORGANIZATIONAL CENTER for all the other chess playing web sites.
I believe some past and/or present USCF board members badly failed us all in this area; and this lacking continues today.
Paul T. has implied he plans to have chess playing web sites (FreeChess.org, ChessClub.com ?) send their win-draw-loss results to the USCF for formal rating. Good.
I feel another win would be for the USCF to organize a nation-wide league of local club teams to compete against other cities over the web. The USCF would formally rate the games. The results and standings would published on the USCF web site.
To have any relevance to most USCF members, the teams would have to be comprised of a player from each class level (A B C D or whatever), not just the best local masters and experts. Team matches could occur monthly.
Gene Milener
http://CastleLong.com/
Have you looked?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Chess-Checkmate-Black-T-shirt-ADULT-XL_W0QQitemZ260090631929QQihZ016QQcategoryZ15687QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/French-Defense-t-shirt-Chess-New-Rare_W0QQitemZ300085341024QQihZ020QQcategoryZ378QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/I-GOTS-MAD-CHESS-SET-SKILLS-funny-white-chess-t-shirt_W0QQitemZ260091583559QQihZ016QQcategoryZ15687QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
>>The Books & Equipment sales division had an almost monopoly before the web. Obviously the web fragmented that..>
Even before the web, Ken Smith’s Chess Digest was doing better.
My opinion is that it all depends on Bobby Fischer. If you can get him to play again that would bring interest back into the game of Chess and restore participation levels back to the way they were in the 1970s. I think the problem is lack of great American chess players. (not that transplants are bad, just not born here) I think Magnus Carlsen is causing a huge surge in chess playing in Norway. We need someone like that in the USA. Otherwise I don’t know if the USCF will be able to do it alone.
Wait, does the USCF run tournaments? All the tournaments I have played in have been run by my local club or the MACA (mass. chess).
I don’t understand what they do at the USCF. They seem to do a lot of letting other people organize chess — I feel like the only thing they do is ratings lists.
The world open isn’t USCF. And the USCL isn’t USCF, as far as I know. The grand prix events are a good idea, but I never hear anything about them. Are those organized by the USCF?
The Amateur team championships is supposed to be a fun tournament. But the east championship is on the NJ chess web site. I went looking for results on the monday after, and couldn’t find any. There is better coverage of what’s going on in chess blogs.
So I ask, if USCF isn’t running the tournaments, isn’t promoting the tournaments, and isn’t reporting on the tournaments, what is its purpose?
The USCF is trying to do too much. It doesn’t have the budget or the human resources. You just can’t pursue everyone’s pet project or iniative.
Instead, the national organization needs to concentrate on a handful of critical issues. I don’t presume to know what those are, but some ideas include: (1) administration and promotion of the ratung system; (2) holding an annual or bi-annual national championship; (3) publishing ChessLife and promoting our top GMs.
Everything else needs to be pushed down to the local club and league level. It won’t be easy, but you need to find a way to energize the membership at the local, grass-roots level. It’s the only way to leverage your resources and move forward.
ellie,
The purpose of the USCF is to use the ratings list to force all the tournaments to forcibly sell subscriptions to a mediocre magazine (that even gets delivered some months!). This then creates a culture of the same, and so most are forced to subscribe also to a state/regional magazine.
This might have been a good thing pre-internet, but to be honest, a website could entirely replace the magazines, without all the overhead. People could then optionally buy a printed version of it for some fee, if they are a total luddite.
I think that in this modern age, the small rating fee charged to the tournament should be able to cover the cost of inserting the disk and clicking Load. I mean, really people. WTF
As a serious amatuer, I would be pleased to subscribe to a magazine, but it really makes me mad being forced to subscribe to a particular one. At least the regional magazine publishes the crosstables from my tournaments. But the national magazine has zero impact for most people on their tournament activities. And only the big tournaments even get listed in the TLAs, because they charge for it. I’d think an “official” organization would be pleased to list any tournament they could find out was happening, especially when those touraments are all that’s propping them up.
So I think Susan, you could do more good by creating a smaller, trimmer, lower budget ratings organization to replace the USCF, instead of just climbing aboard the behemoth. I’m sure you’ll improve the place, but it’s still going to be an overpriced monstronsity sitting upon our shoulders.
>>My opinion is that it all depends on Bobby Fischer. If you can get him to play again that would bring interest back into the game of Chess and restore participation levels back to the way they were in the 1970s.>>
LOL. Let’s bring back buggy whips too, while we’re at it.
If chess depends on one over-the-hill guy who’s been gone 35 years and won’t last forever even if he did come back, then chess isn’t worth saving. That’s fine if you think that, but pardon if the rest of us don’t agree.
I think part of the reason the USCF is losing money is because there are so many outlets for chess. The USCF has become one of many.
I have been a member since 2002, and I will continue because I enjoy the quality of OTB games.
However, there are so many people who are happy to play games on Yahoo, ICC, and other game servers that it is not necessary for them to get their chess fix with a rated USCF event.
I think it is important for USCF to concentrate on what they will do well, both in terms of customer service and to manage the books well.
As a very active member in Minnesota chess, I see the struggles we face in growth of membership. I think it is necessary for those who are responsible for state memberships to sell a good set of products to the customers, and to try to attract those who may not yet know about them.
It is not the age of Bobby Fischer anymore, and although chess is still exciting and wonderful, I think we will have slow growth at best in our sport in an official manner, despite that millions are interested in the game.
– Improve exposure by having a more interactive website.
– Create a better online chess community.
– Develop and then foster partnerships and sponsors.
– Improve internal political processess that seem to cause internal strife.
Just a few ideas that I am throwing out.
Gregory
Are you joking re: Bobby Fischer? I agree that what he did for chess in the U.S. in the early 1980s is amazing and may never be equalled but I don’t think there are enough anti-psychotic medications in the world to make him palatable to the general public at this point. I think one of the problems with the USCF is this dinosaur mentality of looking back to Fischer and the way things used to be. Jerry MacDonald puts it perfectly. My son finishes his homework and gets on the ICC to play chess with friends and anyone in cyberspace while the USCF endlessly debates whether to commit resources to online chess. They are several steps behind the chess playing and general public. Are there good things happening in U.S. Chess? Yes. Susan’s blog is great. Greg Shahade is being innovative in promoting his U.S. Chess League and funding the U.S. Chess School. Jennifer Shahade and her generation of young women chess players (Irina Krush, Elizabeth Vicary, etc.) all seem smart, well-spoken, good writers, presentable. Hikaru Nakamura is cool. I don’t want to diss the USCF totally. I think Jerry Nash and his staff are doing a great job and the National scholastics. But I am completely underwhelmed by the board of the USCF.
sorry, meant to say early 1970s. (I was 12 years old then and bought my first chess set and chess book because of Fischer so I really don’t mean to minimize his accomplishments but my chess playing son thinks he is a lunatic.
With respect to Bobby Fischer, he
is the reason many of us started
chess. I’m sure some of us are
waiting for another prodigy with
similar or better talent to emerge in this country again, for national
glory and to boost our great sport to unparalleled heights.
Three things I’d like to see changed about the USCF:
1) The rule that prohibits you from writing your move before making your move. If you don’t have an electronic device, the rule should be abolished. I hope TD’s will ignore the rule anyway.
2) On tournament day, the rating
you have should be the rating used
for your tournament. No more using
stale 1-2 month old rating supple-
ments in our tournaments, please.
3) I wouldn’t mind if the USCF
magazine were discontinued. The
two state-level magazines I sub-
scribe to are both superior to
the USCF magazine.
Eric Morris
>>Are you joking re: Bobby Fischer?
Sadly, he’s serious. But it wouldn’t help. The people who worship Bobby Fischer are already playing chess anyway. The people coming in are going to be more interested in chess the game than Fischer the Religion.
The USCF is declining because it is irrelevant. If you disagree, think of what the consequences would be if the USCF went bankrupt and disappeared.
It’s hard to think of negative consequences. Indeed, adult tournament players would save $40-$50 per year on a currently required USCF membership. The only downside is that there would be some chaos in the area of ratings for a while before tournament organizers agreed on something to replace the USCF rating system.
The reason the USCF is irrelevant is that for years it has focused not on chess in the United States but on itself. This question of Susan’s shows that she hasn’t broken out of that mindset herself.
Who cares why the USCF is failing, and what the USCF needs?
How about asking what the issues in U.S. chess, and how those can be addressed. The USCF and U.S. chess are not the same thing, but nobody would ever think so from reading the writings of American chess politicians, including Susan.
>>My opinion is that it all depends on Bobby Fischer. If you can get him to play again that would bring interest back into the game of Chess and restore participation levels back to the way they were in the 1970s.>>
HA HA HA!!! LOL
If Fischer comes back it will be to a Jail Cell in some Super Max correctional facility. The only effect he might have on chess is increasing the number of federal prisoners who play the game.
Anyway the guy is a PATZER compared to those playing today! He would be lucky to earn half a point at Linares in 2007.
In the future spare us the comedy!!!
Yes
USCF should be managed by Chessplayers!!