"Despite the documented evidence of chess historian H.J.R. Murray, I have always thought that chess was invented by a goddess." George Koltanowski, from Women in Chess, Players of the Modern Game
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
2007 U.S. Championship-7
Hola Darlings!
Dylan McClain has a new chess column up at the New York Times in which he talks about sponsors (past and present) for some American tournaments. Most recently, of course, we have Mr. Frank Berry to thank for "bidding" $50,000 to host the U.S. Chess Championship ("Men's" event, although they're not calling it that officially - a separate Women's event is to be held in July); otherwise it's unlikely a championship would have been held this year. Of interest is the mention of Dr. Eric Moskow, who recently posted a message on this blog and also at Susan Polgar's blog - and also communicated with Mig Greengard over at Daily Dirt/Chess Ninja - about his willingness to pay good money to play in the U.S. Championship but - Dr. Moskow says - politics got in the way and he was prevented from participating because of his support for Susan Polgar in the upcoming USCF Executive Board election. Mig blogged:
"Eric Moskow, a real chess patron who has done his share of pay-to-play over the years, was trying to get in but to play online because he is traveling. Unfortunately, such games couldn't have been rated by FIDE, ruining norm chances for his opponents according to the USCF. Too bad they couldn't have made it work out as Moskow was offering an amount close to the current first prize!"
Dr. Moskow indicated that he was prepared to pay $10,000 to play this year, and another $10,000 for next year's tournament.
It is unfortunate that things could not be worked out so that Dr. Moskow could pay to play; I'm sure the players would have appreciated an infusion of more cash into the prize fund and $10,000 toward next year's championship (which we all hope will be held) would have been a nice nest egg too!
Oh - I see that Mig has just posted that two players chose to pay to play and were accepted: $3,000 from GM Walter Browne and $5,000 from IM Jay Bonin. Both gentlemen have been participants in the U.S. tournament circuit for many many years and, of course, GM Browne is a former U.S. Chess Champion. It is both generous and gracious for these two gentlemen to pay to play. I hope they will both do very well in the Championship.
Interestingly, Mig thinks that the players will be gunning for the top five spots because those positions are qualified to play in the next FIDE World Championship cycle. I think it's more realistic for the players to gun for the other prizes: places 6 through 10 receive free room and board at the Continental Championship. The National Open is offering several prizes (not specified) according to a post by John Donaldson at The Daily Dirt (mentioned in my May 7 post about the U.S. Championship). There are probably only four players in the U.S. right now who would have any chance in advancing in the Championship Cycle: Nakamura, Onishuk, Kamsky, and Susan Polgar. Polgar has basically retired from "serious" chess play, she's got the Polgar Foundation, the Polgar chess school, two sons to raise and now the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence in Lubbock, Texas to run into the foreseeable future, and her other projects, so that leaves the three men to carry the banner for the United States.
There was a nice article published today in the Cushing Daily Citizen (Cushing, Oklahoma, population 25 - only kidding!) about the Championship. There is a little confusion about the number of spots that would actually qualify to advance in the World Championship cycle because the Cushing Daily Citizen article mentions only the top two spots So, which is it? Five spots or two spots?
Speaking of prize funds, Mig has got up a collection for a brilliancy prize fund, thanks to a base of $500 contributed by Chess Ninja. IMs John Donaldson and John Watson have volunteered to be judges for the awards. As of about 6:30 p.m. today, folks about contributed $481 toward the fund. This doesn't include my $25 donated a few minutes ago, so once that's counted the contributions from fans will be officially over $500. Hooray! Wouldn't it be great if a couple thousand dollars could be collected this way? Just from fans on the internet. The Cushing Daily Citizen article says:
"To reward hard fighting, the Stillwater National Bank is awarding a $100 prize for the hardest fought or best played game after each round."
I hope the judges for all brilliancy and "fighting" awards spread them around to as many players as possible. Many of the players are going to need help defraying expenses and $100 can help with the hotel bill.
In conjunction with the U.S. Championship, the New York Times has started a chess blog - of COURSE it would - we start one little chess blog to try and attract readers to the greatest miscellaneous chess website on the internet - GODDESSCHESS - and all of a sudden their are sixty kajillion chess blogs! Who's going to read here when they can read at the New York Times and feel superior ("I read the New York Times chess blog, dahlings")? I must get a grip on myself, I must...
The NYT blog is called "Gambit" - not original, but what the heck. It premiered yesterday; there will be coverage of the U.S. Championship and after that, it will be a general chess blog as well as covering future chess events, developments, etc. etc.
Good luck to all the participants of the 2007 U.S. ("Men's") Chess Championship, and particularly to the three chess femmes playing: IM Irina Krush, WFM Chouchanik Airapetian and WFM Irina Zenyuk. I hope they kick serious chess butt! Play for every single woman chess player in the USA, ladies! Go go go!
I don't think it is too bad that it couldn't be worked out for Moskow. People shouldn't be able to buy their way into the U.S. Championship.
ReplyDeleteIf Moskow can't get into events where he can win IM norms on his own steam, that is too bad for him. The IM title should be a measure of his chess-playing, not how much money he has made and can throw around.
Let him organize a round-robin event and pay a few masters to play him. If he pays them enough they might even throw a few games and let him get the norm.
But trying to buy his way into an event like the U.S. Championship only shows his disrespect for the title and for the players who qualified for it properly. He isn't in their league, and the depth of his pockets doesn't change that. Some of those players might not have enough respect for themselves and their colleagues and would prefer Moskow's money.
A lot of top chess players are pathetic when it comes to money, and you can't really blame them. But don't listen to them. If they want the money badly enough, those players can do a deal with Moskow and play in the Susan Polgar Invitational/ Eric Moskow Vanity Tournament of 2008. Meanwhile, keep Moskow out of the real tournaments, unless he can get into them by playing chess.
Three cheers for the people at the USCF who didn't kowtow to this dude. And shame on Susan Polgar for feeding this guy's narcissism. Money isn't everything.
Hi Anonymous, you are absolutely correct - money isn't everything. I sure wish I had more of it, though!
ReplyDeleteGiven the fact that USCF did invite people to pay to play ("patrons"), Dr. Moskow was only acting within USCF's advertised offer for "patrons." From what I understand, he missed the deadline where he would have been accepted - it was at the end of April, I believe - and therefore approval of his request to participate was entirely discretionary on the part of USCF. Under the circumstances, I don't blame him for thinking that chess politics had at least a little something to do with its decision to turn him down. But, as Mig wrote at his blog, FIDE doesn't rate internet games (I didn't know that) and it doesn't seem it would have worked very well for Dr. Moskow to continually be jumping on a plane to go to Stillwater to play in person with any of the players he would have played against who has a possibility to earn a norm.
So, assuming there is a 2008 U.S. Championship, perhaps he will be able to qualify for that event - it is his stated intention to have 2 norms by that time next year and I wish him luck. As for his participation in other tournaments, isn't it standard for people to "pay to play" - they pay entrance fees, for instance; and if Dr. Moskow wants to sponsor events in which he also gets to play as part of the deal, what's the harm? He's not "buying" anything except the opportunity to be defeated by much better chessplayers than himself. You know what the old adage is - you don't get better unless you play against players stronger than yourself. He's got the money to be able to afford himself that opportunity.
And if there is a changing of the guard on the Executive Board at USCF after next month's election, perhaps we'll see Dr. Moskow stepping forward in addition to the Berry brothers and others, to sponsor and/or organize some really great events for our U.S. players with very large prize funds. That's what I hope will happen, at any rate.
jan
From what I read, he was trying to get a lower patron fee than advertised, a reopening of the deadline, and permission to play the games remotely ("online"). It was the last that killed it, and it seems like it was for good reasons on the USCF side.
ReplyDeleteThis all unleashed a round of vituperation from Moskow against the USCF, charges of politics, etc. Susan chimed in and tried to make it look like this was more "destructive politics" on the part of the USCF. She made it look like she would have caved to Moskow to get his money, and if people think about it, if that is what Susan means by "professionalism", maybe chess should stay amateurish.
As for whether people like Moskow should be able to "pay to play", "buy in", etc, I don't think so.
Goichberg runs open tournaments with high entry fees, norm possibilities, and fat prizes. Moskow can enter those. If he doesn't like Goichberg, he can organize tournaments like that himself, and enter his own tournaments. I don't have a problem with that.
I also don't have a problem if he organizes closed invitationals, and invites himself. Everybody will know what those vanity tournaments are all about. The games had better be honestly played, but if Moskow wants to pay to lose games to big name players and have the games rated by the USCF or FIDE, why shouldn't he be able to?
But I don't want to see the national tournaments organized by the USCF run like that. A tournament like the US Championship, which lets the the best players in the country compete to be the best of the best -- that should be open only to the best players in the country. Period. Not: the best players in the country plus people rich and narcissistic enough to buy a place. It isn't a social event where rich guys get to rub elbows with the best guys, and pretend that they are among the best themselves.
And if there isn't enough money to hold the tournaments without letting the Eric Moskow's buy their way in, then I guess chess isn't developed enough in the U.S. to hold U.S. Championships.
To the anon, that wrote that diatirbe let me set you straight. 1. I have put at least 200k in chess so far. 2. I have never bought a game I run from that association. 3. I train daily to play, have beaten over 5 gms, drawn 30 plus, beaten many people in that tournament say bonen, drawn fed, rohde, beat him as well, drawn defermian, my play is just fine. I have missed im norms 2 times by half a point. Whats your gripe I give away money so I can play the events are desperate for support. I did not set the patron oppurtunity uscf did. By the way at 50k they were happy to meet my request, tell me mr politaly correct if I gave 50k nows its moral, your a clueless guy, that is so sad that he can not either play, give or provide and hides in the shadows. Thanks for the am laugh we all needed to feel better befor e the markets open. If you read migs board this type of trash is exactly what I am talking about. Oh narcisistic, sure a fat guy that to this point never wanted publicity is that get a life. I am only in your crosshairs because I stepped up to change the board and right the ship. go pound sand.
ReplyDeleteOh, as an aside let the uscf take my challenge, their buddies have about as much chance of competing with me as I have of becoming a gm. stand fast put the bottom nine in a tournament with me, that I pay for and make a bet, in fact the previous moron can back them let the moves decide, oh I am not trying to be good, I know im marginal as a player. Kaidanov, krush, becerra(Idrew him too) can address my play, Oh I beat becerras buddies, martinez, lugo, and lost a close 10 game match to gonzalez. yeah I know weak.duh
ReplyDeleteMoskow, if you were as good a chessplayer as you say, you wouldn't need to be buying your way into the tournament, would you now?
ReplyDeleteThere were several ways to qualify for the U.S. Championship this year, and you didn't. A whole lot of people qualified, to the point that it is a bit of a crowd scene, but you weren't one of them.
At the last minute, the USCF was pathetic enough to let people like you buy in, making a mockery of the tournament and showing their disrespect for the people who had qualified by their play. But there were so many people already, what difference would a few tourists make? Besides, they needed the money.
All you needed to do was pay the fee and show up and play the games. But that didn't suit your convenience; you're far too important to take that much time out of your busy schedule. Besides who wants to spend 10 days in Stillwater, Oklahoma? You've got big deals to close. So we had to have a little drama with you at the center, didn't we? Narcissists always think they deserve special deals and special treatment. (Look it up in the manual; it's a giveaway.)
So you tried to wangle some more concessions. Norm opportunities were one of the main things motivating many of the attendees (it certainly wasn't big prizes) and the concessions to you might have wrecked that for them. But you didn't care about that. Too bad for them. They are just chess players, not important chess philanthropists. You didn't even want to fork over the full patron fee that had been established.
Shame on the USCF for introducing patron fees in the first place, but give them a cheer that they found a little self-respect and said no to you.
You don't like being told no. You aren't used to people being so unprofessional. After you were sent packing, you throw a temper tantrum on Susan's blog, trying to blame it on politics.
Susan jumps in and shows how professional she is: lets just take take care of the little money matter first, Mr. Moskow.
Organize all the tournaments you want, dude, and invite yourself. Or get Susan to organize it for you. She'll make you put her name on it. It can be the First Annual Polgar Moskow Vanity Invitational Tournament. Nobody can stop you, and no doubt there are players who will be glad for the pay day.
Go for it, dude. But if you want to play in the U.S. Championship, get there by playing chess, not by splashing your money around. And if you want to spectate, do it like everybody else. You can even do that online and fit it into your busy schedule. The URL is http://www.monroi.com.
Took up your challenge big shot wait till I qualify for free next year, I will give a donation in your honor to charity because pathetic jerks like you have provided me motivation my whole life.
ReplyDelete