Re: The Future of Chess and Getting It "Unstuck"

On Apr 4, 7:44 am, Quadibloc <jsav...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> People certainly do play a lot of Checkers and Monopoly at home
> without elevating competitive play of either of those games to
> anything above insignificance.
>
> Public interest in playing Chess will sell chess sets - and increase
> the pool of chess talent. Public interest in competitive Chess will
> increase the prizes paid to the winners of competitions. That interest
> will presumably increase if more people play Chess.
>
> More to the point, the fact that the following of high level Chess is
> weak is what is perceived as the problem.

And this is why public awareness of chess, competing for mindshare, is
im****tant.  You end up with the pie shrinking and pettiness growing,
and cranks proposing lawsuits that would be nothing if you were
growing, but actually are potentially fatal when you are not.  In
other words, what you see today.

> High level Chess today indeed has serious problems, many of which
> result from fighting over a share of a much smaller pie.
>
> If FIDE hadn't been hauled off to Turkmenistan, if all was sweetness
> and light in the USCF, however, I doubt that it would really make much
> difference to decisions of individuals at home to play Chess rather
> than, oh, say, Mortal Kombat II or whatever.

And when you are in a place where the m***** have an obscene number of
choices with their time, if you are fighting for that attention, you
end up losing their attention.  With chess, there isn't even anything
really new that can be done with a chess program.  The AI defeats most
people, and the feature list doesn't grow.  It isn't like you can turn
it into a Madden franchise either, which you can sell people a new
version every year.  Well, not the way it is now.  Therefore, there
isn't a lot of apparent money floating about, so the media isn't
interested.  Again, it fails to cut through the noise. The game can
still survive, as people don't get to fully master it.  It also had
name recognition, so people acquire it.  But not to be able to cut
through, and not to the place where the m***** even know there is
something like the Olympics involving chess, going on in China.  You
get less coverage than the Goodwill Games had.  Of course, individuals
in the chess community will rationalize this by saying the m***** are
too stupid to get it, and use the lack of media attention as a badge
of honor.


- Rich